Not everything was better in the 1980s... [Archive]

Seshmeister

11-01-2011, 08:56 AM

Etienne

11-01-2011, 09:40 AM

... but there was Van Halen hit the mainstream with Jump

Satan

11-01-2011, 12:35 PM

Don't know what show that was, but that last couple looked like they were a little old for a high school dance. They both looked at least 25.

Nitro Express

11-01-2011, 09:31 PM

Not exactly Soul Train was it.

bb64

11-02-2011, 07:11 AM

That first girl in the first video is Kelly Ripa from "Live with Regis and Kelly"...saw this somewhere a while back.

Seshmeister

11-02-2011, 07:52 AM

Don't know what show that was, but that last couple looked like they were a little old for a high school dance. They both looked at least 25.

I think Olivia Newton John was 29 when she made Grease.

Michael J Fox was 23 in the first Back To The Future, a few years older than his dad George McFly.

BITEYOASS

11-02-2011, 09:09 AM

I miss it when the basis of all video games were just racking up points. Nowadays you have video games that never end!

On the other hand, porn is a lot better nowadays!

sonrisa salvaje

11-02-2011, 01:32 PM

I miss the simplicity of empty lot football games between the kids in the neighborhood. When is the last time you saw one of those? Now the kids just stay inside and play Xbox against each other online.

Nitro Express

11-02-2011, 01:39 PM

I actually saw some kids throwing a football in the street the other day. It brought back memories. You don't see that hardly anymore.

Sensible Shoes

11-02-2011, 02:09 PM

I think Olivia Newton John was 29 when she made Grease.

I thought she was well into her 30's. She never looked it and doesn't look her age now either.

VHscraps

11-02-2011, 04:56 PM

Olivia Newton-John - yes, indeed.

I think she was 32 in this clip. Goddam.

Seshmeister

11-02-2011, 08:45 PM

I thought she was well into her 30's. She never looked it and doesn't look her age now either.

Just checked and she was 29 when she made it.

That makes her 63 now which is just nuts.

As you say she looks good on it but 63?

Kristy

11-02-2011, 08:52 PM

When was this? 1986. Ah yes, the 80's, land of greed, fluorescent clothes and AIDS and check out those bedroom eyes the first couple make at each other.

sonrisa salvaje

11-02-2011, 08:58 PM

When was this? 1986. Ah yes, the 80's, land of greed, fluorescent clothes and AIDS and check out those bedroom eyes the first couple make at each other.

Major Buzzkill strikes again.

Kristy

11-02-2011, 09:01 PM

And they all fit that 80's stereotype of popular kids that you loved to hate in high school - except the black couple of course who are there as tokens for the predominately white audience.

Kristy

11-02-2011, 09:03 PM

Major Buzzkill strikes again.

Do you see this?
http://www.bignamelawncare.com/sites/default/files/images/stihl_chainsaw2_web.jpg

Go fuck yourself with it.

Sensible Shoes

11-02-2011, 09:06 PM

check out those bedroom eyes the first couple make at each other.

Kelly Ripa making bedroom eyes - I may puke.

Seshmeister

11-02-2011, 09:06 PM

I actually never got to the end before but you have to check out the last 2 couples who take it to a whole new level of wrong. :)

Seshmeister

11-02-2011, 09:11 PM

Kelly Ripa making bedroom eyes - I may puke.

Never heard of her but she sounds like a lot of fun...

In 2011, Ripa mentioned on air that she believes she has misophonia, an unusually intense emotional reaction to sounds such as chewing.

People who have misophonia are most commonly annoyed, or even enraged, by the sound of other people eating, breathing, coughing, or other ordinary sounds. They are not normally annoyed by sounds that they themselves make. Reactions to these sounds are not limited, however, to just loud eating noises; people with misophonia find themselves affected by all kinds of noises.

Kristy

11-02-2011, 09:14 PM

"Eric & Vickey"?? Both pass as future if not present porn star material. I mean, look at them: has already has the porn 'stache and she the looks of enduring one too many facials. What are they? 25 and 28? At a teen dance for 22 year olds? Oh, and those mullets - class!

Seshmeister

11-02-2011, 09:20 PM

Why has Vicky brought along a Sammy Hagar wig with her?

And what is going on with Toni and Pisces? She is looking around for an escape route, it looks like she's been abducted.

Is Pisces a common name in the US?

'We decided to name you that because your mother always smelled a bit of fish...'

Kristy

11-02-2011, 09:27 PM

Is Pisces a common name in the US?

Only if your are black who wants a ghetto name without being ghetto.

