There's not a whole lot good to recall about the early 1980's for the rock fan. Indeed, few eras were drearier, few eras held less promise for the future. Punk, new wave, power pop, ska, and the other rock revolutions from the late 70's had passed their peak and were in decline. MTV had helped to end the reign of most of the remaining 60's and 70's survivors, even radio stations were abandoning rock in droves.
Rock music at that time was on life-support systems; the prognosis was up in the air, but looking less promising month by month.
In reality, there was already a recovery taking place below the mainstream; changes not only in the music, but in who produced and distributed the music were underway. While 1981-1983 may forever stand as the least creative era in rock history, at least since 1960-1962, glimmers of hope, like shoots of green appearing after a spring thaw, began to appear at the end of 1983, and throughout 1984.
You won't find evidence of this if you look at back issues of Rolling Stone from 1984; instead you'll see a lot of news on Bruce Springsteen in 1984.
It's interesting, though, that Springsteen had the biggest rock album of 1984 with Born In The USA. Because, in some ways, Springsteen represents the ultimate standard bearer for post-60's mainstream "Roots Rock" hero; his music, a working-class mix of 1950's rock 'n' roll, Phil Spector-esque wall of sound production, 60's folk sensibilty, and 70's rock stagecraft, replete with horn sections, backup chicks, garagey sounding guitars, good-time raucousness, and homely vocals is as American as a Chevy pickup.
As is the first real rock movement of the 1980's, and the first that received any notice by the still-young but beginning to grow MTV.
"Roots Rock" is a broad term that encompasses a lot of subgenres. In the nutshell, it is what the name would imply. It was a return to rock 'n' roll's roots: the merging of blues and country, a revival of folk, an adaptation and celebration of American rock local traditions, from swamp-rock to rockabilly to Southern rock to other heartland styles.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mark Saleski
keep it up dude. these genre/list posts are my-t-fine.
oh, and that Lone Justice record is a killer. "Ways To Be Wicked" is a great song.
2 - Douglas Mays
Good list. I see were you are coming from. One I would personally like to see is the works of an Austin, TX band known as the True Believers (featuring Alejandro Escavado-x Rank n File). They had this one tune called 'Hard Road' that is the most smokinest rootsy tune I have ever heard.
The whole album is quite down to earth, but smokes!! Ok, that is my vote for the list.
peaceloveguidance
3 - HW Saxton
Interesting post but: What about bands
like X,The Cramps,Panther Burns,Zantees,
Levi & The Rockats,The Gibson Brothers,
Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs,Alex Chilton
(he practically invented the Psychobilly
genre),Robert Gordon,Stray Cats (YUCK!),
Jason & The Nashville Scorchers,Blood On
The Saddle,Joe"King" Carrasco and many
more. All were going back to the "Roots"
(I hate that term)and exploring Tex-Mex,
Rockabilly,Blues,Cajun,R & B,60's Garage
Rock,Surf,Country & Western,and more,all
the while infusing them with a Punk Rock
sensibility and /or energy. Just thought
I'd mention these guys since they seemed
to be in line with your post.
4 - Eric Olsen
and we can't forget Rank and File themselves, love their first album beyond reason, saw them right after it came out at the (shit! what was that big club out in North Hollywood?) whatever it was, and we were so close to the band on the dancefloor that I fell into Tony Kinman, who never missed a beat.
Chuck Prophet, Green On Red, Del Lords Del Fuegos, Mojo Nixon, Steve Earle, JOhn Fogerty
5 - SFC SKI
I don't agree that '81-'83 were terrible years for rock, but I do agree that it was a time when many of the best bands, especially UK ones, were breaking up just as they were getting famous in the US.
Great musical history, I'll be checking out your site more often.
6 - SFC SKI
In an effort to refresh my memory, I split the difference and pulled up a list of album releases for 1982. Then I chose the highlights (read: Bands I like, or at least didn't hate as the embodiment of faceless corporate rock).
