What were the first and last songs to sound like 80s songs?

You say that but, phased drum intro notwithstanding, Led Zeppelin doing 'In The Evening' at Knebworth in 1979, in those yuppy / preppie get-ups with JPJ on the GX-1 sound and look like they're conjuring the mid 80s corporate rock aesthetic fully formed from blocks of pure cocaine. And you know what? It is good!

https://youtu.be/dSEClIembvU

What screams '80s' about "Life Is a Highway" for you, ums? It mostly seems of a piece with the mainstream rock format of 1991 to me. (At the time, that stuff had a definite 'the 80s are over' feel for me. Obv, they became more over the further we got into the 90s.)

About 80% of Michael Jackson's 'Dangerous' LP sounds unmistakably 80s to me, the last single taken from it was Gone Too Soon, released in December 1993.

Rusho Sorry to be unclear and glib there. my small point is that I know that the cultural feel of decades is different the calendar. In my view it takes a bit of time for the impact of pioneering cultural products to alter the culture. If something sounds new and fresh, it sounds new and fresh partly by contrast from the world it enters.

This is tangential to the question of the thread, which I think is looking for outliers, not the moment where everything changed irrevocably for everyone?

Love -> Building on Fire is 77

Last = Go-Betweens "Here Comes a City" in 2005

“The Eighties” = 1981 - 1992.

Summer and fall 1981 saw the slushiest #1s in recent memory. It's more accurate to say the '80s began in 1982 or even 1983 when MTV stopped being an expensive niche toy that you heard about and artists recorded songs to match their video concepts.

Lurking in the darker recesses or my memory, Michael Bolton 's 'Can I Touch You There?' from 1995, produced by Mutt Lange and with a nod to Carly Simon's 'Why?' may qualify. With the bamboo flute and 'Movement 98' tempo it certainly sounded at least five years out of date at the time.

Alfred, you are right of course. People will have their own personal eightieses, because the eighties hit us all in different ways. I have written about this before so I'll just recycle.

everybody will have their own dates and their own markers, based on their lived experience. But for me, the simplest way for me to classify the difference between the seventies and eighties is to think of two posters owned by my neighbor Stephanie (older sister of my friend Jeff).

Circa 1981, Stephanie had a Journey poster on her bedroom wall. In it, Steve Perry is singing a note that appears to emanate from his lower intestine. His eyes are tightly closed; sweat is pouring down his face. His hair looks a bit like Joan Baez’s; his jeans scrupulously follow the contours of his testicles.

I submit to you that this poster would not have made sense in 1964. By 1983, it would have seemed simply ridiculous.

Circa 1983, Steve was gone from Stephanie’s bedroom wall, which now held the icy-cool stares of Duran Duran, in white Members Only-ish jackets against a backdrop of horizontal paneling with alternating stripes of lavender and aqua. Simon Lebon’s lipstick matches the color of his immaculately pleated pants.

I submit to you that THIS poster would have made no sense in 1978. By 1993, it would have seemed like a joke.

For me, the eighties begin with the appearance of “Tainted Love” and “Don’t You Want Me” on the top 40.* My eighties are lit by a neon zigzag on a wall, probably the wall of Demi Moore’s apartment in “St. Elmo’s Fire.” On girls, the big v-necked cotton Forenza sweaters in day-glo colors; lots of bracelets. Those Miami Vice colors - teal, salmon, white linen - all went fine with Reagan, synthpop, Max Headroom, Iran/Contra, the Challenger.

In contrast, my seventies are the earth-toned orange and brown of D.C. Metro seats, R. Crumb drawings, and the preternaturally dense lasagna from The Vegetarian Epicure. Denim vests and feathered hair on men; Diana Ross over an octave bassline in 2/4 time; a mirrored ball shining through a 'fro in the disco. Abba in sequined capes; non-ironic Selleckian mustaches in fern bars. Dustin Hoffman’s neckties in the movie of “All the President’s Men.” It all went fine with Jimmy Carter, the energy crisis, a band called Bread, the hostages.