More info here:

Satan

11-02-2011, 09:29 PM

And they all fit that 80's stereotype of popular kids that you loved to hate in high school - except the black couple of course who are there as tokens for the predominately white audience.

And ironically, they seem to have the worst dancing ability of any of the couples. So much for the "white folks are stiff and can't dance" stereotype.

Of course, if the jacket worn by the second chick is any indication, this is somewhere in New Jersey, so these are probably all the parents of Snooki and those other fucking morons currently on TV.

Kristy

11-02-2011, 09:33 PM

I would not know any of this - the godawful 80's were before my time.

Blaze

11-02-2011, 09:40 PM

Major Buzzkill strikes again.
You do realize this is "why the 80's sucked" thread?

I read a good article a while back about why the 80's sucked. It basically said the 80's sucked because it was complete bs, except AIDs, which was only exploited.

Kristy

11-02-2011, 09:45 PM

AIDS, mullets, Reagan and The Replacements. That's it. The entire soul-sucking decade in one sentence.

Satan

11-02-2011, 09:56 PM

Hey, let's not compare The 'Mats to Reagan and AIDS, for Hell's sake!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJKRRpFc4g8

Kristy

11-02-2011, 10:00 PM

Who's comparing? That was the good, bad and the ugly of the 80's

hambon4lif

11-02-2011, 10:02 PM

AIDS, mullets, Reagan and The Replacements. That's it. The entire soul-sucking decade in one sentence.Downer-rock, pendletons, and pasty-skinned, pretty-eyed people curled around a toilet with a rig hanging out of their arm.

Yeah....your generation was so much more of a fucking blast.

Kristy

11-02-2011, 10:09 PM

Downer-rock, pendletons, and pasty-skinned, pretty-eyed people curled around a toilet with a rig hanging out of their arm.

Yeah....your generation was so much more of a fucking blast.

*all clicks and pops*

ashstralia

11-02-2011, 10:57 PM

The eighties were boss> the end

Satan

11-02-2011, 11:01 PM

Every decade has it's good and bad. Fair Warning vs Othisblowsgoats2, for example.

Or the fact that you had the previously mentioned Replacements, Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys at the beginning of the decade, and shit like Poison and Slaughter at the end.

Blaze

11-02-2011, 11:12 PM

The 80's sucked. One had to choose disco or rock. That sucked. Don't tell me what to like or not to like. The 80's sucked. It was way too polarized. The 80's sucked.

ashstralia

11-02-2011, 11:18 PM

Naah, here it was perfectly acceptable to like diff kinds of music…

High Life Man

11-02-2011, 11:41 PM

You can bet that slow dance led to lots of finger fucking.

hambon4lif

11-02-2011, 11:50 PM

You can bet that slow dance led to lots of finger fucking.Well...titty-fucking Kelly Ripa would've been totally out of the question, and it still is.
She still has a chest like a ten-year-old boy.

Nitro Express

11-03-2011, 12:04 AM

The eighties were boss> the end

I had a good time. There actually was a huge variety of things going on then. You would have to write an encyclopedia just to cover what was going on then. I had money. I was single. Lot's to do. Fun times.

Even the sleaze of the 1980's was more interesting than today. It was ok to have a good time. Politically correct hadn't rolled in hard yet.

Seshmeister

11-03-2011, 06:52 AM

Politically correct hadn't rolled in hard yet.

Yeah the 'good' old days when you could be racist and obnoxious and no one cared apart from the darkies, the chinks and the spastics...

Or are you one of those people that confuses over zealous health and safety legislation with political correctness?

Sensible Shoes

11-03-2011, 08:16 AM

I think the issue here is that we always think the previous decade to our own just SUCKS. Cause it's cool to think that. My decade kinda ran five years off - so anything from '65 - '75 was high school, and '7-85 was college early 20's. Therefore the fifties and the first half of the sixties were just DEATH. We were so much cooler than that. Because I'm older than most of you I can say both the 80s and 90s were good. I liked 'em. And disliked some of it too.

Seshmeister

11-03-2011, 08:26 AM

The time that seems to get the most nostalgia in the US always seems to be the 1950s maybe less now that people are getting older.

To me it looks terrible with the very bloody war in Korea, McCarthyism, institutionalised racism, organised crime, and the reverse of small home town cosiness is a bunch of reactionary small minded gossips pressuring you into their boring little lifestyles.

One thing I think you can say objectively to a degree though no matter when you were born is that there was a golden age of US cinema in the early to mid 1970s. Hollywood churned out dozens of great movies then before Jaws and Star Wars created the event movie for teenagers which has gradually taken over almost everything now.

BITEYOASS

11-03-2011, 08:45 AM

The 80's turned to shit once Dave was out of =VH=.