The Singles: The First Ten Years - ABBA
Lexicon of Love - ABC
Big Science - Laurie Anderson
Mesopotamia - The B-52's
Bad Brains - Bad Brains
Rough Diamonds - Bad Company
How Could Hell Be Any Worse? - Bad Religion (debut full-length)
Junkyard - The Birthday Party - final full-length album
Damaged - Black Flag
Live Evil - Black Sabbath
The Dreaming - Kate Bush )
Combat Rock - The Clash
Computer Games - George Clinton
Zipper Catches Skin - Alice Cooper
Imperial Bedroom - Elvis Costello & the Attractions
American Fool - John Cougar Mellencamp
Christ The Album - Crass
Kissing to Be Clever - Culture Club
Pornography - The Cure
Milo Goes to College - The Descendents
Oh No!, It's Devo - Devo
Love over Gold - Dire Straits
Rio - Duran Duran
The Nightfly - Donald Fagen
Hex Enduction Hour - The Fall
The Record - Fear
Security - Peter Gabriel
Another Day/Another Dollar - Gang of Four
Songs of the Free - Gang of Four
Three Lock Box - Sammy Hagar
Groovy Decay - Robyn Hitchcock
The Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden
Everything Falls Apart - Hüsker Dü
Night and Day - Joe Jackson
Screaming for Vengeance - Judas Priest
Revelations - Killing Joke
Beat - King Crimson
Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets
In My Eyes - Minor Threat
Minor Threat - Minor Threat
Bean Spill - The Minutemen
Iron Fist - Motörhead
Speak of the Devil - Ozzy Osbourne (Live)
Pictures at Eleven - Robert Plant (former Led Zeppelin Vocalist's solo debut)
Ghost in the Machine - The Police
1999 - Prince
Forever Now - The Psychedelic Furs
Chronic Town EP - R.E.M.
Stink - The Replacements
Blackout - Scorpions
Naked - Sex Gang Children
Alice - The Sister of Mercy
Sweets From a Stranger - Squeeze
Mommy's Little Monster - Social Distortion
Sonic Youth - Sonic Youth
Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen
Shoot out the Lights - Richard and Linda Thompson
Hour Live - Toots & the Maytals
Under The Blade - Twisted Sister (debut album)
Under the Big Black Sun - X
English Settlement - XTC
Upstairs at Eric's - Yaz
source: wikipedia
Granted, some of this mmight arguably not be rock, but it should demonstrate that it was hardly a wasteland, though as it is today, you have to search and cull to find the tunes worth listening to.
YOu mention that in this time perid, the best 2 Pretenders had died, how true.
7 - Eric Olsen
that's a pretty great list, and Thriller came out that year as well - pretty hard to forget that one
8 - godoggo
Realizing that your emphasis is roots rock, I'll say that this was the period when rock meant the most to me, and my holy trinity of the period is X, the Minutemen and the Replacements (though I know Billy Zoom didn't like being lumped together with punk bands).
Regarding the roots rock, Top Jimmy deserves mentioning for their Monday shows at the Cathay de Grande (I think they finally made an album, but I never heard it). They cooked and swung.
9 - Eric Olsen
The Palomino, that's the club I was thinking of - saw Asleep At the Wheel, Rank and File, The Blasters, Los Lobos, a bunch of others. I see it closed in '95, pity.
10 - godoggo
I used to go to the Palomino in the late 80s for Ronnie Mack's Barndance on Monday nights (what is it about Monday nights and roots music?). I don't recall seeing any big stars like you mentioned, but I heard a lot of great music. Ronnie's still doing it at another club, but I haven't checked it out.
11 - SFC SKI
For me it was the Rainbow in Denver, I saw the Pretenders, Los Lobos, Steve Morse, T-Bone Burnett, and a lot more I can not remember there, used to call in sick from work so I could get the best seats, sitting out front from noon until the time the doors opened. It closed in the late 80's, a sad day for music in Colorado.
12 - HW Saxton
Eric The O,I saw Rank And File not long
after they released that great first LP.
High energy to be sure. They even did a
smokin' version of Lefty Frizzell's tune
"Long Black Veil". Hard to believe that
the same guys were singing "Class War" &
"I Hate The Rich" not long before that.
They had an incarnation between The Dils
and R & F called Blackbird. Kind of an
experimental thing with the Kinman Bros.
and a drum machine.
Hey there godoggo,Top Jimmy did make an
album,it came out in the late 80's it's
called "Piggus Maximus".It's good but it
does not capture the sweaty,alcohol and
dope fueled,near pandemonium that their
live sets could generate sometimes.
I've seen them at the Cathay D. and they
used to play at the Hong Kong Cafe often
as well,where I saw them with an early
line up of The Flesh Eaters w/Dave Alvin
on guitar.The "Hong Kong Cafe" used to
have Rockabilly type bands on saturday
nights. I also saw the great Ray Campi &
The Rockabilly Rebels there all the time
as well.Ray was just incredible! The guy
was in his mid-60's and used to kick the
asses off of bands a third of his age!!!
