Mister Disco:
"See, the myth that the 80's were all glam and fun and the 90's were all angsty doesn't hold up if you look beyond the, uh, marketing ploys. Heaps of amazing, influential, 'angsty' musicians were making their best stuff in the 80's. Like the Pixies."
I heartily agree with the thrust of your thingummybob, but I would never describe the Pixies as angsty. There was a sense of geek frustration in there, maybe, but the music was a cathartic channeling of it, rather than a wallowing in the misery of it all. And it wasn't "complaint rock", either. You listened to it for pleasure.
'Serious issues' were evident in the culture of both decades, but I reckon the 80s version was less introverted and... vague... than the 90s. In the 80s the issues seemed simple and eternal - class war (and the working classes were the *goodies*, gasp!), the struggle for equality and recognition, mainstream vs underground, Thatcher! etc - and you had no trouble picking sides.
90s doom was all inward looking - "I hate myself and I want to die" - and misanthropic - "I hate the world, everyone is so *stupid*, wah!"
"What about 80s goth, eh? Surely that was all about personal gloom and vague angsty stuff?"
No! Goth in the 80s was FUN. It was all about dressing up and trying to look sexy and mysterious and romantic. Or cartoon scary and silly. There was a touch of earnestness about it, a dollop of pretence, yeah, but it was *never* about showing the world how miserable you were. That was what the Smiths were for (and gawd bless 'em for it, I say!) |
