Million different genres all of them accepted

heartshapedbox , a girl half my age is constantly amazing me with her interest and knowledge of music that dates back decades reminded me that today is the anniversary of John Bonham death. It immediately took me back to 1980, the year of his death. Yesterday I wrote about some pieces of my eighth year which was 1977 and I don’t want to write about my life in 1980 quite yet but more about the environment, the “scene”, something I’ll have to do for all the years of my life if I ever want to make a complete biography.

 

The early eights was the last era that young kids didn’t have much of a choice in the genre of music, especially if you grew up in a relatively small town that didn’t allow for any individualism. By the beginning of the eighties there was some music that came from Europe, lead by Malcolm McLaren bringing us the Sex Pistols followed by an array of “punk” bands. The Heavy Metal or Hard Rock scene largely over shadowed these bands. There was one person in my brother’s grade that had a Sex Pistols album, he was a clean cut Italian and someone you’d never associate with Punk but he was sold on the sound/lyrics and tried to sell it to everyone. Most people liked the rebellious nature but weren’t dropping their hard rock albums for this new genre, especially since there weren’t any other bands to back this sound up with. I loved it and became friends with him, hanging out on occasion to listen to it. Music wasn’t that big in my life yet and this sound wouldn’t come of age until I reached 13 at which point I became very involved in the New Music scene. More on that another day.

 

Back to the masses, everyone from grade school to university and beyond had the same albums in their collection, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC DC, Rolling Stones just to name a few. The legacy of the 60’s was still prevalent as well and bands like The Beatles kept their staying power but for the most part the psychedelic sounds had little importance and were already becoming nostalgic, tye dyed shirts were out and Elvis albums were covered in dust.

 

I view this era as the last frontier of mass conformity. I view the 50’s and prior as mass conformity amongst the youth and the 60’ with split conformity then the 70’s to early 80’s as mass conformity. Everywhere you looked everyone was dressed the same, wore the same type of shoe, styled there hair the same and listened to the same music, same running shoes, levis and only levis skin tight tappered and if bell bottom you were in for a world of heckling, t-shirts, preferably ¾ sleeve shirt white with black sleeves and a rock band iron on, or some kind of iron on. Levis jean jacket with a patch of your favorite rock band sewn on. Even down to the socks, knee high with banded strips at the top. Guys hair had to cover the ears, parted down the middle and feathered back, the longer the cooler. Girls had more variety, or at least a few choices in hairstyle, big hair or long and feathered, jeans had to be skin tight, shoes sort of varied, for the most part women were tom boys. Of course there were the nerds but they were by far not threatening the mass conformity. This last generation of conformity didn’t go down without a fight. As Saturday Night Fever sound track caught on and the disco bands increased the girls went nuts over the dancing, they had been repressed from the pleasures of dancing with a guy except for slow songs, having the male hold there ass while slowly turning in a circle for all fourteen minutes of Stairway to Heaven. This was music to dance to and it had a good beat or feel to it. Males across the country bought Disco Sucks t-shirts, claimed to hate the music and wouldn’t listen to any radio station that played it. This was all to no avail. If the guy liked the girl he would give in to this music, then convince friends it was ok and the next thing you know the girls were dressing the guy’s, Sergio Valente or designer jeans, shirts tucked in, wearing a belt, dress shoes instead of sneakers, the hair stayed the same at least for a while but the girls hair got bigger. Of course there were the “non conformists” who stayed the same and now we had two distinct groups, three if you include the nerds. I think this is when the term “rockers” came about. You also started to see punks emerge and the new era of rock or soft rock emerge which was a balance between the old and the new. Disco was the dawning of kids having there “own” identity. Although still limited to a few genres there was at least more than one.

 

And there you have it I declare the 80’s the beginning of individuality being accepted amongst kids who now have so many different styles, and I don’t know half of them. A kid that knows some or all the different groups or styles today could tell me what they are I’d appreciate it.