Top 20 songs of the 1980's

Hey what was happening in the UK between The Queen is Dead (1986) and The Stone Roses (1989)........yeah not much but this was something new and when you hear it in the right frame of mind, quite wonderful too.

This is from their 3rd album and they have an album that's a no brainer for top 25 of the 80s but this song was them in classic mode, almost self parody in a way but fantastic too- celebrating drug culture and their place in it like the Heartbreakers before them and a whole lot of bands after them.

One of the best songs to come out of Canada, one of '86 very best singles too and they were noticeably on Warners who was predicting these sort of (geeky) lesser alternative-type bands to break through any minute now. When Warners big band, Husker Du, only went to #140 (gulp) later in the year, well, they kind of re-thought that.

But still, great single anyway..........

Like the Only Ones (not as good but more popular) sorta and like the Smiths sorta (not as good but less affected and fey). This is a tremendous live band even now actually, they tour regularly and change the set list up but no new material for many, many years.

Rock critics are like Oscar nominations - they are BS...... Sometimes though they are really BS (like now actually) - Led Zeppelin now receive great reviews, Bowie too.....in their day, one was sort of reviled, the other not held in the same esteem he came to be. In Rock you can be overrated in the exact moment you are great - The Clash, makers of 1979/80s consensus best album, "the only band that matters" started mattering less the very second that acclaim played out and they started on their next one "Sandinista!" - an album that got rave reviews, bankrupted the band, did everything wrong that London Calling did right and immediately sent people looking for another band that mattered. There was a great album scattered in Sandinista! but there were 2 bad ones released with it......it still shows up on best albums of all time lists......um yeah......... this would be on the great album side of things though:

All these British bands in a decade where American bands ruled?!? Piss off you limey bastards.......The Pixies emerged at the end of the decade as the polar opposite of the bands they were lumped in with - those great early 80s Amerindie bands were all song bands, but The Pixies were a sound band. They advertised for their bassist with this : "band seeks bassist into Husker Du and Peter, Paul and Mary". Pixies songs were about nothing much, often with cool and odd for Rock sounds (Spaghetti westerns!), and, um, not necessarily in English. For 2 years, an EP and those first 2 albums, everyone pretty much loved them, then it started to run dry because it was never based on songs, but still........it was a helluva 2 years and they last for 3 more (and 2 more albums) in their initial run.

I don't know how old are you and where you lived in the 80s, but I can assure you that in Europe American bands were almost unknown. Take a look at the top ten, especially years 1980-1986, and you'll tell me.
I'm not talking about a single country, I'm saying that in whole Europe there was the so called British wave.

It sounds a bad imitation of Whamrap. :/