"The Eighties" is Gross

     The 1980s was probably the worst decade between the 50s and today. I try to find good albums that were made then, and I suppose there were a few, but by and large everything from that era sound "Eighties-itized." It's the ultra-slick, huge drum, electric electric, CD-friendly sound that sterilizes you on contact with your eardrums. If there's anything that defines gray, it'd be the Eighties. The fashion, while in some ways colorful, seems to be in over-pastelly, grey-to-the-max tones of bleak corporate fluorescent inflections. Business, the economy, Reaganomics *shudders*, and IBM computing were all becoming bigger parts of the mainstream public. It's no coincidence that the barcode, the ugly, ugly, ugly mar on every single buyable product since the middle of the decade, emerged along with the heightened focus on money and corporations.
     All of the warmth and analog wonderfulness of the 60s and 70s were erased when the Eighties rolled around, with digital recording and compact discs taking over the place of magnetic tape and vinyl records. It's like, after having nice-sounding recordings for twenty years, they thought it'd be a good idea to completely switch up the method of recording. Due to its status as a new thing, it was heavily adopted by the industry. CDs came along with this digital wave, flaunting increased carrying capacity and portability at the expense of anything sounding nearly as good. Of course, this definitely wasn't an instant drop off into the musical abyss; rather, there had been a gradual decline in music quality since 1968. That was the year that humongous quantities of students and protesters took to the streets in violence, which marred the optimistic, psychedelic attitude of music from the previous year. There was still hefty amounts of excellent music being turned out, but perhaps not as much as the previous year. 1969 perhaps had more quality records than the previous year, but it ushered in the new decade, so it was a different sound. Many albums from the year were more laid-back/acoustic, maybe country-ish or else back-homey. Woodstock kind of solidified that. 1970 was similar to this, and 1971 was kind of the last high water mark. There numerous, numerous classics released that year. Progressive rock, a more complex extension of psychedelic music, kind of peaked in this era as well. 1972 was the year that decline became very evident, with glam rock, heavy metal, and slick production began coming into play more. By the mid Seventies, a whole lot of songs were super-slicked. Disco was the last straw for the Seventies. That, along with punk rock, put the public's listening interests too far off the edge for saving. John Lennon's shooting just brought into the mind what was already all but clear: Music had went off the deep end. It's a real shame.

Also, Happy Valentines Day!