'80s hard rock/metal poll!

[Metalhead]

Def Leppard
Poison
RATT
Motley Crue
Guns N Roses
Bon Jovi

Guilty pleasures or earthly treasures?

Or are you not a fan at all?

 

[Outdated]

My misspent youth.

Cold Chisel
Jimmy Barnes
Joan Jett
Heart
Foreigner
Led Zeppelin
AC/DC
David Bowie
Queen
The Angels
Billy Idol
Black Sabbath
Black Sorrows
Eric Clapton
The Choirboys
The Divinyls
Men At Work
Eurythmics
Hoodoo Gurus
INXS
Midnight Oil
The Pretenders

Just to name a few.

In this clip note that when Jimmy leaves the stage to wander through the audience his microphone is not wireless. He did like a drink or two.

 

[tlc]

I like 80s hair/glam rock because it's often upbeat, melodic, and mixed cleanly. As opposed a lot of heavy metal, which IMO is too drowned by guitars, and is a display of chops vs emotion.

 

[RemyZee]

Saw ACDC live in 1980 when Angus Young was still using an oxygen mask in my tiny town civic center. They pulled canons onto the stage and did "For those about to rock, we salute you." It was incredible. All the kids just stood there wide eyed like we didn't know what to do.

acdc angus young kick schoolboy outfit at DuckDuckGo

 

[SusanLR]

'80's rock and hair bands keep me movin' and groovin' while driving.
My favorite decade of music. Probably because it was the decade of my twenties and that was the age, I had the most fun.

Foreigner
Styx
Def Leppard
Bon Jovi
Queen
Guns N Roses
Aerosmith
Journey
ZZ Top
Leonard Skinner
Tom Petty--Just a few

I always said a song needs some good screams and long- haired guys in tight pants to be good.
OR kinda strange....

Get a kick out of this one every time!

 

[Dagan]

I grew up on it. It led to harder and more down-tuned metal and eventually to all off-shoots / combo genres with metal, now.

Rush ...all of the way to... Maximum The Hormone. I'm with it.

 

[Judge]

Regardless of any interpretations of sub-genres. All sorts of hair lengths...take your pick:

Duran Duran
Nazareth
New Order
U2
Blue Oyster Cult
Aerosmith
Led Zepplin
Heart
Blondie
Boston
The Eagles
INXS
Depeche Mode
The Eurythmics
Kraftwerk
The Police
Genesis
Fleetwood Mac
Electric Light Orchestra
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
The Cars
Creedence Clearwater Revival
ZZ Top
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Golden Earring
The Rolling Stones

 

[NDR2]

Of all my favorite singers, the hardest rocker of all is David Bowie. But that was in the ‘70’s.

 

[Lemon Zing]

I love those Aussie bands you named. I'd definitely put Skyhooks and Hunters & Collectors on that list.

 

[Outdated]

I love those Aussie bands you named. I'd definitely put Skyhooks and Hunters & Collectors on that list.

I never went in for the hard Thrash Metal, so much noise that it's difficult to identify a tune and some agro bloke yelling and screaming at you instead of singing. The music vibe in Europe was very different to that of the US, and it was different again in Australia.

In Australia in the 70s and 80s a lot of pubs were also music venues, they had a large "lounge" bar with a stage at one end and people went to their local pub to see live bands. The bands had to be far more than just musicians, they had to be entertainers, and if they weren't good enough people would start throwing glasses and beer jugs at them. Some pubs had chicken wire around the stage specifically because of this. This is where most of our musicians cut their teeth, and this is where Aussie Pub Rock was born.

There was a strange law in Australia back in the 70s from when our society was still dominated by religion, very few people remember this now but it was called the 60/40 law. Live bands were only allowed to play 40% new music and had to play at least 60% older tunes that the old folks could sing along with, this created some very strange musical events, a mixture of hard rock and daggy old country and western songs.

There's a reference to this law in the Cold Chisel song Bow River - "Only 60 separates me from a big time band." This clip is from a reunion concert 30 years after the band split up.

Aussie musicians weren't "in competition" with each other either, they were more like one huge family that worked and played together and it was quite common to see members from one band come on stage and collaborate with others for the sake of music, and bands split up and reformed with different members quite often.