“Hit The Lights” is considered to be a turning point for underground metal, powered by accelerated tempos and twisted shredding. Fortunately, when Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield started Metallica a few years later, creme-rinse conditioner and Clinique counter gift certificates were the farthest things away from their intentions. M ö tley Cr ü e released their debut album, Too Fast For Love, in 1981, and a lot of other pretty boys with guitars followed suit.
If this was your first intro to Bauhaus ( “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” was released in 1979), it’s totally fine. Bowie’s sweet ’70s ride was chromed out with some horsepower attitude dropped in. Because Bauhaus ramped up everything on this track, from Daniel Ash ’s glass-bomb-sharp attack to Peter Murphy ’s majestic roar. While preparing to play “Hurt,” Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor has prefaced it as “a song that’s not mine anymore.” (That’s in righteous reverence to the late Johnny Cash ’s version.) So is there something wrong with mentioning the world’s legendary goth band for covering a David Bowie standard? No. Bauhaus – “Ziggy Stardust” (1982)Ī lot of Americans think Van Halen’s take on the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” is vastly superior to the original. Check out their debut, Beauty And The Beat right now. There’s no reason why this track shouldn’t be on the list. Let’s see: punk cred, pop sensibilities and the historical accomplishment. And the band members played the songs themselves. ska pioneers the Specials) and became a No. The song was written by guitarist Jane Wiedlin and Terry Hall (of U.K. The Go-Go’s also signed a one-off single deal with the v. But let’s break it down: Yes, the band played bona fide punk gigs on bills alongside such bands as the Germs, X and Fear. With “Our Lips Are Sealed,” this Los Angeles all-girl quintet had the feel-good hit of the summer and beyond. The Go-Go’s – “Our Lips Are Sealed” (1981)
In 1981, this song (from the legendary Damaged) did double duty. When when you reach that headspace where everything sucks and things had better change soon, you’re going to need a theme song. But it’s not like the band (or their fans) had a couple of extra fucks under the seats of their van to give about it.
Henry Rollins didn’t get a poet laureate award from a major university for the lyrics. Black Flag – “Six Pack” (1981)įorty years ago, if someone ever started a compilation album called Now That’s What I Call Hardcore, this Black Flag bruiser would’ve been side one, cut one. Also, did anybody notice that this song doesn’t have a chorus? A prime era-defining ’80s song. (We didn’t have an internet to erase oceans between us back then.) Numan was considered by many to be a one-hit wonder, but people from Trent Reznor to Jack White knew the score. After breaking through in the states in 1979 with the synth-laden track “Are ‘Friends’ Electric? ,” Numan did away with the name and began making music under his name. When he was making his band’s debut album, he discovered a Minimoog synthesizer some band had left in the studio. In the late ’70s, Gary Numan was the leader of a punk band called Tubeway Army because, well, that’s what you did back then, apparently. Whatever didn’t fit in radio’s tightly playlisted programming was deemed “underground,” then “new wave,” then “college rock” (because university radio stations were built by adventurous music directors and DJs) and then “alternative.” Here are some bands who dug the foundation for what would later be defined as “alternative rock.” If these bands had never come to fruition, we may have only had this to measure our rock ’n’ roll evolution.
#80S DEPECHE MODE SONGS MOVIE#
Read more: 10 classic ’80s underground moments from the movie ‘URGH! A Music War’īecause Alternative Press was born in the middle of the decade, there are some tracks that figured big in that history, as well. But at the time, these were the tracks that populated a generation’s mixtapes. Of course, what’s radical at one point sooner or later becomes public domain. What they all have in common is that they woke listeners up to musical realms they may have never discovered otherwise. We went through various genres of music and looked for the crucial songs that sparked both consciousness (read: fans) and influence (e.g., consecutive generations of musicians). These kinds of lists are always a lightning rod for discussions both casual and heated.
How about the music that was truly new? Our list of era-defining ’80s songs has a foot in both camps, with a phantom limb or two in others. Forget the songs that you were playing when your mom met your dad. The other school of thought was that the ’80s were a hotbed for creativity. The first is usually through the prism of mass-culture nostalgia from those who were there. The ’80s are usually looked upon in two different mindsets.