why these days music from the 80s is intolerable to listen to

[Steve999]

I was really primarily into jazz and secondarily into classical in the 80s, and tuned out a lot of pop culture, and oddly, now I sit and watch 80s videos on MTV Classic and try to listen carefully and a lot of it seems like it was not so bad at all, I think to myself I should have been more appreciative of mainstream pop back then. I was turned off a bit by the electronic beat-keeping but taken on its own terms I am thinking there was still a lot of good stuff.

Just off of the top of my head, Tracy Chapman's and Nona Hendryx's eponymous albums from the 80s both seem to me to be amazingly well-performed and well-recorded.

You had three really fabulous studio albums by Stevie Ray Vaughan. Paul Simon's Hearts and Bones and Graceland. You had Sade, she was her own thing, her own invention. The Travelling Willburys, they were pretty fab. Joe Jackson's Night and Day, now that was just a superb album. Nothing Like the Sun by Sting. I really liked Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy. A lot of really nice work by Rickie Lee Jones--Pirates, The Magazine. Storms of Life by Randy Travis--powerful music.

So, like I say, this is from someone who pretty much tuned out pop culture in the 80s, on reconsideration now, I could have been more open-minded back then.

 

[gregorio]

Now you are answering statements I didn't make.

1. Exactly, that was the whole point, you did not make a statement that presented any reliable, relevant evidence, despite claiming otherwise!
2. So it wasn’t you who mentioned HF roll-off, group delay or phase?

How does any of that make a relevant discussion on this subject. It is a lot of words to nit pic my statement "This equipment has one job, to the majority of the public: Play music. "

So you’re accusing yourself of an irrelevant discussion? You’re the one who brought it up!

You made a statement, asked if I agree and when I didn’t you accuse me of an irrelevant discussion and nit picking?

Do you think this makes you “someone perceived as a trustworthy expert here” or the opposite?

But your belief of what is a myth doesn't mean it is one.

A myth is “a widely held but false belief or idea.” - This is not just my belief, it’s the actual definition of a myth. Until you provide some reliable, relevant evidence to support your claim, then it is a myth and your continued failure to provide such evidence only serves to confirm its a myth.

I am sure I read people thought the duck-billed platypus was a myth when first presented with a stuffed one at the Royal Institute. They were intelligent people, but overly skeptical in this case.

So they were presented with relevant evidence but doubted it’s reliability. We’re not at that stage yet because you have not presented any relevant evidence.

I know music producers to alter the phase to affect the "musical" pace of a track. Using that distortion to change the perceived rhythm interplay. So it has an effect.

Hang on, I was answering your statement about HF roll-off and other audible distortions (such as phase and group delay) but you said you didn’t make any such statements. So has someone broken into your account and added this quoted paragraph without your knowledge or were you lying before?

To answer your point. Music producers have been audibly altering phase to affect perception for well over half a century, I’ve done it myself on numerous occasions and so has pretty much every sound/music engineer and producer. However, none of the audible phase effects/alterations only affect music, they affect and can be used with audio other than music.

Yes they did, and you were not there. As I said DBT.

Firstly, just saying a difference was detected with a DBT, is anecdotal evidence rather than reliable evidence and Secondly, even if we believe your claimed DBT results it makes no difference anyway, because it is NOT relevant evidence. Detecting (or not detecting) a difference with a DBT of say chassis noise, group delay, high freq roll-off or other phase effects does NOT address the question of whether it’s a specifically “musical” distortion (or “musically” transparent), so it’s irrelevant evidence!

All I said was that the '80s music will sound better and less fatiguing on the right gear.

Again, did someone break into your account and add this statement: “I have been talking about equipment's musical transparency …” and others like it to most of your posts, or are you lying again?

You claimed: “I try to open your mind. I really want to. I am not trolling. There is more to all of this.” - You’re not going to open my (or anyone else’s) mind in this subforum by passing off unreliable/anecdotal evidence of irrelevant DBT’s as reliable, relevant evidence and refusing to supply any actual reliable, relevant evidence. This, plus the false claims of what you have stated and what I’m responding to, makes it very difficult to conclude anything other than that you are in fact trolling!