Sensible Shoes

11-03-2011, 10:13 AM

Nitro Express

11-03-2011, 11:36 AM

Yeah the 'good' old days when you could be racist and obnoxious and no one cared apart from the darkies, the chinks and the spastics...

Or are you one of those people that confuses over zealous health and safety legislation with political correctness?

Give me a fucking break. We had fun. Something some of the people on this board seem to not get the concept of. In the 80's the censorship was mainly coming in from the right. Now the censorship comes from the left which surprises everyone. In the 60's the left stood for freed speech and now they want to shut up anyone that doesn't agree or sell their agenda.

People complain about how boring radio and other media have become but it's because we have made it a crime to hurt someone's feelings. Everyone is so scared about offending someone everything has been reduced to boring.

Nitro Express

11-03-2011, 11:42 AM

I would not know any of this - the godawful 80's were before my time.

You really have to live in the time to know about it. Now people are getting nostalgic about the 90's and all the stuff they portray it as being is not exactly what it was. Plus, it also depends on how old you were and what your situation was. The 80's for me was high school, getting out on my own, and being able to make enough money to go to school, drive a BMW 328, and enjoy life with no debt. I had no debt. Things were affordable then and if you had a work ethic and were somewhat smart you could go places. That was the 80's for me.

You also have to remember we finally got Vietnam behind us and the inflationary 1970's and disco was dead being replaced by some great music. Fun times.

sonrisa salvaje

11-03-2011, 11:48 AM

The 80's sucked. One had to choose disco or rock. That sucked. Don't tell me what to like or not to like. The 80's sucked. It was way too polarized. The 80's sucked.

Disco was gone in the by 1980/1981. The New Wave invasion was coming in. What specifically are you referring to?

Nitro Express

11-03-2011, 11:48 AM

It amazes me to read all this negative anti-80's stuff on a David Lee Roth website. Diamond Dave was the poster boy of that period and the wonderful party it all was. There certainly was more opportunity for musicians to make a living then. It really was a period of work hard and play hard. I don't see the people now having that kind of drive or fire. Everyone seems so beat down and wimpy now.

Nitro Express

11-03-2011, 11:51 AM

Disco was gone in the by 1980/1981. The New Wave invasion was coming in. What specifically are you referring to? Disco was smashed to bits by the reemergence of rock and roll. Punk rolled in. Rock bands like Van Halen rolled in. Even new interesting keyboard based weird stuff rolled in. All that sick disco and soft commercial rock of the 70's was gone. Vietnam was in the past. Carter and inflation were gone.

DLR Bridge

11-03-2011, 12:23 PM

When people ask me what my favorite decade is, my automatic response is '75 to '85. Age 6 to 16 for me. The years of absolute zero responsibility. The 80's on the whole were pretty cool though. What I always wonder is why there are so many people today who still appear "stuck in the '80s" so to speak. What decade were people stuck in while the 80's were actually happening? The 50's? I can't recall.

sonrisa salvaje

11-03-2011, 12:57 PM

What is funny is that there are people that would rather live in the current conditions and throw stones at the 80's. Are you fucking kidding me? Today's living is pure shit from politics to economics. Musically, we have entered a dark void from which there appears no escape. I'm sure there are aspects of today's society that i would take over other decades. If political correctness has led to a decrease in racism then i am all for it. However, i can't look at society today and and find too many ways in which we haven't gone backwards.

Coyote

11-03-2011, 01:15 PM

A tinge of 1950's in the 21st century.

What an intimidating concept...

BITEYOASS

11-03-2011, 01:33 PM

I don't know when this trend started or if it was due to digital recording, but a lot of rock albums starting in the mid 80's didn't have very much bass when you played them on the stereo. Maybe it was those shitty cassettes, I don't know.

BITEYOASS

11-03-2011, 01:34 PM

Plus this whole family values BS didn't kick into high gear until around 85 or 86.

jhale667

11-03-2011, 01:56 PM

Plus this whole family values BS didn't kick into high gear until around 85 or 86.

Yes, right after Tipper Gore heard "Darling Nikki" and got a tingle in her nether-region... :rolleyes: "We have to do something about this music that makes me horny!!"

Nitro Express

11-03-2011, 02:00 PM

Plus this whole family values BS didn't kick into high gear until around 85 or 86. It kicked in about the same time the whole politically correct speech thing kicked in where we were supposed to all be equally boring and miserable. Now Dave would get in trouble for making fun of immigrant store owners and having confederate flags in his videos. California Girls would be called sexist now. The sweet spot of the 80's was certainly between 1980 and 1984. Some cheese rolled in after that and Sammy Hagar is the poster boy for it.

