Big Nights Big Riffs: The Best of 80’s Hard Rock

So much is trampled by visuals. Take music for instance. It’s supposed to be about music, which is sound, not how you look. But popular music is tied to how you look, and how you look determines how you are classified.

That classification ends up determining if millions of people hear your music or not. Kinda sad.

In the 80’s, the rise of MTV gave the glam bands of the 70’s a chance to take their visuals to TV … but many were too old or gone to capitalize. Music trends move fast.

Marc Bolan and his T-Rex project were both gone by the time MTV came around. He would have dominated the format.

Instead, the underground LA rock scene glammed up and set the hard rock trends for the decade – the standard leather and biker chains now mixed with spandex, mascara and hair spray. Celebrate misogymy while crossdressing!?! This combo was most excellent to the white kids of the 80’s.

Guitar riffs and solos ruled the day. The more majestic the better. Over the top was the name of the game.

Lots of funny pictures and videos exist. But what about the music?

Quiet Riot started broke & grimy in LA in 1977. By 1983 they were MTV superstars and #1 on the charts, even knocking Michael Jackson out of the top spot.

OK some of it was crap. Like any trendy genre, everyone tried getting in. Some really sucked. I won’t name names.

Hopefully I avoided all of that ;-).

I have long defended the artists of that era that were making good music along with the funny videos and pictures. In the same way I defend funk music of the 70’s even though there’s some ridiculousness in there, I defend 80’s rock because there’s some real good music and performances that should not get overlooked.

So I had to get a playlist going. Prove it!

My unlimited Amazon Music HD subscription is not being wasted. Here’s 100+ songs that show the juice that keeps the fans loving this music — the songs.