G

 

[71 dB]

My point was to counter your assumption that rhythm has not featured in our evolution. I think it probably has.

Rhythm works at different time spans. These phase shifts of a few millisecond are too short to be any kind of "rhythm." The feel of rhythm may change.

Anyway, this is all from me to you. Hopefully you can enjoy some music with Meridian Audio gear and infinity baffle speakers.
I can enjoy music with reasonable group delay, luckily.

 

[gregorio]

I was turned off a bit by the electronic beat-keeping but taken on its own terms I am thinking there was still a lot of good stuff.

That is one of the main things that turned me off a lot of ‘80’s music too. The almost ubiquitous drum machines were very poor by recent standards, the samples they were based on were only 8bit and very poorly recorded anyway. The virtual (plug-in) drum machines starting around 20 years ago were based on meticulously recorded 24 bit samples and it can be impossible even for a professional drummer to tell them apart from a real drum kit. The same can be said of pianos, strings and even occasionally entire orchestras these days.

In addition, in the 90’s we had the emergence of electronic genres which were specifically designed around beats and sounds that were not meant to emulate a real (processed) drumkit/drummer or other instruments and/or went beyond what was even physically possible with real instruments, “Jungle” being an early example. So it didn’t sound as “out of place” as trying to shoe horn poor quality emulations into genres not designed for it. I was not a fan of Prince because of this, although looking back it was well produced considering the limitations of the technology and he was one of the most influential producers of the mid/late 80’s.

Not withstanding the above, there were some great albums in the 80’s, with sound and production quality to match anything done more recently. Dire Straits “Brothers in Arms” has already been mentioned and Peter Gabriel’s “So” not only pioneered a considerable amount of the latest digital technology of the day but had great sound and production quality by any standards. Micheal Jackson’s Thriller is also very high sound and production quality and pioneered the use of some early digital synths/samplers (Synclavier, Emu Emulator, Yamaha GS, et al), some of which were pre-production/prototype models, along with a bunch of analogue synths (Moogs, Jupiter 8, Prophet 5, et al).

G

 

[Death_Block]

I was really primarily into jazz and secondarily into classical in the 80s, and tuned out a lot of pop culture, and oddly, now I sit and watch 80s videos on MTV Classic and try to listen carefully and a lot of it seems like it was not so bad at all, I think to myself I should have been more appreciative of mainstream pop back then. I was turned off a bit by the electronic beat-keeping but taken on its own terms I am thinking there was still a lot of good stuff.

Just off of the top of my head, Tracy Chapman's and Nona Hendryx's eponymous albums from the 80s both seem to me to be amazingly well-performed and well-recorded.

You had three really fabulous studio albums by Stevie Ray Vaughan. Paul Simon's Hearts and Bones and Graceland. You had Sade, she was her own thing, her own invention. The Travelling Willburys, they were pretty fab. Joe Jackson's Night and Day, now that was just a superb album. Nothing Like the Sun by Sting. I really liked Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy. A lot of really nice work by Rickie Lee Jones--Pirates, The Magazine. Storms of Life by Randy Travis--powerful music.

So, like I say, this is from someone who pretty much tuned out pop culture in the 80s, on reconsideration now, I could have been more open-minded back then.

Don't really care for the band's you listed, but I appreciate the point you raised. Well done
Doom thrash and glam is my 80's jam

 

[71 dB]

I'm going to list some rock albums from the 80s I think are great. Lots of these artists had other great albums in the 80s too. I could spend more time thinking about it, but this is good for now.

The Pretenders
Dire Straits: Brothers In Arms
Tom Waits: Rain Dogs
Talking Heads: Remain In Light
Prince: Purple Rain
Bruce Springsteen: Born In The USA
Peter Gabriel: Melt
The Cars: Heartbeat City
Ambrosia: One Eighty
Devo: Freedom Of Choice
Clash: London Calling
Roy Orbison: In Dreams
REM: Murmur
Brian Eno & David Byrne: My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
Police: Zenyatta Mondatta
Frank Zappa: You Are What You Is
David Bowie: Let's Dance
Cyndi Lauper: She's So Unusual
Travelling Wilburys
Roxy Music: Avalon
Elvis Costello: Get Happy
XTC: Black Sea
Tears For Fears: Songs From The Big Chair
Pixies: Doolittle
Malcolm McLaren: Duck Rock

I don't have any of these. Dire Straits: Brothers In Arms was borrowed to me maybe 3 years ago, but for me Dire Straits is a bit anaemic music in all its beauty. I have "Us" and "So" by Peter Gabriel. Your list serves as a checklist for exploring 80's music, thanks!