Nitro Express

11-03-2011, 02:03 PM

Yes, right after Tipper Gore heard "Darling Nikki" and got a tingle in her nether-region... :rolleyes: "We have to do something about this music that makes me horny!!"

Just a little ditty about the Chelsae Hotel lobby. Tipper Bore didn't know what was good for her.

Kristy

11-03-2011, 02:25 PM

I think the issue here is that we always think the previous decade to our own just SUCKS. Cause it's cool to think that.

I'm sure the 80's were a great time for it was probably the most multi-faceted decade but it did spawn the likes of WHAM! and embarrassing shows like Growing Pains. The 90's weren't much better - probably the most dull decade from grunge to Brittany and the "00" decade? Not even historian can find anything remotely interesting to write about it. So it all goes back to the 80's where AIDS was the terrorism of the day and a mullet could get you laid. Can't say I am sad that I wasn't there.

DONNIEP

11-03-2011, 02:29 PM

I was a teenager in the early 80s - and AIDS hadn't made its way down to the younger population yet. So the only way you'd die from sex is if you did it right, or if the chick's dad caught you!

The 80s was a great freaking time to be young. Overall the music, the clothes, the TV shows and movies - all great. Yeah, there were also douchebag yuppy guys running around with sweaters tied around their necks. But for the most part it was all bright, technicolor, fast and loud. Yes, it was excessive - but if a little bit's good then a whole lot is even better! And if you were young during that time you got to experience it all while you were free, no responsibilities and few consequences. And it was a great time to be a Van Halen and David Lee Roth fan! Nowadays, even with all our technology, we can't get one word out of Van Halen OR Dave. But back then all you had to do was turn on MTV. For a couple of years they ruled MTV, hell, Dave was on there so much he practically WAS MTV for a while.

Nitro Express

11-03-2011, 02:32 PM

Oh I can remember being in biology lab where the professor said AIDS was going not only bankrupt the insurance industry but bankrupt whole nations. It never happened because of AIDS. The insurance industry just basically stole all the nation's money and broke it that way. The thing about the 80's is everyone could afford their health insurance, you didn't graduate from college a debtor slave, and you actually could save money, put it in a savings account and earn money on it. People weren't as lazy as they are now and more creative. It was considered shameful to live with mom and dad after graduating from high school.

Nitro Express

11-03-2011, 02:34 PM

Come to think of it. Most the faggy shit in the 80's was coming out of the UK. Don't blame Wham! on us or Boy George or The Smith's.

Little Texan

11-03-2011, 03:56 PM

What decade were people stuck in while the 80's were actually happening? The 50's?

Little Texan

11-03-2011, 04:08 PM

The 80's were a great decade, and the best decade of my life so far. I don't know if it is really because the bulk of my childhood was in that decade that I look back at it so fondly, but I do know that music, movies, pop culture, video games, just about everything was better in the 80's and life, in general, was a blast back then. Those of you that were not alive yet really missed out, and shouldn't knock what you didn't experience.

DONNIEP

11-03-2011, 05:10 PM

Found a good picture of a car just like the one I had back in the 80s - right down to the same ugly blue interior. But it had t-tops, a 350, AIR CONDITIONING!!!!, and a sweet Kenwood tape deck with Kenwood "digital" 6X9s and a Realistic power booster! We'd take out the tops, crank up the stereo and cruise all Saturday night! Doesn't look like much now but this was one sweet ride back in the day. Only down side was the front seats didn't recline and the back was pretty much a torture rack.

http://i777.photobucket.com/albums/yy59/DONNIEP5150/KGrHqZiYE6G6Qlj3BOpdWjfLQ60_3.jpg

VHscraps

11-03-2011, 05:19 PM

Yeah, the 80s did kind of suck, especially as the decade went on. There were, of course, a lot of good things going in those years, and a lot of good music was made, etc., but in general I think it was a cheesy decade. Synthesizers and 'big drums' and people wearing too much white, too many shoulder pads, and too much hairspray, etc.

For me the 70s are just better - I admit that it is probably because it was when I lived through my teenage years.

But I think that one day the 70s will be seen as one of the most creative decades - in music, and in films. The number of great movies that would never get made these days that were made in the 70s is staggering, and it was also the decade of the album as well. Most bands were knocking out albums every year, not every three years ...

I was reading an interview with the Red Hot Chili Peppers the other day - they have been going 28 years. How many albums? they are just about to release their tenth. that's about an average of one album per three years.

