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In the late 70s new wave songs began to appear in the top 40. I was into this music, graduated HS in 1977 and I was ready to find new interesting rock-based music.
I think the first big New Wave hit was The Cars Just What I Needed in 1978.
Now, the question of which direction things will veer? That's not predictable. Literally, no one knows.
Case in point:
In September 1991, Geffen released Nirvana's Nevermind. No one knew what was coming. Kurt Cobain wanted to be 'as big as the Pixies'. The label liked the album, and was optimistic that it could reach 250,000 in total sales, turning a nice profit and setting up the band for continued commercial success. At it's peak, it was moving 400,000 units a week, and eventually sold 30+ million (and counting). Geffen abandoned its marketing plan for the release because sales were hitting pre-planned milestones every couple of days. They couldn't hope to keep up. They just watched in amazement as copies literally flew out the door as fast as they could press them.
No one knew.
No one had any idea.
Musical change is always on the horizon. But it's never possible to figure out in which direction that horizon lies.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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When you ask about the 70s and 80s, I remember that "disco" was started in 1970 and seemed to die off about 1979, so lasted just a decade. If you consider 1970-1990 I feel like that 20 year era had the most diverse kids of music being played regularly than any other time period. We still had the now classic rock (Led Zeppelin, Frampton) plus disco, Punk, New Wave, soft rock and heavy metal. Bands like the Bee Gees were hard to classify, with some songs of various types. In 1980 we even had the first Rap song, by Blondie of all people.
To me, the 80s means keyboard/synthesizer based music. There was a lot more experimentation going on in the 70s. I really miss the bands with great horn sections like EW&F, Chicago & Tower of Power.
Hell, even Rush and Van Halen started adding keyboards in the 80s.
I also think the music from the 70s had a lot more soul. Case in point - compare "That's the Way of the World" with "Take on Me."
For example: studio engineers would just sample and then tweak a certain snare drum sound,
save the sample, and then use it on multiple songs by multiple artists.
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