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” Benefit Concert”
- You’re in 1989 putting together a benefit concert (another big thing in the 80s).
- Pick a cause to “raise money” for. You want mass appeal (more audience=more money)
- Pick an 80s band from each category (Visual pop, hair or hard rock, metal, electronica, and singer-songwriter). Aim for big names with number 1 hits.
- You may use any resource in the room to aid your work, and you may work with a partner.
- Extra credit—figure out what might be missing and add an artist or band from that category.
Game Changers of the 80s
MUSC117 Rock Music II
Glam Rock/Hair Rock
Glitter and Makeup are now part of the show
Paves the way for Hair Rock, especially among British bands
Note: There are some bands that fall into both the “hair rock” and “metal” category—example:
1970s predecessors
David Bowie
Kiss
ABBA
Alice Cooper
Iggy Pop
Elton John
Hard Rock
“Hard rock” tends to lean heavier on the blues whereas Heavy Metal trades off between the blues and classical music. Metal bands tend to hit harder and the lyrical content tends to be less about things like sex and romance and more about other things like history, science, religion, philosophy .. etc.
Growing up a metalhead in the 80s, we took great umbrage with bands whom we considered “metal” who would call themselves “hard rock” in the press. People like Rob Halford of Judas Priest capitalized on this rift by proudly flying the metal flag for his music. We appreciated it. People like Ozzy Osbourne, on the other hand, did not. And we noticed it. It made people, to us, seem like they were more concerned about wider social acceptance than they were about their core fans.
AC/DC were a hard rock band.
Judas Priest were a metal band.
Then once thrash metal started to happen (Metallica, Slayer, etc), the lines were more clearly defined and most of us took leave of hard rock from that point. There was no mistaking what was metal and what was not anymore.
—Dennis Hoffman
http://www.houstonpress.com/music/three-ways-eddie-van-halen-changed-rock-guitar-forever-7476824
(amazon playlist)
Metal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6PNsa69SiE (start at 6:17)
The development of metal largely rode on the subculture of “exclusion” and “transgression” (counter-culture) and the uplifting of the “outsider” as the hero. (Hipsters before hipsters existed?)
Growth in popularity largely due to exposure on MTV
Examples:
Mötley Crüe
Twisted Sister
Scorpion
Megadeth
Electronica
“The story of house and techno, the major styles that comprise “electronica” is a complex and convoluted story of translantic cross-fertilization and ever-evolving substyles and scenes, complicated further by multiple, and at times, conflicting, interpretations of musical categories, cross-racial codes, sexual etiquette, drug use, and the meaning of subcultural style.” (Garafalo, Rockin’ Out 2002).
The only real common ground is emphasis or exclusively electronic or computerized instruments.
Pioneers include
The Eurythmics
Devo
Kraftwerk
Duran Duran
Depeche Mode
(amazon playlist)
Singer-Songwriters
As could be expected, the singer-songwriter category can cover a wide variety of genres. The examples at the left are singer-songwriters who made it big between the late 70s and 80s, and whose music includes or features acoustic instruments and a pop rock or blues based music.
Of those characteristics, which ones can we identify in the following songs? (playlist)
Examples (obviously not exhaustive)
Billy Joel
Elton John
Bruce Springsteen
Tom Petty
Sinead O’ Connor
Gloria Estefan
Activity
You’re in 1989 putting together a benefit concert (another big thing in the 80s).
Pick a cause to “raise money” for. You want mass appeal (more audience=more money)
Pick an 80s band from each category (Visual pop, hair or hard rock, metal, electronica, and singer-songwriter). Aim for big names with number 1 hits.
You may use any resource in the room to aid your work, and you may work with a partner.
Extra credit—figure out what might be missing and add an artist or band from that category.