I'd forgot to mention Ray and I had also
forgot to mention Jimmy & The Mustangs
some of whose members helped to form The
Rockaholics,who put on a great live show
and released an EP but never made it out
of L.A. until they morphed into the Red
Devils. Tupelo Chain Sex was another of
the great "roots" inspired acts from the
good old days and were regulars at the
Cathay De Grande. I don't know how I've
forgot to note "The Paladins" either who
alongside of The Blasters and X were one
of the great roots bands from So.Cal not
to mention successful and long lasting.
SFC Ski,your list was interesting but it
was not very relevant to the topic here
at hand. A lot of your mentions were not
really rock at all and not even vaguely
did they even touch on the roots groove
that the author was,I believe, trying to
reflect in this post.No big deal and I'm
not being snarky or anything,I'm just a
little particular I guess.
13 - SFC SKI
While the author's end statement was aimed at "roots-rock" I was directing the list to the first 3 of this article. The '80's are often derided as a wasteland of rock, and when you read Billboard's, Variety's, and Rolling Stone's corporate hit parade, the shoe fits. But you and I and many other old farts on this forum all know that there were a lot of great bands that never got into the top 100, or even the bottom 10. I just used the list to point up some of what was released in 1982 to compare with what was written. To tell the truth, if I hadn't read the list, I wouldn't have remembered half those bands, old age is a bitch.
As to what's rock and not, well, it's what I say it is ;-). Seriously, there is a difference between genres under the broad term of "rock" but we can split hairs all day long as to what band was rock, rockabilly, or psychobilly in this case, hell in the case of some bands you'd have to go song by song.
14 - HW Saxton
Yeah,you're right SFC Ski.I missed your
original point but now see just what it
is you mean.I stand corrected.It's the
end of the work week for me and my brain
is only functioning at about 3/4 of what
it should be and my physical body even
less than that.Old age IS a bitch! LOL.
It is kind of strange to me that the
author here would list the Gun Club and
not The Cramps.Especially in view of the
fact that the cut he raves about most is
written about Ivy Rorschach and that the
Cramps raided the Gun Club for Kid Congo
and tried out their drummer Terry Graham
after Nick Knox left the fold. A matter
of personal taste,I suppose.
15 - HW Saxton
D'oh!!! Southern Culture On The Skids
also started back in the early 80's and
then came back in the 1990's with only
guitarist Rick Miller as the sole orig.
member.
16 - SphinxMontreal
You say 81-83 was the least creative period in rock history? Come again??? You gotta go back and listen to the vinyl.
In addition to SF SKI's list, how about Anne Clark, Echo and the Bunnymen, Simple Minds, The Smiths, New Order, Kraftwerk, U2, Ultravox, New Order, Joy Division, INXS, Wham, Billy Idol, Tears for Fears, Devine, Van Halen, Metallica, Tom Petty, Motley Crue, The Mission, OMD and a whole lot more.
And add to that some of the best 12" remixes ever produced and you have one of the best periods for music. Unless of course you Billboard, Rolling Stone or any of that other corporate stuff.
17 - HW Saxton
Not to mention that Hip Hop was busting out in a big way in the early 80's also.
18 - SphinxMontreal
Forgot to mention The Cult, David Bowie, Rush, Bryan Adams, Loverboy, Journey, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Roxy Music.
These are classic artists you will never see the likes of again.
19 - uao
Heya everyone.
Wow. This is a great dialog going on here, I'm learning stuff right and left here.
I knew that my thesis that 1981-1983 was a bleak period in rock would be a very arguable one (and I love when people argue an opposing idea; it shows just how meaningful music is to all of us).
Here's what I meant by it:
I know there was some great music being made then; many excellent artists have been brought up in the discussion. Also some I'd never heard of.
Which was part of my point; there were indeed good records being made. But it wasn't very easy to hear about them or find them. (I'm referring to the indie bands here, from the standpoint of an American; things were different in England)
Consider what was available on a mainstream level: for rock lit, it was either Rolling Stone or the highway. Yes, there were 'zines galore, each with a circulation of about 20. So you heard about album-rock a lot, but a lot of the albumrock releases of that time were overproduced and underinspired (there were, naturally, some major exceptions)
Indie labels didn't have promotion or distribution muscle yet; you sure as heck couldn't find them at Wal-Mart (like you sometimes can now), or even Tower Records a lot of the time.
MTV (established in '82) wasn't big on rock at first; they were enamored with the British wave of video acts.
Rock radio was disappearing, but college radio hadn't yet become the force it eventually would. It was a kind of limbo period.
I know that I was stuck; my favorite bands were breaking up, right and left, and there didn't seem to be any new direction to what was left. It truly seemed that rock was in ruins.
