acceptable in the 80’s
Music, music, music.
As a decade, the 80s was one of the most inspirational, creative, and progressive periods in popular music history. Women were at the forefront as performers, as female liberation and empowerment continued to be both expressed and celebrated.
But, alas, all the impressive feats seem to remain with the male artists. on average for every year that has been profiled, 80% of the achievements mentioned were male ones.
The explosion of music in the 1980’s saw the overwhelming jump of tabloid coverage of the private lives of musicians (which explains why a significant number of the year’s facts of women in rock actually have little to do with their music careers).
The walkman was introduced in 1981, the beginning of true portablitly and personal experiences in music.
MTV launched in 1981, suddenly meant that music wasn’t just about the song but it made the looks important too. The 1980’s saw the rise of the megastar- the image, the power ballad, the immense impression it left for the fture of musicians and performers to aspire to.
One of the biggest stars in rock in the 1980’s was Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders. With a debut album released in 1980, sbsequent drama and immense success followed her every move. She found love with the Kinks’ Ray Davis, she has a child, she manages to top the charts with singles and albums. She also loses two band members to drug overdoses.
Marianne Faithful makes a very well recieved comeback with the critically acclaimed album “Broken English” in 1980. She states although she is over the heroin addiction, she has been living off the royalties of the Rolling Stones song “Sister Morphine” which she wrote, telling the press during her comeback “don’t tell me that drugs don’t pay.”
The early 1980’s was important for new-wave band Blondie. 1980 saw the release of “AutoAmerican” which reached top ten in both the US and UK. Debbie Harry furthered her image as style icon, signing an endorsement deal with Muirjani designer jeans. The following year she released a solo album “:Koo Koo” and in ‘82 her majorscreen debut in “Videodrome”is cited as a major contributing factor to the break up of Blondie in the same month.
Joan Jett “slimmed down and prettified” release the song “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” with her newly formed band the Blackhearts in 1981. The immense hit was surely helped by her former success in the all-girl heavy metal band the Runaways.
Inveitably te 80swas all about image.
we can see it in Debbie Harrys transformation as a major, multi-media star, the phsical change of Joan Jett, the characters put forward by artists like Madonna.
The 80s was when females recognised the power of using the sexuality, body and gender to sell their music (or themselves). It can be argued as both exploitative and empowering but at the end of the day, these women are still icons today.
A major “fashion” with a lot of the new-wave and elctro bands was ‘gender-bending’ where men took on very female personas. Boy George is the most obvious example. This use of feminity can be both shocking and impressive, MTV was utilised now by bands to sell the band as a package rather than just music. Androgeny was also popular, with neither male nor female characteristics of dress adopted.
by kass.
