One thing I have always found interesting for myself is that I was never a fan of most 80's music while I was living through it...well the synth pop stuff anyway.
I did like Missing Persons and the Go Go's quite a bit, and maybe early Cars (that was late 70's though), but for most of the mid 80's (84-88) I was into metal like early Ozzy, Priest and Maiden and then moved swiftly into Venom, Exodus, Slayer, Exciter and early Pre-black album Metalica, from there it was punk and hardcore for a few years, Black Flag, GBH, Naked Raygun, Minor Threat and then that evolved backwards into classic rock again like Zeppelin, Beatles & Floyd which I liked before the 80's. The only late 80's band I really liked a lot was the Cult.
Strangely it has been in the past 5 years I have been able to appreciate the sound and skill of bands like Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Japan, Talk Talk, Tears for Fears, Sade and such and now with very few exceptions, I cannot listen to most of my older hard core and extreme metal tastes.
One of the things which blows me away now about many of the 80's pop and new romantic stuff is the production and precision of the playing and the music, especially when you consider, they had no auto-tune, softsynths, pro-tools, drum editing and such...they really sang and played that tight. Amazing!
Paul
