99 Luftballoons? Mickey? We Got The Beat?

I run in circles where Baby Boomers roam. I'm always intrigued by their perceptions of things from politics to corporate structure to church format and pretty much everything else. It's like I'm listening to people that are describing things I know about and have experienced but it's like they're telling me this in a foreign language. I imagine it'd be like hearing history from the perspective of the country that won the war than hearing that same history lesson from someone on the losing side of the war. The main facts are the same but the experience is different.

For example, in my mom's generation, a college degree pretty much guaranteed you a job. In fact, immediately after graduation, my mom's advice during my three months of unemployment was to "take my resume to the utility companies and banks and just get into the management trainee program." No matter how hard I tried to tell her that college degrees were a dime a dozen and those places were looking for a bit more specialization and that strategy was a huge time-waste, she never believed me. Her generation's view of the value of a university degree and mine were distinctly different. See what I mean?

But that's not really the example I want to talk about...the one I want to discuss today is music.

See, Boomers revel in the reality that they experienced some of the greatest popular music in American history. The requisite names are thrown out there: Beatles, Dylan, Stones, Zeppelin, Hendrix. There are several others, too. You get it. I don't need to list it as it's ingrained in the fabric of our culture. And, true, that incredible music was the soundtrack for their ages of 13--25, when you come into your music consciousness, right?

Usually, that chest-thumping is followed by statements like "no good music came out of the 80's." Granted, they usually concede the 90's has some good stuff...but the 80's are dismissed out-of-hand as a music wasteland.

So, today, I'm going to defend the 80's a little bit. See, I watched the movie Grosse Pointe Blank last night--one of the subplots involves John Cusack going to his high-school class of 1986 10-year reunion. At the reunion, they were playing the songs that cause folks to refer to the 80's as a music wasteland. One of the protagonists in the movie worked at a radio station and, as a protest, only played the music that wasn't on MTV but was critically acclaimed and got played on college radio.

This leads me to my list of bands that did have great music and were influential that came to rise in the 80's...

U2. Can't really argue with that. People will be listening to them decades from now, and a very obvious choice.
R.E.M. Like U2, they were original and influential and gave rise to the little college band that could.
The Police. Was there a bigger, better band in the late 80's?

Those are more or less the Beatles/Stones of the decade and, in my mind, a cut above...

...but here are the best of the rest:

The Clash. Really. They, at one time, were the only band that mattered and they're like a fine wine. As the years go by, people are starting to realize just how great they were. Some folks saw it then, but most joined the bandwagon much later.

The Pretenders. Started out punk and grew into a truly great band that was accessible for almost everybody.

The Talking Heads. I find it interesting that nobody has tried to imitate their sound since then. My best guess is that nobody can match David Byrne's genius to pull it off.

The Violent Femmes. Strip it all down to the bare minimum, and don't worry about singing in the right key...or even well. You know it's good when today's fraternity boys even talk about how incredible this band was, followed by the intense statement that punctuates just how good anything is, "Man, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW!!!" As in, "Man, that song 'Blister in the Sun' is so great, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW!!!"

Elvis Costello & The Attractions. You know they've made their mark when he's a dinner guest in a comedy like Talledega Nights. Almost every 80's movie has one song of his on the soundtrack, although it's usually the wrong one (Every Day I Write The Book, or [What's So Funny About] Peace, Love & Understanding? instead of Veronica).

And, I think that'd be the list.

Now, don't get me wrong...I think there were some bands, like The Replacements, Jason & The Nashville Scorchers, Lloyd Cole & The Commotion that never made a dent in the popular culture even though they should have, but I think the bands I listed could hold their own with the 60's & 70's music.

Your thoughts?