Music of the United Kingdom (1980s)
Influenced by David Bowie and Roxy Music, it developed glam rock fashions, gaining its name from the frilly fop shirts of early Romanticism.
Notable early gothic rock bands include Bauhaus (whose "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is often cited as the first goth record), Siouxsie and the Banshees (who may have coined the term), The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy, and Fields of the Nephilim.
[7] Gothic rock gave rise to a broader goth subculture that included clubs, various fashion trends and numerous publications that grew in popularity in the 1980s, gaining notoriety by being associated by several moral panics over suicide and Satanism.
The Jesus and Mary Chain wrapped their pop melodies in walls of guitar noise, while New Order emerged from the demise of post-punk band Joy Division and experimented with techno and house music, forging the alternative dance style.
Named for the bandmembers' tendency to stare at their feet onstage, shoegazing acts like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, and Lush created an overwhelmingly loud "wash of sound" that obscured vocals and melodies with long, droning riffs, distortion, and feedback.
Based around The Haçienda, a nightclub in Manchester owned by New Order and Factory Records, Madchester bands such as The Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays mixed acid house dance rhythms with melodic guitar pop.
[15] Grindcore, or simply grind, emerged during the mid-1980s as an extreme music genre characterised by heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, high speed tempo, blast beats, songs often lasting no more than two minutes (some are seconds long), and vocals which consist of growls and high-pitched screams.
There were also more conventional pop acts, including Bucks Fizz, whose light lyrics and simple tempos gave them three number ones after their Eurovision Song Contest victory in 1981.
[20] Another band that dominated the charts within the early to mid-1980s were Culture Club with a blend of soul, rock, pop, new wave and reggae gathered them nine top ten hits and two number ones until they broke up in 1986.
Tubeway Army, a little known outfit from West London, dropped their punk rock image and topped the UK charts in 1979 with the single "Are Friends Electric?
In the early 1980s hi energy disco had become popular in the gay scene of American cities like New York and San Francisco with acts like Divine, and The Weather Girls.
[22] In 1983 in the UK, music magazine Record Mirror championed the gay underground sound and began publishing a weekly Hi-NRG Chart.
[23] Hi-NRG also entered the mainstream with hits in the UK singles chart, such as Hazell Dean's "Searchin' (I Gotta Find a Man)" and Evelyn Thomas's "High Energy".
[24][25] In the mid-1980s, Hi-NRG producers in the dance and the main singles charts included Ian Levine and trio Stock Aitken Waterman, both of whom worked with many different artists.
Their artists dominated British pop music and the charts in the late 1980s, including Bananarama, Rick Astley and Australian actress Kylie Minogue.
[29] This interest was reflected in a series of covers or songs inspired by soul for a number of major acts, including Phil Collins's "You Can't Hurry Love" (1982), Culture Club's "Church of the Poison Mind" (1983), The Style Council's "Shout to the Top", (1984) Eurythmics' "Missionary Man" (1986), and Steve Winwood "Roll with It" (1988).
In the early 1980s, a UK house scene developed in cities such as London, Birmingham and Manchester, particularly at The Haçienda Club and on the holiday island of Ibiza.
[38] By late 1987, DJs like Paul Oakenfold and Danny Rampling were bringing the Ibiza sound to UK clubs like Shoom in Southwark (London), Heaven, Future, Spectrum and Purple Raines in Birmingham.
Another major milestone for house music was when "Jack Your Body" by American DJ Steve "Silk" Hurley became the first record from the genre to reach the number one spot in the UK Singles Chart in January 1987.
[40] Initially this UK jazz dance scene was led by DJs like Paul Murphy, but it soon expanded to support live bands and to start its own record labels.
[40] Having emerged from the post-punk and reggae scenes in the West Midlands in the 1970s, the ska revival associated with 2 Tone records was a remarkable commercial success in the early years of the 1980s.
[42] Madness managed to sustain a career that could still chart into the second half of the 1980s, but the 2-tone movement faded early in the decade, and would have a longer term effect through American bands of the third wave of ska.
[47] Alaap's 1979 album Teri Chunni de Sitare for Multitone records, mixed traditional dhol and tumbi with synthesisers and electro beats and was a surprise hit to those outside of the scene.
It opened the door for a flood of Asian recording artists in the UK including Apna Sangeet, Chirag Pehchan, Sangeeta and DCS.
[48] Multitone Records began to release remix albums, and bhangra picked up influences from hip hop and soul, producing groups like X-executive Sounds and Hustlers convention.
Other 1980s forms of British Indian music included the punk rock and rap of Aki Nawaz, the pop of Sheila Chandra, the hip hop of Joi Bangla and Osmani Sounds, and the ghazal/jazz fusion of Najma Akhtar.
[51][52] With considerable boost from MTV airplay during July 1982, The Human League's "Don't You Want Me" had a three-week reign on top of the Billboard 100 chart, described by the Village Voice as the moment the Second British Invasion kicked off.