The lion's share of my 80's music collection comes from the artists Tangerine Dream, King Crimson, Carly Simon and Air Supply. Especially Air Supply's music is mixed badly, but when the music speaks to you 100 %, it doesn't really matter...

 

[gregorio]

The lion's share of my 80's music collection comes from the artists Tangerine Dream, King Crimson, Carly Simon and Air Supply.

There really are a lot of well recorded and produced seminal albums from the 80’s that haven’t been mentioned, in a wide variety of genres.

Sensual World - Kate Bush
Ace of Spades - Motörhead
Joshua Tree - U2
Watermark - Enya
Welcome to the Pleasuredome - Frankie goes to Hollywood.
The Visitors - ABBA.
There are so many others, I hardly know where to start. If you liked Peter Gabriel, his “Passion” album is a masterclass in recording and production. Sinead O’Conner’s “Lion and the Cobra” isn’t as polished as Gabriel but is nonetheless an interesting and good/clever production.

G

 

[71 dB]

In addition, in the 90’s we had the emergence of electronic genres which were specifically designed around beats and sounds that were not meant to emulate a real (processed) drumkit/drummer or other instruments and/or went beyond what was even physically possible with real instruments, “Jungle” being an early example. So it didn’t sound as “out of place” as trying to shoe horn poor quality emulations into genres not designed for it. I was not a fan of Prince because of this, although looking back it was well produced considering the limitations of the technology and he was one of the most influential producers of the mid/late 80’s.

I started listening to music enthusiastically around 1987-88 and that's when these genres of electronic dance music really started to be everywhere. My attitude to music was that nothing "real" is being "emulated". The music just is and sounds as it does. Since my music listening hobby started this way, it is perhaps easier for me to accept "shoe horned" poor quality emulations in 80's music in general. My problem with Prince is that his music is "all over the place" for me. I don't know if it tries to be relaxing or energetic or what?

Jungle didn't come from nowhere. It is a combination of Ragga House and Breakbeat House. In fact, around the time Jungle had became a well-established genre around 1994, the most creative phase of electronic dance music (late 80's - early 90's) started to be over.

 

[71 dB]

There really are a lot of well recorded and produced seminal albums from the 80’s that haven’t been mentioned, in a wide variety of genres.

Sensual World - Kate Bush
Ace of Spades - Motörhead
Joshua Tree - U2
Watermark - Enya
Welcome to the Pleasuredome - Frankie goes to Hollywood.
The Visitors - ABBA.
There are so many others, I hardly know where to start. If you liked Peter Gabriel, his “Passion” album is a masterclass in recording and production. Sinead O’Conner’s “Lion and the Cobra” isn’t as polished as Gabriel but is nonetheless an interesting and good/clever production.

G

Of these I have Kate Bush's Sensual World (and Hounds of Love & Aerial).

Peter Gabriel is a hit and miss artist for me. I almost hate "Sledgehammer" while loving "In Your Eyes".

 

[jagwap]

There really are a lot of well recorded and produced seminal albums from the 80’s that haven’t been mentioned, in a wide variety of genres.

Sensual World - Kate Bush
Ace of Spades - Motörhead
Joshua Tree - U2
Watermark - Enya
Welcome to the Pleasuredome - Frankie goes to Hollywood.
The Visitors - ABBA.
There are so many others, I hardly know where to start. If you liked Peter Gabriel, his “Passion” album is a masterclass in recording and production. Sinead O’Conner’s “Lion and the Cobra” isn’t as polished as Gabriel but is nonetheless an interesting and good/clever production.

