"Most of the worst songs about Serious Issues ever recorded were made in the five years after Live Aid."

It has to come from the inside, I mean.

I don't think anything you're saying really contradicts my point though. there's no shame in writing socially conscious lyrics as a way of extending your artistic range, making your music more interesting, and expressing what's on your mind. it only becomes iffy when heavy issues are used as mere stylistic signifiers – as a way of staying relevant and one-upping other artists until the trends change and it's ok to write about cars and partying again. I'm not saying all or most of the artists who started writing about social issues in the '80s are guilty of this mindset. I'm just saying that it's something worth avoiding.

I will admit that I was unfairly picking on Pearl Jam upthread. Candlebox and Staind, however, deserve no mercy.

the bigger and richer an artist gets, the more difficult it is to tackle political subjects without seeming like a preachy dick with a bullhorn. there's something to be said for seeking strong social/political message music out, instead of having it rammed up your ass by a millionaire I guess.

Everybody Hurts and We Are The World

Misread this as Everybody Wants To Hurt The World.

The alternate universe in which Tears for Fears got big with that is an amazing one.

Though you have reminded me, returning to the thread subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxQgRGUnlMA

“People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have a corpse in their mouth.”

Raoul Vaneigem

Just thought I'd add that for consideration.

"Money go round" is an interesting one.

The chorus
"MGR, MGR, you want to get off but it won't slow down,
MGR, MGR, you just fall from grace as you hit the ground"

.. sets up an interesting subject for the idea that once you enter the ratrace you can never leave it. The difficulties of living an alternative lifestyle, whatever that may mean and so on.

But it seems PWeller had no ideas for the rest of the song, so instead writes lots of verses about current events, strikes and wars.

it only becomes iffy when heavy issues are used as mere stylistic signifiers – as a way of staying relevant and one-upping other artists until the trends change and it's ok to write about cars and partying again.

But, as much as some on ILM may dislike them, I see no reason to deny that, say, Sting, Bob Geldof and Bono are actually very much personally engaged in these questions. Actually to such an extent they are not content just to write about them, they even use their fame and their names to actually involve in organized work to try and make politicians change their minds. It's not about commercial interests for them. So, yes, you can say they are pathetic not to shelve all kinds of luxury like Gandhi did, but while they haven't done that, they aren't known as the most excessive rock millionaires either.

Also, cars and partying and relationships were never untrendy in the late 80s. Stock/Aitken/Waterman wrote about those topics for their proteges all along.

It's not about commercial interests for them.

Be nice if Bono paid some tax once in a while

He does. The Netherlands thing only applies to earnings form their publishing company. Which is still wrong but not the same as paying no income tax.

Peter Hammill's 1988 album In A Foreign Town was mostly about Issues and it's one of the worst records he ever did. So the theory checks out here. Although saying that, the record's badness is more to do with the 80s production job than with the lyrics. I wonder how much of the dross in this thread is only dross because of 80s production values, rather than the lyrics.

I've cited this before:

Like, you get Big Country who go to Moscow and say to people, "Do you get the message?" Well, WHAT is the message? The message is that they're promoting a new album. But you're not supposed to say that, or you're accused of being cynical...But you're supposed to think that the total aim of what they do is to make a sincere statement about world peace. There are some far more sincere things you can do about world peace. -- Neil Tennant, 1989

A lot of late 80s production did indeed sound horrible. In the first half of the decade, there was still a level of adventurousness, trying out new electronic equipment etc. In the late 80s, however, everything was stale, synth technology didn't develop much beyond the dominant Fairlight/DX7 (and those who used the latter even tended to overuse factory presets) and things actually wouldn't be much better until first the house/techno producers and later the likes of Pet Shop Boys and Erasure took a step back and started to use older technology again. (This until Nord Lead and some others came up with synths that were influenced by the old technology)

X-Post, but then Neil Tennant has always been eager to defend disco over rock, and his quote may as well be an attempt to defend disco's blatant sellout approach, and disco's tendency not to care about the world or write about social issues at all.

A bit like American conservatives trying to bury the messages the likes of Michael Moore and Al Gore carry by questioning the fact that they do indeed make a lot of money from their movies.

xpost Tennant said that the same year as he sang It's Alright though, which is a great record with a clunky, vague lyric about, well, world peace (and two years after the anti-Thatcherite Kings Cross and Shopping) so I think the rhetoric of a band like Big Country bothered him more than the lyrical stance.

