Metal v. Indie in the 1980s: Introduction pt 2

Welcome to Track Chatter, an occasional blog where two long-time friends and music lovers geek out about songs. With each entry we choose one track to discuss in depth, from a variety of angles. This entry is part of an introduction to a new series looking at Heavy Metal and Indie songs from the 1980s.

In the first part of the Introduction, we spent some discussing our own thoughts about the '80s - both as we experienced the decade and also through the lenses of history and nostalgia. In this part, we'll talk (a bit) more specifically about the upcoming series and the types of songs we'll be chatting about.

We ended the previous post with Aaron posing three broad categories of pop music from the '80s as something of a loose framework for thinking about how the decade's songs have been treated by history. Lew takes it up from there . . .

Lew: I think your groupings capture what we’ve been discussing quite well. As you say, it might be that one could debate which songs and artists are included in each category, but I think the categories themselves are strong, and probably could be relevant when discussing any decade of music. I also agree with your suggestion that we keep these categories in mind as our discussion moves forward. So, with that in mind, I think we’re in a great place to introduce exactly what we’ve got planned for this project.

We’ve been discussing our experiences with music during the ‘80s (and of the ‘80s), and we’ve both been fairly vocal about what music speaks to us best from the decade, so I don’t think it will be a big surprise that we’re going to be talking metal and indie. They’re two genres that were relatively under the radar at the beginning of the decade (more so in the case of indie, I guess), and enjoyed quite a bit of success in one way or another by the end. It’s going to be interesting to track the evolution of each genre from an internal perspective, as well as the cultural significance that each of them developed throughout the ‘80s. Each of us will select five tracks for discussion, and we’ll roll them out, one at a time. It will be similar to The Beatles project in that sense, except that the artist we’re discussing will change for each entry. Aaron, do you want to say anything about the process that you’ll be using to select your tracks?

Metal v. Indie in the 1980s: Introduction pt 1

Aaron: Welcome to Track Chatter, an occasional blog where two long-time friends and music lovers geek out about songs. With each entry, we choose one track to talk about, from a variety of angles – lyrics, musical style, structure, production, and so on. We’ve recently wrapped up a project in which we discussed one song from each of The Beatles' UK studio releases.

With our new series, we thought we’d go in a slightly different direction – rather than pick one specific artist or band, we’re going to talk about songs from a particular decade: the 1980s. Yes, that overcooked oldie is coming up again. But our hope is that the spin we’re going to put on the discussion will lend it a relevance that a lot of more nostalgic appreciations of the decade don’t always convey. We’ll see.

But before we layout the ground rules of this series – the limitations we’ve imposed on ourselves, if you will – perhaps it’s worth having a chat about the decade in general. Lew, is there anything that can be said about ‘80s music that hasn’t been said already, and maybe hundreds of times?

Lew: You know, my depth of knowledge as regards critical writing on the music of the ‘80s is probably not that deep, so I’m not sure if my perspective is original or not. But, I guess there are a couple of things about the ‘80s as a decade of music that are immediately significant to me. 



First, and probably most obviously, the ‘80s was the decade in which the forms of popular music, which generally still exist and populate the landscape of pop music today, came to full prominence. For example, prior to ‘80s the differentiation between what could be called heavy metal and what would be interpreted as hard rock was not an especially meaningful distinction, with your Thin Lizzies and Foghats occupying a place not greatly removed from Deep Purple or even early Judas Priest. By contrast, by the time Metallica released Kill ‘Em All in 1983, it was pretty obvious that they were doing something quite different from AC/DC. Equally as important, the ‘80s is the first decade in which you start seeing hip-hop emerge as the massive artistic/social/commercial phenomenon that it has been for the last two decades (at least). Those are two strong examples, but one could discuss punk, indie or dance pop and I think the idea that we see those forms evolve to something fairly close to their current iteration during the ‘80s is still apt.