G

My goodness we agree on something! Passion is a piece of (well recorded) work, transcending the fact it is a soundtrack.

(Fully expects "No we don't!" by reply.)

 

[jagwap]

I don't have any of these. Dire Straits: Brothers In Arms was borrowed to me maybe 3 years ago, but for me Dire Straits is a bit anaemic music in all its beauty.

I used to agree with that, but apart from Brothers in Arms which moved too far from their roots, they are a great simple band. Tight and engrosing, if you let them. Try Making Movies or Communique.

I have "Us" and "So" by Peter Gabriel. Your list serves as a checklist for exploring 80's music, thanks!

The lion's share of my 80's music collection comes from the artists Tangerine Dream, King Crimson, Carly Simon and Air Supply. Especially Air Supply's music is mixed badly,

I will put Air Supply on the list.

but when the music speaks to you 100 %, it doesn't really matter...

Yes. This was part of my original point, which kinda got sidetracked.

 

[gregorio]

I started listening to music enthusiastically around 1987-88 and that's when these genres of electronic dance music really started to be everywhere.

Yes, although they were more “everywhere” in terms of an underground movement (raves and nightclubs) rather than popular in the mainstream. Although there were some exceptions, “French Kiss” by Lil Louis being an example. House/Club music didn’t fully become mainstream until much later, around the late 90’s/millennium, with the Ibiza Sound, the Ministry of Sound (label) and dance groups like Ian Van Dahl. However, there’s a lot of regional (country) variation, in terms of both the musical genre/style and where and when it was mainstream popular.

Jungle didn't come from nowhere. It is a combination of Ragga House and Breakbeat House.

Sure, but I picked Jungle because it’s not just a drum machine or sampled drum loops but often multi-layered and highly processed loops which commonly bare less resemblance to what a real drummer could achieve. However, the late ‘80’s through the ‘90’s saw a large number of electronic genres and sub-genres evolve, some of which (like Jungle) were short lived before they either died or evolved into something else. The delineation between some of these genres/sub-genres is quite subtle and cross-over elements were common. So it’s all a bit of a mess and the discussion of stylistic elements is often not clear cut and more of an “opinion”.

G

 

[jagwap]

1. Exactly, that was the whole point, you did not make a statement that presented any reliable, relevant evidence, despite claiming otherwise!
2. So it wasn’t you who mentioned HF roll-off, group delay or phase?

I mentioned HF roll off is to "sounds dull", as incorrect phase shiff is to sounds "less musical" as a way of defining it, to give context. You miss read that. So can we drop this never ending commentry about what I think HF roll off does to music. I never claimed it it did anything apart from make sound dull. It does other things too, but for the sake of humanity I won't get into another semantics battle with you.

So you’re accusing yourself of an irrelevant discussion? You’re the one who brought it up!

See above

You made a statement, asked if I agree and when I didn’t you accuse me of an irrelevant discussion and nit picking?

See above

Do you think this makes you “someone perceived as a trustworthy expert here” or the opposite?

No, I am trying to be of use. Sometimes you are. But not here.

A myth is “a widely held but false belief or idea.” - This is not just my belief, it’s the actual definition of a myth. Until you provide some reliable, relevant evidence to support your claim, then it is a myth and your continued failure to provide such evidence only serves to confirm its a myth.

So they were presented with relevant evidence but doubted it’s reliability. We’re not at that stage yet because you have not presented any relevant evidence.

Hang on, I was answering your statement about HF roll-off and other audible distortions (such as phase and group delay) but you said you didn’t make any such statements. So has someone broken into your account and added this quoted paragraph without your knowledge or were you lying before?

See above.

To answer your point. Music producers have been audibly altering phase to affect perception for well over half a century, I’ve done it myself on numerous occasions and so has pretty much every sound/music engineer and producer. However, none of the audible phase effects/alterations only affect music, they affect and can be used with audio other than music.

I am saying that there are some that do it to affect the rhythmic quality of the track. What do you find it does? I am genuinely interested.