Tennant has indeed been writing a lot more socially aware lyrics than most of the people he is a fan of, but I guess he feels like defending them as well (although of course, if disco includes R&B, Janet Jackson released "Rhythm Nation" the same year - an album with lyrics about enviromental issues, poverty, civil rights and more.

With Tennant I think his irritation with the pomposity and manner of certain musicians is the big thing, rather than any general policy - socially aware lyrics were at their worst during the PSBs' imperial phase so there was a lot to be irritated by.

I love the fact that Chris Lowe's so militantly republican that he even refuses to eat any biscuits from Prince Charles's Duchy Originals range.

With Tennant I think his irritation with the pomposity and manner of certain musicians is the big thing, rather than any general policy

Yeah.

In fact this single (1991) is the perfect riposte to the post-Live Aid period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyUeIX-2dbw&feature=related

Tennant looking a lot like Malcolm Tucker from the Thick of It in that video.

With Tennant I think his irritation with the pomposity and manner of certain musicians is the big thing, rather than any general policy

Brave of him to pick on Big Country in 1989, when they were on their way down the pan and basically no-one really gave a shit about them any longer. Stuart Adamson was probably one of the less pompous guys of those years, always seemed to be really sincere and modest. I assume his background was pretty solidly working class, certainly their lyrics always took the side of the little guy in whatever situation they were writing about. Guess Tennant didn't want to upset Bono?

Er, I think he did want to upset Bono

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt2j79pca7c

Guess Tennant didn't want to upset Bono?

What [rock critics} basically want is for it to be like 1969 again. It 's this thing where British – or in U2's case, Irish – groups discover the roots of American music. U2 have discovered this and they're just doing pastiches [his voice rises] and it's reviewed as a serious thing because DYLAN PLAYS ORGAN on some song and B.B. King playso n some throwaway pop song "When Love Comes to Town" that could have been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It coudl bein Starlight Express if you ask me.

...We hate everything that they are and stand for. We hate it because it's totally stultifying, it says nothing, it is big and pompous and ugly. We hate it for exactly the same reasons Johnny Rotten said he hated dinosaur groups in 1976. To me U2 are a dinosaur group. They're saying nothing but they're pretending to be something. I think they're FAKE.

"little guy" is patronizing fyi

Okay, fair enough on the Bono thing! 'Little guy' was just lazy shorthand for the soldiers that come home in boxes and the men who get laid off at the steelworks. That was the POV that Adamson was writing from and I just don't see that as a particularly pompous thing to do.

The intentions are noble! The music is ugly. Tennant would go further: the noble intentions reflect the artist's narcissism (i.e. LOOK AT ME DOING THIS NOBLE GESTURE).

I love Pet Shop Boys, and I think they make great and intelligent and sophisticated pop music. But when Neil Tennant puts on this "anti rockist" stance, he is just being pathetic.

well, it's really more that he's being what he is decrying, which is kind of funny

I guess this is supposed to cover 1986-1990, which means all the stuff in response to the Gulf War such as "Voices That Care" or that Sean Lennon "Give Peace A Chance" thing would not qualify, although I should just post them anyway since more than half of the videos here are not between those 5 years.

yeah but geir posted all of those, don't encourage him to post more

all we are saying is geir peace a chance

My mistake.. I assumed some of those were non-Geir.

I think I'm gonna find them anyway since January '91 is literally one month outside of the timespan...

Wow I'm actually enjoying this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69UqR1COBLw

*Barf*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD0RTawcIwg

guys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9zX1h97qtA

These both from the same album by the same artist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plprfKbGtPM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTHmszD8vjA

I love this, but I guess many may see it as a typical example (and not all are into "white boy reggae" either):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUO5jUeQsh8

thanking u for the Jem vids: more please

Jem was TRULY outrageous.

nm; found this. thanking u search engine

JEM! Jem has a theme song – OOOO-ooo-oooh Jem!

Oh god that Jem vid. I was so into Jem - I had the dolls and everything although I wanted to be one of the Misfits.

SO much amazing wrongness in this thread. Meaning all these horrible videos.

anyone remember this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4DQbU2laiY

Eurgh.

i doubt any of these is as bad as 'voices that care,' from 1991:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jQAQ0lbAcw

like, that is not just a plain old ordinary bad song, it's so bad it kind of crosses the line into outright evil.

I actually like this song, although it is quite possibly the single most ridiculous video of the 80s. The white doves symbolize peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Dt75MVtqw

I miss geir.

Someone in a boardroom somewhere said, "Get me Al Jarreau! And Iggy Pop!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD0RTawcIwg