1981




1981
a strange time for music
a rant inspired by the music in front of me

1981 can be viewed as some sort of musical halfway point for many bands
1981 may be viewed as being the genesis of others
bands like the police and the clash went from tough and raw to polished and ready for the radio


meanwhile a bunch of teenage kids in washington dc were building on the rawness of punk and expanding it

starting off with the simplicity of a few chords and a scream
then evolving into something much more complex
complex in composition

complex in thought

this was a wonderful time

as some bands grew to become stadium performers with highly produced records and stylized MTV videos
the music video a form of entertainment that had never really existed before
college radio focused on the obscure sounds of folk music
folk music of the modern day
REM and U2 played a music that was spawned from the culture around them
the wrote music and sang songs that had soul
there was so much music that was a byproduct of the culture around them


it was not just in washington dc where there was this development of an expressive music being underproduced by underage kids
there was this expressive explosion happening simultaneously across the country
so much spawing independently of the other
as there was not the mass communication that exists today
and mtv had not yet infected us with the grind and total request live
heck... what little of mtv did exist was an all music video channel that had not reached the masses
as the majority of people did not yet have cable available to their homes
yes it is true

no it is not sad

I am no rock historian
but I am pleased to follow the tangent of the cable television radio station retro active
a station that is helping me to experience a short
travel through time
as the police played a song off ghost in the machine ended to the start of the clash guns of brixton which was pre-Combat Rock, but an image from that era sat on the screen with more contemporary images to follow
the clash ended with a song from 1981 by U2; gloria

as I finished my thought I anticipated U2 to end with REM
like some sort of prophecy
but no.... the B-52s
and not an early B-52s song
a late B-52s song... ROAM... a song from the radio... a song from the later part of the B-52s
a song from the second half of the B-52s

my prophecy may have missed its mark
but the tangent continues with the band's history
as well as closing things with a six degrees of separation tangent
as the B-52s are from Athens Georgia and so is REM