The '80s Dadrock Thread

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

I've been thinking about this strain of music lately: Springsteen, Waits, Pogues, U2, Dire Straits, Infidels-era Dylan, the kind of bands and records that might have gotten face-time in a 1986 issue of Rolling Stone. Not necessarily from the '80s but part of a post-boomer rock vocabulary ("sensitive guys" for smart guys, rock with a conscience that maybe isn't the Rock With A Conscience VH1 retrospectives prattle on about -- stodgier, less collegiate). It's a genre of its own and with all the '80s trends to come back (postpunk/new wave/metal/cheap-sounding hip-hop) this one hasn't really hit yet -- in a sense, even though it was never trendy kid-stuff, it never quite went away either. The "modern rock" leg of AOR radio has always flaunted this stuff as proof that it's not all about the Beatles and "Get the Led Out," but 20 years and 20 million royalty checks later it might as well be the Moody Fucking Blues.

Search, destroy, discuss.

― bent fabric (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 20:32 (twenty-two years ago)

also, post your '80s Dadrock CDR80 tracklists...

― bent fabric (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 20:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I would include mid-'80s Prince here too, even though AOR stations never gave him the time of day.

― bent fabric (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Perhaps this is just a subgenre of Triple A radio?

― scott m (mcd), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 20:53 (twenty-two years ago)

i have a hard time thinking of music from that era in any terms but radio, and the kind of commercial stations that played dylan/dire straits/springsteen/etc would never have played the pogues or tom waits. would bruce hornsby and the range be a part of this?

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 21:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Latter day Dead.

― scott m (mcd), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 21:02 (twenty-two years ago)

(i should clarify: i meant the commercial radio stations where i was living at the time, not the world over.)

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 21:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I still see Triple A (as popular as the format is) as being kind of a ghetto -- of course pre-Soundscan the charts looked much different, but one got a feeling that AOR was rock music, not something shoehorned into a corner for a particular demographic.

― bent fabric (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 21:04 (twenty-two years ago)

wnew-fm in nyc played the pogues and waits on occasion -- they weren't in heavy rotation but the djs there slipped them in like once a day.

― bent fabric (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 21:06 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, i think i probably had much less adventursome programming where i was or else things were played late at night when my ten year old self was in bed.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 21:14 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.