Firstly, just saying a difference was detected with a DBT, is anecdotal evidence rather than reliable evidence and Secondly, even if we believe your claimed DBT results it makes no difference anyway, because it is NOT relevant evidence. Detecting (or not detecting) a difference with a DBT of say chassis noise, group delay, high freq roll-off or other phase effects does NOT address the question of whether it’s a specifically “musical” distortion (or “musically” transparent), so it’s irrelevant evidence!

Your opinion that I'm wrong by default is equally irrelevant. Prove it. It is not the consensus here, just you vs me.

Again, did someone break into your account and add this statement: “I have been talking about equipment's musical transparency …” and others like it to most of your posts, or are you lying again?

No idea what this account hacking argument is trying to do.

You claimed: “I try to open your mind. I really want to. I am not trolling. There is more to all of this.” - You’re not going to open my (or anyone else’s) mind in this subforum by passing off unreliable/anecdotal evidence of irrelevant DBT’s as reliable, relevant evidence and refusing to supply any actual reliable, relevant evidence. This, plus the false claims of what you have stated and what I’m responding to, makes it very difficult to conclude anything other than that you are in fact trolling!

G

Never trolled in my life.

Some here are asking relavent questions to form their own opinion. Have you done that in any way shape or form here?

You seem to have become accustomed to having the last word in everything here. Isn't that a form of trolling?

 

[jagwap]

Yes, although they were more “everywhere” in terms of an underground movement (raves and nightclubs) rather than popular in the mainstream. Although there were some exceptions, “French Kiss” by Lil Louis being an example. House/Club music didn’t fully become mainstream until much later, around the late 90’s/millennium, with the Ibiza Sound, the Ministry of Sound (label) and dance groups like Ian Van Dahl. However, there’s a lot of regional (country) variation, in terms of both the musical genre/style and where and when it was mainstream popular.

Sure, but I picked Jungle because it’s not just a drum machine or sampled drum loops but often multi-layered and highly processed loops which commonly bare less resemblance to what a real drummer could achieve. However, the late ‘80’s through the ‘90’s saw a large number of electronic genres and sub-genres evolve, some of which (like Jungle) were short lived before they either died or evolved into something else. The delineation between some of these genres/sub-genres is quite subtle and cross-over elements were common. So it’s all a bit of a mess and the discussion of stylistic elements is often not clear cut and more of an “opinion”.

G

Not ALL real drummers:

 

[71 dB]

Yes, although they were more “everywhere” in terms of an underground movement (raves and nightclubs) rather than popular in the mainstream. Although there were some exceptions, “French Kiss” by Lil Louis being an example.

Well, there are levels of mainstream. Not all mainstream artists sell millions of copies, but are still in the mainstream and widely known by the public, often thanks to favourable media coverage.

House/Club music didn’t fully become mainstream until much later, around the late 90’s/millennium, with the Ibiza Sound, the Ministry of Sound (label) and dance groups like Ian Van Dahl.

Yep, and that fact contributes to the genres becoming less about creativity/innovation and more about money-making. When people learn to like trance for example, it is financially beneficial to keep playing the trance people like. Masses are not generally quick to adopt new genres and styles.

However, there’s a lot of regional (country) variation, in terms of both the musical genre/style and where and when it was mainstream popular.

Yes, although electronic dance music seems to connect people from all cultures magically and this kind of music seems to interest liberally thinking people. The Acid House explosion in 1988 is even called "the second summer of love."

Sure, but I picked Jungle because it’s not just a drum machine or sampled drum loops but often multi-layered and highly processed loops which commonly bare less resemblance to what a real drummer could achieve.

Yes. That's because at the time Jungle became a thing there started to exist ways to for example time-stretch sound digitally to create sounds not hear before. Before that the ways samples could be manipulated where more limited

However, the late ‘80’s through the ‘90’s saw a large number of electronic genres and sub-genres evolve, some of which (like Jungle) were short lived before they either died or evolved into something else.

Yes.

The delineation between some of these genres/sub-genres is quite subtle and cross-over elements were common. So it’s all a bit of a mess and the discussion of stylistic elements is often not clear cut and more of an “opinion”.

G

I totally agree that the stylistic elements can be messy, but what I have learned is this can be a positive thing and increase musical interest.