So You Want to Listen to Some 80s Pop?

Pop music in the nineteen-eighties is like pop music in general: a minefield. You no doubt know this, but you see that what with half your friends buying turntables in the last eighteen months, and other half still listening to niche genres you don't fully understand, and the third half has an habit of listening to unbearable racket and weak shit. In other words you are burdened by the fact that you enjoy music snobbishness and general one-upmanship. That kind of skullduggery is going to get you pwned, and the secret weapon, despite recent and nauseating 80s worship, is 80s pop. In an excruciating write-up, I will suggest some 80s pop cards you can hide up your album sleeves.

It is a double-edged sword of course. If you are looking for musical weapons, you're already clearly a music bastard. People no doubt gather just to whisper in awed tones about your musical unorthodoxies and iconoclastic statements. I like to imagine that I am impartial. There was a diseased time when I cared a little too much about what I listened to, and felt sharply any criticism of my musical taste. Then I realized it was all a consumerist defense reflex and let it go. Mostly. You never come all the way back from musical snobbery.



I disclaim any knowledge of 80s pop, proper. I am not a musical scholar nor critic. I don't pretend to be, though sometimes I do facetious music reviews a la American Psycho. Always good for a laugh. I must at this point duly apologize for the digressions, but to be honest there is no blog standard. I mean, there is obviously a gold standard for blogs, but I am quite ignorant of it.

Now 80s pop is quality background music for discerning musical pacifists. Because it happened so long ago in the opening years of our era, it is pointless to dispute about it. It is still a part of everything. There are few people on earth who would object to putting on the record Thriller. But M.J. is pretty mainstream, say. You are discerning, or enjoy the illusion of being discerning, and mainstream things are always just short of being entirely cool enough.

And there are songs you can depend on hearing at least once per year for the rest of your life, assuming radio does not die. When I was a juvenile I had a passionate hatred for the 80s which persisted until I stopped caring so much about antagonizing everybody. I even used to antagonize family by mocking and condemning them for listening to M.J. I too was a miserable brat, and that disclosure goes out to the parents, many props to some of you.

For a twentysomething, you've got to be smart about music if you want to run with some of the faster crowds. If you listen to anything boring they will laugh at you to your face. If you obviously are trying too hard to be unique they will mock you and ignore your music. If you follow critical regard you will be called a bourgeois slave, and if you attempt to disregard all critical sense you are brave and reckless and it might work out for you. To be honest I respect bitterness in musical choice: being tin-eared is a gift that should never be wasted.

Obviously the only 80s pop album you should have if you need to back up a claim is Roxy Music's Avalon. If you object to this album you should reconsider pretending to know things about 80s pop. While the deplorable state of pop music in general does not exactly reflect this album's influence, it was a major achievement in its time and has stood up unbelievably even in the last four or five years.

Lets face it though. Some of your friends may suspect you like the album ironically, like some of Roxy Music's other work, and they might consider you a damn poser. That's thin ice to play shinny on. Other of your friends will not believe you have an earnest appreciation for the album in question, and take you as a fool anyway.

Because of these factors you will be without an 80s pop standby that nobody else uses, and that is actually listenable and at least a little atmospheric. Avalon is great to set the mood with your favourites, and equally good at awkwarding people in general. It'll overplay at some point, and you'll need to step up your game so you can obscure your tendencies.

Prefab Sprout is the band I'll throw out as your solution. You want to listen to some 80s pop? Tired of this nauseating nonsense you keep hearing around the town? What little and poor advice I have is to encourage you to get a Prefab Sprout album. They're obviously not going to be hipster-proof, but Prefab Sprout are iconic and should've been monolithic as well, except I needed a trump card in the 2010's music politics crisis. 

Since I know little to nothing about the 80s I have to go by ear. Since I have to like the early, more pure albums of a group in order to be really musically 'literate' and understanding, and because it has to be 80s pop, it can't be any of Prefab Sprout's post-1990 stuff. Since I am uncomfortably aware of hipsterism I know I cannot like the first album. And this is the first and clearest example of why Prefab Sprout are excellent: their first album is almost entirely inaccessible, so there's no pressure to like it or even admit to having listened to it. Plus if anyone does try to play the old 'loved their first album' trick, you'll know what they don't.

Prefab Sprout have a conceited name and all, and you may need a little time to appreciate their style, but the payoff is endless. Their second album, Steve McQueen, explains itself by its cover and is where the interested listener should start. This album helped to validate 1985 musically, and contains the 80s power ballad. All that hair metal rock you admit to liking has been secretly outplayed for a long time, in fact always, by this obscure eighties English pop group. When people hear that joint at a sweaty late-night boozer, they will probably attack you out of pure shame and fright.

But Steve McQueen is a long shot. The really, really good songs are there, and the album plays smoothly, but it fizzles. It fizzles pretty hard on the last songs. And it isn't hard enough or aggressive enough or catchy or universal enough to be played for crowds or at parties. Then again I wasn't suggesting songs for your iPod DJ event, you sneaky lazy hyper-hip super-ironic counter-counter-counterculture maniac.

Prefab's third album sounds like pastel colours for the most part, and except for the standout track "The King of Rock 'N' Roll" is kind of a wasteland. It is sugary enough to be hostile, too generically 80s to really invite attention, and generally too soft and noisy to impress. You may find that you disagree, but it has maybe three songs that are good and an additional one that is worthwhile. It is a largely unpalatable album and I don't understand its appeal.

The saving grace is album four, Protest Songs, which is probably Prefab Sprout's best album. While it is generally considered unimportant and was sort of shit out of the machine, this is the high point of their 80s work. Negative purviews of this album are likely by people who hate music or themselves or other people enjoying music. Protest Songs is a little baroque and romantic, but not excessively like in Langley Park/Memphis, and is surprisingly solid. The whole album plays on a consistent tone and since none of the songs on it are ever played anywhere or popular at all, but still really unique and cool and sometimes even haunt you a bit like a bad fever chill. It's got The Anthem for recessions and economic woe which makes it very fitting to play right now.

Even Protest Songs gets a bit weak around the middle, though. Nothing is perfect, after all. So if you needed some 80s tunes help, I hope I helped. If not, well, there's always the 70s isn't there? Way more less appreciated... 10 years more classic...