Documentary of a time when music was great and eclectic, MTV actually aired music videos, people bought things called records and cassette tapes. Part 1 of 5
I personally find 1981 to be a very underrated year for music, I always liked the soft rock that was popular during that time period, I wish a lot of the soft rock songs from this time period wouldn't be ignored on the so called "light rock" stations.
Well the pop charts was lackluster from 1980-1982, But the R&B Charts was hot! RICK JAMES, KOOL AND THE GANG, THE WHISPERS, CHAKA KHAN, TEENA MARIE, SHALAMAR, THE GAP BAND, JACKSON 5, WAS TEARING UP THE DANCE FLOOR!
PS this documentary drops the ball by not making any mention of hardcore punk when they mentioned people who thought journey were bombastic. aside perhaps from featuring oedipus who was sort of part of the boston indie/hardcore scene of the early 1980's
You're right, the R&B were hot, but the pop charts was still picky, they mostly wanted R&B loves songs, & I think the most charted R&B song that rose to #1 was Kool & the gangs, "Clelebrate", & EWF"s Lets Groove ", witch rose to #5 on the pop charts that year!!
To me, 1981 was just a continuation of the 1970s in a lot of ways, the same way 1971 was a continuation of the 1960s. At the very least, it was transitional. You still had those 1970s arena rock bands like Styx, Journey, REO Speedwagon, 38 Special, Kansas, still trying to be relevant and do what made them popular--co-existing with Adam Ant, the Go-Gos, the Police, The Cars, Duran Duran--before Styx decided that they would go synth themselves and compete with Duran Duran
it was up against 1981 being a good year in music ,lennon's death at the end of last year ,bob marley's death ,total collapse of punk and disco plus the arrival of MTV signalled style over substance in image, and no really great albums released in this year. Didn't pick up till 1983.
yeah i had to research the early 80's for a project 2 yrs ago, and because of the 1979 disco backlash pop radio didn't push r&b and hip hop! people felt it was racists!
This year sucks, there were't no balance on the music charts,everyone didn't know what direction to go in, Plus they didn't play anything too much that was R & B because of the backlash of Disco, so we went another direction witch was called Hip-Hop!!
Shallow stupidity has always been around, but it became celebrated in the 80's culminating in this crescendo of trump we are barely living through now.
