Week 46: 50 Albums That Changed Music

[BradH]

...but really, anything coulda been on that guys turntable just before he died...

That's true but I remember this album was taken very seriously by the critics when it was released and I've met a lot of people who swear by it. Personally, I never understood why. I'm sure Bangs loved it too but I just don't see that as all that significant. At the end of the day, he was a music critic, no more, no less.

[3-LockBox]

That's true but I remember this album was taken very seriously by the critics when it was released and I've met a lot of people who swear by it. Personally, I never understood why.

Remember when this was indie music?

I think it was a sort of landmark in that it was so popular, and it devoid of guitars or drums, not that synth music was invented on this album or anything. I remember the band members on a radio talkshow, saying something like "guitars are so archaic and obsolete" (I paraphrase). It did get a lot of airplay, but acts like ABC, Soft Cell, Culture Club and Thompson Twins were going to do well whether Dare did anything or not. Besides, all this credit goes to acts like Gary Numan anyway.

I think this act and others biggest influence was that they (new romantics) were the impetous for a new era of hard rock-n-roll, that pop radio was getting so plastic sounding that listeners embraced any form of hard rock that came down the pipe, like Ratt, Motley Crue, and others. After a breif 4 or 5 year hiatus of being challenged by New Wave, hard rock, particularly heavy metal, would bum rush new romantism and bring good old fashioned hedonism back into the American rock scene.

[SlumpBuster]

bring good old fashioned hedonism back into the American rock scene.

Which led to this?

[MindGoneHaywire]

Remember when this was indie music?

I think it was a sort of landmark in that it was so popular, and it devoid of guitars or drums, not that synth music was invented on this album or anything. I remember the band members on a radio talkshow, saying something like "guitars are so archaic and obsolete" (I paraphrase). It did get a lot of airplay, but acts like ABC, Soft Cell, Culture Club and Thompson Twins were going to do well whether Dare did anything or not. Besides, all this credit goes to acts like Gary Numan anyway.

I think this act and others biggest influence was that they (new romantics) were the impetous for a new era of hard rock-n-roll, that pop radio was getting so plastic sounding that listeners embraced any form of hard rock that came down the pipe, like Ratt, Motley Crue, and others. After a breif 4 or 5 year hiatus of being challenged by New Wave, hard rock, particularly heavy metal, would bum rush new romantism and bring good old fashioned hedonism back into the American rock scene.

I agree with the idea that Yaz was superior to this, as far as technopop went. But I think the Ratts & Motley Crues were at least as much of a reaction against corporate American rock like Styx & Journey than they were having anything to do with a reaction to technopop. I never thought that they thought of this stuff as representing 'rock' music, and the radio was all Boston & Kansas & maybe Rush, along with the Eagles & Led Zeppelin, Stones, Who, etc. More attention was being paid to new work by Santana, CSN, & Fleetwood Mac at this point than any of the metal coming out of the UK like Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Judas Priest or those bands at this time. New Wave was the Cars, Devo, Talking Heads, & Blondie, more so than Depeche Mode or ABC.

My comment about Bangs was more along the lines of a joke that he offed himself after hearing something like the Human League & thinking of it as the way of the future. He might've dug it, who knows, it's not like he wasn't open-minded, but after years of writing about stuff he liked he'd had to spend some time writing about stuff he didn't, and from what I gather he didn't enjoy that all that much. I don't put all that much stock in a scenario where he hears Dare & kills himself, not that it's not possible. But I think he was one of the most important & influential rock writers ever, if not THE #1 guy in this regard. He was certainly taken more seriously than Charles Young, and I would've liked to have seen his thoughts on 80s trends, which I do think would've been more relevant than the content put out by some of those early technopop bands, many of whom actually could put a decent single together, at the very least. That is to say, I consider the void created by his passing to represent something more important than the legacy of acts like Kajagoogoo & Hayzi Fantayzee.

[SlumpBuster]

Hayzi Fantayzee.

F-Me! I had to google that one.

http://www.deadoralive.net/haysifant...ticles/pf.html

[3-LockBox]

I agree with the idea that Yaz was superior to this, as far as technopop went.

That was actually Slumpbuster who suggested Yaz - and I'm in complete agreement. Yaz Upstairs At Eric's is far superior to Dare.