Dear America,
Please buy our albums! We need to pay for hip replacements.
xoxo,
Duran Duran, Mötley Crüe, Billy Idol, Tears For Fears
Before you shed a tear, though, read this article about why nostalgia acts (not Usher’s abs) are making the big bucks.
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I know I’d rather watch 3rd rate stand up comics and associate editors from crappy magazines make lame comments behind a seemingly endless flood of celebrity stock footage than listen to NEW MUSIC. Why waste your time with new music when you can listen to some SNL reject making fun of an old music videos.
Sure most of these records will suck, but I’ve heard most of the Tears for Fears and it’s pretty good.
http://sites.gizoogle.com/?url=http://www.stereogum.com
I thought it was Bono until right now…
Ok, Billy, George, Duran (I refuse to repeat it again), Robert…who’s the chick with the burlap sack for a dress and the blotchy red hair?
Deborah Harry
Deborah Harry
The people buying this crap really have no other option. They do not know where to hear better music, so they stick with the stuff that was cool when they were young.
Where would a forty year old guy/girl hear a new song from Neutral Milk Hotel (PLACE NEW BAND OF CHOICE HERE)? The answer is nowhere. Radio sucks, the Grammys suck, and you can never see a video on MTV.
So older people buy this re-hashed pre-approved packaged bullshit that the music conglomerates can bank their quarterly profits on. Just looking at Duran Duran makes me want to puke.
My thoughts.
The Curse of Blondie was a great album.
Debbie Harry is great.
Tears for Fears rocked then and rock now. Duran Duran’s “Rio” album is genius.
The others…no opinion.
But beware the knee-jerk “80′s suck” reaction–it’s not that easy.
I really don’t know why they’re including Tears for Fears on the list. They don’t deserve it.
Fairly Balanced,
Where would anyone hear a NEW Neutral Milk Hotel song? They’ve been defunct for a very long time now.
http://sites.gizoogle.com/?url=http://www.stereogum.com
HA HA HA HA
The Britney letter is particularly hilarious (hizzilarious? wtf.) if you do this….
You can be stuck in a time warp if you want to, Buy Sirius radio or XM, they have channels dedicated to the genre of your choice, 80′s, 90′s, 60′s Metal, what have you. Personally, I’m stuck on the “Chill” channel on Sirius, “trip hop” or low tempo “electronica” type music that introduces me to new groups in the genre that I enjoy. The same is true for the 80′s and Heavy Metal stations too.
Satalite Radio.
why aren’t the fucking beastie boys up there instead of in the paid spot on the right?
True Paul, but it doesn’t change my point.
w. t. f. did Boy George do to himself these days? Is that spraypaint on his neck? *shudder*
OK so I’m slightly defensive but Duran Duran never went away. They have released 13 original albums in 20 years and sound better than ever.
no, duran duran deserve to drown with the rest of the muck from the 80′s. current fans need to stop pretending the group actually has any artistic credibility.
better them than pseudo singers ala hillary duff,lindsay lohan and god forbid,Paris the media whore Hilton.
Eeeep! Is that Debbie Harry or Auntie Mame?!?
Fairly Balanced: Did you even read the “We Hate the 80s” article? Not a whole lot of fans, fortysomething or not, are buying the stuff.
Older folks may have more sense than you think…
@ShoeString – I’m not asking you to like Duran (although I doubt you’ve heard any of their newer material), but they do deserve some respect for sticking around for 27 years and writing all their own material.
That PETA advertisement you got on your site is a hoax: http://www.beastieboys.com/news.php?id=44651
PETA really need to take a good look at themselves. If they intend to get people on their side then I’d suggest they stop running false promotions like this.
I don’t really get this article. People don’t hate the 80s, or musicians from that era. They just don’t particularly want to hear new stuff from artists who were big back then. Which you could say about the 70s, 60s…
Agree, Justin. Just because I’d rather be dragged by my ankles down the highway that see Robert Smith in his current sad state or buy his new album doesn’t mean that he wasn’t a major force at one time. I like sorting through back catalogs and learning music history just as much as discovering new stuff.
Fairly Balanced – watch who you’re calling old, whippersnapper, or I’ll make sure to be there in spirit when some kid 20 years from now calls you over the hill and out of touch when you buy your tickets to the Neutral Milk Hotel reunion tour.
And I think we all need to support Motley Crue so Vince Neil can get another facelift or three. He needs it.
That picture of Debbie is really fucking funny.
The article ? despite its mostly IRONIC title ? is very acknowledging of how huge the ’80s and its nostalgia were and is. It mentions how ’80s nostalgia has lasted almost as long as the ’80s itself! Which, as the author noted, is uheard of.
The piece revolves around a simple question: Why do popular ’80s artists struggle to sell new music during the decades run of nostalgia? The main answer of course being the evolution of music itself (i.e. trends). Historically, older artists don’t sell too well to musics target audience: Trendy teenagers and twenty-somethings with money to spend. Also, because of limited incomes due to bills and/or families to support, the nostalgic thirty-somethings don’t have the money and/or time to spend on CD buying. Which in turn causes lack of promotion. Record companies don’t want to spend a lot of money advertising to a group of people who don’t spend a lot on CDs. You can’t buy something that you don’t even know exists.
As a subscriber to the NY Times, I was very shocked that the idea for this article was even green-lighted. I mean, anyone who knows music well knows the easy answers to the question posed by this piece. Not challenging at all. I’m guessing that this article was just plain filler material.
PS ~ Did a couple of you even read the whole article? Or any of it outside the title?