Caveats: OBVIOUSLY there are going to be people out there who were already pogoing to Devo and Talking Heads and Blondie at CBGBs or whatever in 1979. Just as there were already people who were zooming on uppers and snapping their fingers along with Beat poetry in 1959. And bravo for them. But they were not and are not the mainstream of the culture inhabited by the rest of us.

Of course, both “Tainted Love” and “Don’t You Want Me” were released in 1981, but were not on my radar screen until 1982, so my eighties date from then until grunge/Nevermind/flannel.

The '80s began on November 11, 1981 when Joan Collins debuted on Dynasty. But Top 40-wise, I agree with Puffin that it was getting "Tainted Love" and "Don't You Want Me" me nearly back-to-back in early '82 because that was clearly a new sound (even remarked upon at the time)

well, in America "Don't You Want Me" didn't top the chart until summer '82 while "Tainted Love" was well on its way to earning the title of longest Hot 100 resident in history, a record broken in 1995-96 by another eighties act.

Prince's Gold is incredibly 80s for 1995 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IQE62Vn4_U

I guess "Don't You Want Me" was a slow burner because it hit the Cashbox chart in early March '82 (don't know about Billboard)

Like "Tainted Love," it was an unusual slow burner: it took 12 weeks to climb into the top ten, another five to dislodge "Ebony and Ivory" (how's that for A New Day is Dawning?).

Wait, why would a Journey poster have seemed ridiculous in the year of Pyromania?

I associate Talking Heads so strongly with the ‘80s, that when complaining (on this board) about Pitchfork’s recent “Best Albums of the 1980s” list, I was all — “...and they left off the first two Talking Heads LPs??”

(keep in mind, I know all about the CBGB scene; as well as the title of the first album!)

Obviously Roxy Music were a big influence on the early '80s new pop/new romantic scene but this song in particular seems to have the groundwork for that sound pretty much down:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFeqtXMKZ4U

(From 1975)

Look I love that you guys know stuff & all but I was ten frickin years old; all I knew was what I heard from Casey Kasem. Tainted Love, Don't You Want Me. 1982.

I'm with ups here - "Life Is A Highway" sounds like "Let The Day Begin" or a Richard Marx tune more than 1991 rock.

1992 was peak Poppy Bush Interzone era. Check out the modern rock chart.

1972

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK3ZP6frAMc

I'm with ups here - "Life Is A Highway" sounds like "Let The Day Begin" or a Richard Marx tune more than 1991 rock.

I don't think it's that different from the Petty/Mellencamp/Dire Straits songs on the 1991 list but neither is "Let the Day Begin" (which is from 1989) tbh.

I guess there's a late 80s/early 90s 'interzone' sound that's distinct from the mid-80s sound of Born in the USA or Slippery When Wet (which is what I was thinking of as '80s', probably too narrowly) but also distinct from what came after (which the REM and Black Crowes songs were looking towards). "Dreamline" sounds like "Show Don't Tell" but not like "Marathon".

Of course there's also Can in 1972 sounding like Madchester groups of '89, but I guess that's a whole nother thing

I guess there's a late 80s/early 90s 'interzone' sound that's distinct from the mid-80s sound of Born in the USA or Slippery When Wet

Precisely. It's like early seventeenth century English poetry or Italian painting compared to the Renaissance: gaudier, Mannered, as if biding its time for the next revolution.

Gonna be hard to beat Obscured By Clouds really.

Not to turn this into a general prescient outliers thing but the lush breakdown around five minutes into Gino Soccio - Dancer (1979) sounds a lot like some bouncy FM bass you'd hear in early 90s prog house or proto trance, skipping over the 80s entirely. But of course there's also a clear line of influence back to disco, it's just very neat use of electronics for the time.