Now maybe that was all just adolescent angst on my part. Or, it was simple ignorance, because I really did depend on the mainstream to keep me informed.
The miracle of this story is that Roots Rock really became mainstream; going back to Springsteen for a second, I really don't think it pure coincidence he moved so many albums (in numbers he's never come close to matching, before or since). Mainstream listeners, and there were millions, had developed a real thirst for rock n roll minus photogenic singers, drum machines, synthetic bands, and the like.
And I see the roots rock movement as coinciding with the independant labels maturation, where they were finally big enough to at least start dreaming of competing with the big boys.
And if you compare 1981-1983 with 1978-1980 or 1984-1986 I bet all of you could double the number of good artists you came up with here.
If anyone is curious, there is a prelude essay/playlist to this one on my blog, specifically on 1981-1983 here. It says mostly what I said here, although I'm not paraphrasing it here.
At any rate, I'm loving this discussion, and I appreciate the reads very much. And I'm willing to be convinced otherwise; I change my mind about music all the time, because my relationship to it changes over time.
Perhaps a good side argument might be what really was the worst three-year span in rock history. I noticed nobody stuck up for 1960-1962; that era (which I wasn't alive for) looks a lot worse on paper, at first glance.
;-)
20 - SphinxMontreal
You're obviously talking about a specific music form within the rock genre. You have to be careful when you make a blanket statement like 81-83 was the least creative rock period.
The additional bands mentioned above all fall into a more general definition of rock music.
As for the worst time period, I would say 75-77 (the disco era), right before punk came around and changed the entire scene and landscape, setting the stage for all those great 80s startups.
I don't listen to anything from 60-62 since it's outdated and unremarkable.
The only place I recall 80s music being available was import record stores and WLIR 92.7 radio station in New York. Their signal was weak, however.
The corporate media totally missed the boat on 80s music. Whether or not it was intentional is anybody's guess. Remeber, a lot of the music was very political and had a very powerful message.
21 - SFC SKI
uh Sphinx? ... Bryan Adams, Loverboy, Journey, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, ..." That was the faceless corporate rock I was speaking of. Maybe Bryan Adams can slide, his first album was OK...but the others' best days and albums were behind them by the early '80s. I will grant you Loverboy had 3 great tunes, but there's a reason they are not in the R'n'R HoF. What about Kim Mitchell?
uao, keep up the good work.
22 - Douglas Mays
HW, in comment #3 you mentioned the Rhythm Pigs! Love 'em. I promoted them in Santa Fe, NM in about '86 or so. I love the song 'Human Drama'.
It seems we are finding the root of punk in general
plg
23 - HW Saxton
Douglas Mays, I believe you are probably
thinking of the punk band from El Paso
TX. that used the name The Rhythm Pigs.
The band I was speaking of was from L.A.
back in the early 80's.They were a great
blues rockin' band that had a revolving
line up consisting of various members of
X,The Blasters,Flesh Eaters and whoever
else may have happened to be around at
the time.
Top Jimmy was the vocalist whom the band
was centered around.They were notorious
in L.A. for being a totally wild & outta
control party band.They held down a semi
regular monday night gig at The Cathay
De Grande(a notorious punk dive)in Holly
Weird that used to attract celebrities &
scenesters ranging from David Lee Roth
to Tom Waits and beyond who would sit
in with the band.That is, if the T.J and
band felt like letting them.LOL.
Top Jimmy and his band were immortalized
in song by Van Halen on their "1984" LP.
He sadly died about two or three years
ago. He is briefly interviewed in the X
segment of the Penelope Spheeris movie
"The Decline Of Western Civilization".
24 - HW Saxton
One small addition/correction to post 24
here:Top Jimmy and The Rhythm Pigs HAD a
revolving band line up that was made up
of members of various L.A. bands when
they first started.They finally settled
on a permanent line up of(Top Joey-Drums
Gil T.-Bass and Carlos Guitarlos-Guitar)
Everyone in the band was well over 200
lbs,hence the Rhythm PIGS moniker).
25 - SFC SKI
DWC1 was a great look at punk w/o smirking at the musicians or the kids. DCW2 was great for poking fun atthe whole hard rock/hairmetal scene less that 10 (?) years later, couple that with Spinal Tap and you get a humorously skewed version of all that was rock with hard rock in the late 80's. One of the funniest scenes is the chain narrative groupie story, antoher is where every kid says he or she will be a star. Actually, both DCW films are great for examing 2 sides of the same coin, "no future" versus "music is my future".