In musical terms, I reckon that the 70s didn't really end until 1983. That's when the CD was introduced and when MTV started to gain a hold on things. That's when you get all those crummy Brit pop bands taking ove the charts - purely because they all had videos ripe for heavy rotation on MTV. It was also the year that Van Halen recorded their last album (if you discount the Van Hagar years).

Van Halen, for me, are a 70s band in that respect. I hate the way they get lumped in with the 80s hair bands that they were a clear decade ahead of, and who mostly traded on pale imitations of DLR and EVH.

The 80s was Van Hagar, not Van Halen. The 1984 album wasn't even originally released on CD, for chrissakes! So, they belong to that brilliant analog decade, the 1970s, and that is the context in which they made music.

Of course, once DLR split, it all went to fuck. The DLR solo stuff was good - but sometimes I think I prefer the 90s Dave of Filthy Mouth to Eat Em and Smile.

DLR Bridge

11-04-2011, 12:21 PM

"but sometimes I think I prefer the 90s Dave of Filthy Mouth to Eat Em and Smile."

I think with his artistic calibur and chance taking skills, Dave, to me, was on the right track with YFLM. There are only about 4 songs from ALAE that I can still listen to today, but Filthy minus the Cheatin' Heart song is in steady rotation on my I Pod.

FORD

11-04-2011, 03:02 PM

YFLM was great for what it was. Lyrically, it was some of Dave's best work. Musically, it was a departure, but after going through the VH breakup and then losing Steve Vai to ego, Billy Sheehan to "creative differences" and Jason Becker to illness all within 5 years, can anybody blame Dave for not wanting the headache of building another "superband". Dave did what he felt like doing, and wasn't trying to compete with the "grunge" thing (unlike say, Van Hagar's Balance, which attempted to co-opt the so called "Seattle Sound" on the non-cheese ballad tracks, and failed, miserably)

VHscraps

11-04-2011, 08:05 PM

I'd love to see any touring version of VH dip into some of those Dave tunes - particularly from YFLM. 'Big Train' would be a kick ass show opener, and 'You're Breathin It' kinda swings. I'd think even Ed could dig those grooves - but would he ever stoop to doing a cover of someone else's tunes again ...

But, you need two singers for a lot of that stuff anyway, which would be a problem - by then Dave was doing quite a bit of overlapping vocals ( on 'Breathin It' especially), which is something that goes right back to the likes of 'Light Up the Sky'. Two Daves, so to speak, almost trading lines on that, and that's aside from the other backing vox.

In fact, while I'm at it, I'll say that Light Up the Sky is - for me - a great example of what a great vocalist Dave is. Go on, give it a spin. Full volume. Yeah, sure, it has overdubs, but what a fucking vocal arrangement on that tune. A real crackling, whizz bang of a song, due to Dave's input as much as the rest of the band.

What all the naysayers who decry Dave's vocal abilities neve look at are things like that. In fact, how many singers, period could exist in the same band as EVH at his peak, and still get as much attention as that kind of once-in-a-generation player?

But, yeah, they'd need Mike back to help out with those overlapping vocals ...

Seshmeister

11-04-2011, 09:58 PM

Hmmm.

I've posted before about how after seeing Dave's YFLM gig in London I didn't listen to anything he did for years.

Did you see that tour?

Blaze

11-04-2011, 10:24 PM

Disco was gone in the by 1980/1981. The New Wave invasion was coming in. What specifically are you referring to?
Oh right. we got the Art of Noise and pedo grand central. Good times indeed!

VHscraps

11-05-2011, 03:02 PM

Hmmm.

I've posted before about how after seeing Dave's YFLM gig in London I didn't listen to anything he did for years.

Did you see that tour?

Yeah, I did. At The Playhouse in Edinburgh. Nothing remarkable about the gig, and I don't remember too much about what he played that night.

But, I think some of those tunes, with VH, could work now - those two I mentioned for starters. I think Dave had a pretty unremarkable band on that tour. I thought Terry Kilgore played very well on the album, but he wasn't in the touring band. Neither, it seemed were most of the rest of the musicians on the album. I still have the tour programme - no mention of the band in it. I'm sure details will be online somewhere, but nothing remarkable about them. That was a bit disappointing - the sense that he was using some pick-up band.

But it wasn't enough to put me off listening to DLR per se - your experience must've been worse, then??

But it did coincide with a growing lack of interest in music for a while for me. Stopped going to gigs as much around then - it was the dawn of Britpop and the crappy 90s were in full swing.

I remember giving away my guitar in 94, too - to the guy who I went to that Roth gig with, as it happens. Probably that very night. I was a pretty hopeless player anyway (after 15 years of faffing around and going nowhere fast with it).