It's interesting that while the eighties created some excellent new stars who have gone the distance, it seems to be that seventies musicians often went awful in the eighties. Rod Stewart produced a load of slush that had he asked the Faces to play it, they'd have gone on strike and Elton John produced some real dirges like Blue Eyes and Nikita , while a few years earlier he was releasing some excellent music. Also seventies rock legends Rainbow turned into some awful Americanised AOR band, Fleetwood Mac had gone from blues to boring, Pink Floyd started well but by the late eighties had become bland and lacking in bite, and Yes must have upset most of their British fans by producing a near pop album.

Rod Stewart has not produced anything of any value since his album Every Picture Tells A Story in 1971 , just lame covers & bland MOR

Mind you he seemed to lose any kind of critical acclaim in the eighties. It was a shame as many seventies bands lost their way in the eighties, even one of my favourites, Queen, produced Hot Space, their worst album ever, and The Miracle was fairly bland as well. One I do admire for producing a synth based album was the ELO, who produced Time in 1981 and it was a brave move from their seventies sound but still sounded good and sold well.
Mind you Fleetwood Mac's rot set in when they met Lyndsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks and this continued through the eighties.

I'd argue that Blue Eyes is probably one of Elton's best moments on vinyl, and the only really great song he produced in the 80s.

Rod Stewart began to go downhill in 1974 after he moved to the States. Sailing was the start of his musical sell-out although it's not that bad a song in itself. There was soon much worse to come, eg Da Ya Think I'm Sexy in 1978.

A classic example of someone who was great in the '70s but recorded weak material in the 80s was Phil Collins. Before he became a solo artist he did some very worthwhile stuff with Genesis when they were still a prog act. An example of Phil when he was good (imo).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5i-qcqX-yk

Phil Collins wasn't bad, but I'll admit Something in the Air Tonight is hardly Spot The Pigeon.
Also we could add The Rolling Stones to the list. Their heyday had passed by about 1975, but in the eighties they produced the God awful Dirty Work album and Mick's solo work was terrible. Not to mention Bill Wyman trying to be a solo star.
However, those stars who were mainly from the eighties like U2 and Madonna have certainly gone the distance and are still good now.

Talking Heads, Public Image Ltd, Joy Division/New Order, Black Uhuru, The Specials, Elvis Costello, The Clash, Kate Bush all made it across from the 70s to the 80s quite successfully.

Very true, but all of these only came into prominence towards the end of the decade, as opposed to the other artists mentioned here. Acts only releasing debut albums in 1977, 1978 and 1979 presumably wouldn't have so many problems adapting their signature sound to the 80s, compared to those who established their style in the late 60s/early 70s.

I was thinking more of bands and singers who became popular in the early and mid seventies, but who didn't adapt well to the eighties and released some poor music. Richie Blackmore's Rainbow had been a very good successor to Deep Purple in the seventies, but the Joe Lynn Turner years in the early eighties saw them produce some dire American AOR that alienated the fans and saw the band break up.
Those singers and bands from the latter part of the decade adapted better. A band like Iron Maiden dominated British metal all through the eighties as they came up through the punk era and adapted to the change to shorter songs and fewer solos.

There are also 60s bands like Chicago and Blood Sweat & Tears which started out as pioneering jazz-rock bands but lost their way during the 70s. BS&T's first album is outstanding but they never came near its quality again, whilst Chicago went from exciting in the 60s to blander-than-American-cheese in the 80s.

The Eighties may have produced a few excellent stars, but not that many. There's an awful lot of music that was popular in the Eighties that has now been effectively written out of music history it was so naff - I know because my brother and sister were listening to it and you never hear about those artists today!!

A lot of the Seventies artists kind of sold out in the '80s in order to stay relevant. A lot of it was down to technological changes - the introduction of drum machines and synthesisers, which quickly became ubiquitous.


I don't know why you'd single Blue Eyes out as a dirge in John's catalogue. That was like an attempt to do a Frank Sinatra style, easy listening ballad from the '40s/'50s. I thought he did that one quite well.

Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting or The Bitch is Back - THEY were dirges!!

Going backwards, I remember Kool and the Gang being boring in the 80s, in fact the complete opposite of 'Kool', but then years later I heard some really cool, funky music on a 70s retro radio show presented by Noddy Holder, and he back announced it as... Kool and the Gang!

Just the pressure of needing hits to stay on the label I guess... sugary sweet love songs like 'Cherish' sell more than something great like FUNKY MAN!

Oh dear.

james brown

When I first heard that song, I thought it was Bryan Ferry!

The big difference between Phil Collins' music in the '70s and the '80s was that he wasn't writing anything in the '70s. He wrote one Genesis lyric on his own in the '70s (Scenes From a Night's Dream).

In the '80s he got under the misapprehension that he was a songwriter, encouraged by the other members of Genesis and by prats like Terry Wogan.

Is that a joke? Who the **** remembers Spot the Pigeon?



I can't stand Madonna myself. One of the crappest, most overrated singers ever. Can't bear virtually anything she's done since the end of the '80s and she's responsible for the worst Bond song ever. Each to their own though.

Yes, there is a similarity. Bryan Ferry always fancied himself as an old-style crooner didn't he?

Wasn't it a cartoon with some bloke and his dog in a World War 1 biplane?

David Bowie has said numerous times he wasn't happy with his 80s output, and to be fair it's his weakest decade, but then it depends what you like as he had a lot of commercial success at the same time.

Bowie dubbed it his "Phil Collins years", which kind of says it all.

Clapton has also distanced himself from quite a bit of his '80s output, some of which was produced by Phil Collins.

And Press to Play is hardly going to be remembered as Paul McCartney's greatest achievement. And guess who was on that too? Phil Collins!!!!!

It was Phil Collins' decade really. He was EVERYWHERE.

He was good up until 1983, but his work went downhill after 83. Tin Machine were dire and his chart performance seemed to get worse from the mid eighties onwards. I'd generally say Bowie was at his peak in the seventies, when he tried everything from electronica to American soul.
One of the most interesting comebacks, which proved fairly successful, were Slade, who'd been virtually dead in the late seventies, and re invented themselves as a hard rock band and headlined Reading. I actually think their eighties work was good.

Noddy Holder had a superb radio show in the 90s, playing all sorts of music from the seventies, including great songs by Kool and the Gang.

Most of what I know about 70s music comes from listening to that show while getting ready on a Saturday night.

In my opinion even Kate Bush went downhill somewhat in the '80s. Her earliest stuff is beautiful and timeless - the same can't be said for stuff like The Hounds of Love - full of drum machines, synths and Fairlights that date it firmly to the mid '80s.

It's true that Kate got a bit too over produced compared to her beautiful early piano based stuff but Hounds of Love is still brilliant.

I know The Hounds of Love is generally considered her greatest album. I find it the most date stamped tbh.

Eh? Elton John & Bryan Ferry don't sound anything alike. They've both got very distinctive voices. I don't understand how anyone could confuse the two.

Elton John - Blue Eyes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CiyKeSnSxk

Also from 1982

Roxy Music - Avalon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpA_5a0miWk