Roxy Music is a good call - theirs is some of the first music I'd feel comfortable calling "New Wave"

YMO's "Pure Jam" always felt like an early 90s track, when in fact it was released in '81

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STPpnnfJ-GM

For me the 80s began when M's 'Pop Musik' hit #1 in 1979.

a John the Baptizer moment

i always used to think of roxy music as an eighties band

if that prince song works, i think i would also go with other alt-ballad sounding hits like Adam Ant "Wonderful" (95), Duran Duran "Ordinary World" (93), maybe The Pretenders "I'll Stand By You (94).

i would maybe extend that to expensive-sounding AOR ballads hits that don't really exist anymore - from the likes of Bryan Adams ("Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman") or Celine Dion ("If You Ask Me To," "The Power Of Love") which don't feel specific to the late '80s but definitely felt ubiquitous then and throughout the '90s. maybe that was more of a '90s thing?

i'm not sure if this is what you're asking for but something like Depeche Mode "I Feel Love" (2001) feels to me like something that could have existed 15 years prior, although "'80s nostalgia as a commodity" was definitely a thing by that year.

there must have been mid-'90s hair metal but i'm having trouble thinking of what bands stuck it out. Def Leppard "Let's Get Rocked" was 1992.

the power of love was an 80s ballad though

Word, I never knew that. lol not a huge fan of that song so I never bothered reading into its history.

Jennifer Rush had a huge #1 with it in the UK in the 80s

Ha, I didn't know until now that the Jennifer Rush version never made the US Top 40. It was #1 in Canada.

There's definitely a bit of 80s in "Obscured by Clouds", that intro sounds a bit like "In The Air Tonight" in fact, but the analog synths make it still pretty obviously 70s for me. The sound of the 80s was all about digital synths like the DX7.

Jennifer Rush had no career to speak of in the US. Shame, too, because I genuinely do like some of her stuff.

This Diana Ross song from 1978 was obviously an attempt to ride the Moroder/Summer wave as far as it would go, but I think it's actually a bit more forward looking than even "I Feel Love."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOgei80XNK4

I feel like the last 80's hit was Jane Child's 'Don't Wanna Fall In Love' in 1990. After that the charts were full of eurohouse, r&b ballads, and AOR pop rock.

what about Amy Grant?

^yeah

I tend to think of Young Americans as the line in the Sand between "late Sixties" & "early Eighties" but as far as og New Wave records go, you really can't fuck with Taking Tiger Mountain

I’m not sure what the first “80s song” was, but I’m pretty sure the first song to sound like the 90s was “It’s The End of the World As We Know It”

What screams '80s' about "Life Is a Highway" for you, ums? It mostly seems of a piece with the mainstream rock format of 1991 to me. (At the time, that stuff had a definite 'the 80s are over' feel for me. Obv, they became more over the further we got into the 90s.)

― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Saturday, February 9, 2019 5:04 AM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I actually side with ums here too since whenever that song gets even within the vicinity of a recognizable *~Nineties~* aesthetic it spontaneous transform into Cracker's 'Low'

Ha, cool comparison. Seriously, though, not much sounded like "Low" on the radio in 1991. I still don't think "Life Is a Highway" sounds more stuck in the 80s than most other songs on the same format from the same year but I might have lost this one. I do think Alfred is right about the interzone.

Again with Roxy/Ferry, Bryan looking fully 1985 in 1975, and commissioning 1985 Tina Turner guitar, sax and harmonica sounds from his 1975 greasers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9EbR0ckb40

"Life Is A Highway" doesn't sound 80s to me, it sounds like it was released in 1997

Even with that harmonica?

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released big singles (“Into the Great Wide Open,” “Learning to Fly”) after “Life Is a Highway”

(My point being that even if you do consider “Life...” to be ‘80s-sounding, it wasn’t the last ‘80s-sounding rock hit to have heavy MTV rotation)

In any case I don’t think any song from the 90s could qualify because people are still making songs that sound like 80s songs today. Many of them placed in the ILM poll.

Yeah, I thought the idea was “last hit song to still use ‘80s-style songwriting & production with the original intentions behind it, and not as a ‘retro’ aesthetic move,” or something.

(And I think it has to have at least charted for the answer to be interesting, because obviously some artists never stopped making ‘80s-sounding music with the original intentionality... same with every decade.)