The 1980s...
Below are our articles on the subject of The 1980s. If you can't see what you are looking for our other categories are displayed on the left under 'Our Quick Links'...
C86 and the Indie Movement
Although it seemed like a mere document of the indie movement when it appeared in 1986, it’s really only in retrospect that the importance of C86 has been understood....
Charity Records
The concept of the charity record wasn’t exactly new in the 1980s. Before that former Beatle George Harrison had released The Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, and his...
Dance Music, DJs and Nightclubs
With the rise of rave culture, dance music emerged from the underground. Since then it’s become one of the most important forces in music, not only on its own, but also...
Indie and the New Musical Express
In the 1980s the label “indie” came to represent two things. It began as a way of describing artists who released records on the small, independent labels that began to...
New Romantics
As if in response to the austerity both in the clothing and music of the punks and post punks, the New Romantics burst floridly onto the scene at the beginning of the...
New Wave of British Metal
Just as punk reacted against the dinosaur of rock sparking post-punk, the New Romantics and Goth, so heavy metal experienced its own musical revolution. Metal was in the...
Raves, Techno, Hardcore and Trance
The rave scene grew out of the warehouse parties as they exploded into popularity. Where the parties had been relatively contained, the rave scene, with dances often...
The Beginning of MTV
MTV changed everything. It arrived in America in 1981 airing music videos 24 hours a day seven days a week (it kicked off, aptly with Buggles’ hit Video Killed the...
The Cure- Rock Music to Pop
The Cure might well be the most influential cult band in the history of rock. Although many see them as a Goth group (in large part because of a dour period and the...
The Gothic Music Movement
Goth stands apart from most movements being one that’s not only lasted for more than two decades, but continually grown during that time (punk remains, but has never...
The Rise and Fall of Electro Music
Electro is a term that falls in and out of fashion. In the mid Noughties it’s a kind of dance music. But in the early 1980s – in Britain at least – it referred to...
The Second Summer of Love
It was a magic time the period of 1988 and 1989, when the underground dance party scene, fuelled by the drug Ecstasy, began to come together. The sense of community and...
The Smiths Were The Idols of Indie
If the Cure became the perennial high priests of Goth then the Smiths were the idols of indie. Singer Morrissey who openly talked of being celibate in a very sexual age...
The Story of Rough Trade
The story of Rough Trade is one that illustrates how a small independent label can become an influential force in music. What brought it to that position was its...
The Tube, TV Music Programme
Each decade of British rock has enjoyed its defining music television programmes. In the 1950s it was 6.5 Special, the ‘60s had Ready Steady Go and the ‘70s had enjoyed...
What is Ambient Music?
The first question of course is what exactly is ambient music? Although to some, like musical explorer Brian Eno (who’s released a number of ambient albums and...
