84 of 80s

Day 2,210, 12:13 • Published in Spain USA • by Alphabethis

84 of 80s


Recently I found one of those hits compilations of the 80s in
youtube. Nothing special, it seemed. But, after a short rehearsal of
the different videos about 83, 84 and 85, I found a stunning
pattern. 84 is the central year of the 80s, at least from a musical
standoff. In some sort of way, 84 is the purest 80s year. In average,
all the characters of 80s - elegance, innovation, tenderness,
suggestive lyrics and musics, rebellition- somehow peaked in 84.

I have, obviously, nothing against 83, 82 or 81. 81 and 82 were
interesting in some other ways: they were transition years, with a
high influence of 70s ( M. Jackson, for example, ELO) and in the other
side, extremely innovative genres and songs. 85, 86 or even 87 were
bright too. But, definetely 84 is the year.

84 saw the light of songs like Queen's 'I want to break free'
rather shocking at the moment, but perhaps the core song of Queen, or
Frankie goes to hollywood 'Relax', even more shocking. Classic groups
like Alphaville appeared these year. Tina Turner or Cyndi Lauper
peaked at this year too.

The list of excellent (or weird) groups of 80s is too long. Entires
new styles or approaches to sound appeared at the time - like
electronica (in the broader sense, not only experimental) or
industrial or gothic... .

If you think 80s is just commercial music, you probably have missed
the 80s spirit, which in fact were quite revolutionary ( more than 60s
or 70s). A good example of this 'revolution' could be 'Divine' (Love
Reaction, Walk like a man,
... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_%28performer%29), or the mere
concept of 'techno-pop', breaking a tradition of 50 years of guitar
based pop-rock, eurodance, italodance or the 'chill-out' atmospheres
created by the new sounds of the new synthesizers... Truly, much of
this was exploited commercially and became mainstream, but that
doesn't mean a great rapture with the 'world' of the 70s was, in fact,
happening.

Most of the world you are living now was depicted in 84, in every
single way.