Glamour Life Vol. 1: Fashion, Nightlife & High Society In Library Music 1980-1990
A few of the more tiresome terms one comes across in reference to a lot of music from the 80s are “cheesy” and “corny.” I dislike these terms as much as “kitsch” when describing works with actual artistic value. These terms are especially irritating because they are an unthinking form of aesthetic distancing and an attempt to place the listener above the work.
Much of this attitude, I think, stems from the 1990s and the excessive backlash the alternative generation (which is also MY generation) had against the previous one, reclassifying it as embarrassing. There’s an important distinction between bad music that happens to use dated and unrefined conventions and good music whose conventions have gone out of fashion. But this distinction was not noted during the 1990s, as there was an ugly policing of tastes that required an almost obligatory public rejection of the sounds and fashions of the 1980s. Anyone not alive and in their teens by the 1990s might find this chapter of Anglo-American culture hard to understand, but it was very real, very unecessary, and very stupid.
The irony is that many sounds once mocked as hopelessly dated have since been redefined/rediscovered by the newer generation (and some of the old). Genres like city pop, boogie, synth-pop, sophisticated commercial pop have in the last decade or so experienced a real period of rehabilitation. And the fact is, obviously, the recordings never changed, but the cultural permission to enjoy them did.
The irony here is that almost NO ONE was listening to the library music I share on this mix in the 1980s. At least, not that they knew of. It may have seeped into their ears when they saw a blip on a fashion runway on TV, or a brief scene of a Corvette winding through Hollywood on some random commercial. But the sounds ARE the very same ones that were enjoyed in the ’80s and widely rejected for the next 10–20 years, beginning in the early ’90s.
Despite all this, for most of my adult life, I’ve preferred the sounds of the ’70s when it comes to library music; the ’50s–’60s when it comes to jazz; the ’20s–’50s with blues; and usually the ’70s with almost everything else globally. In the last five years or so, though, I have leaned a lot more into ’80s sounds: city pop, boogie, late disco especially, and, of course, library music. Recently, I did a deep dive into Match Music Library, a label I had never really paid much attention to, and I came across a wild and crazy guy! No, not that Steve Martin, but another Steve Martin who also goes by a bunch of aliases. He’s the founder of Match Music Library, and a lot of his tracks appear on this mix, along with tracks from other artists and labels of course.
I am not upper-class. But I do own a bar, visit fancy bars, drink a lot of fancy cocktails, and pretend to be refined every now and then when I travel around Asia. If I could transport my life along with all of these romantic ideas to the 1980s, I probably would, and the soundtrack I’d select to play behind it would be right here.
Much of this attitude, I think, stems from the 1990s and the excessive backlash the alternative generation (which is also MY generation) had against the previous one, reclassifying it as embarrassing. There’s an important distinction between bad music that happens to use dated and unrefined conventions and good music whose conventions have gone out of fashion. But this distinction was not noted during the 1990s, as there was an ugly policing of tastes that required an almost obligatory public rejection of the sounds and fashions of the 1980s. Anyone not alive and in their teens by the 1990s might find this chapter of Anglo-American culture hard to understand, but it was very real, very unecessary, and very stupid.
The irony is that many sounds once mocked as hopelessly dated have since been redefined/rediscovered by the newer generation (and some of the old). Genres like city pop, boogie, synth-pop, sophisticated commercial pop have in the last decade or so experienced a real period of rehabilitation. And the fact is, obviously, the recordings never changed, but the cultural permission to enjoy them did.
The irony here is that almost NO ONE was listening to the library music I share on this mix in the 1980s. At least, not that they knew of. It may have seeped into their ears when they saw a blip on a fashion runway on TV, or a brief scene of a Corvette winding through Hollywood on some random commercial. But the sounds ARE the very same ones that were enjoyed in the ’80s and widely rejected for the next 10–20 years, beginning in the early ’90s.
Despite all this, for most of my adult life, I’ve preferred the sounds of the ’70s when it comes to library music; the ’50s–’60s when it comes to jazz; the ’20s–’50s with blues; and usually the ’70s with almost everything else globally. In the last five years or so, though, I have leaned a lot more into ’80s sounds: city pop, boogie, late disco especially, and, of course, library music. Recently, I did a deep dive into Match Music Library, a label I had never really paid much attention to, and I came across a wild and crazy guy! No, not that Steve Martin, but another Steve Martin who also goes by a bunch of aliases. He’s the founder of Match Music Library, and a lot of his tracks appear on this mix, along with tracks from other artists and labels of course.
I am not upper-class. But I do own a bar, visit fancy bars, drink a lot of fancy cocktails, and pretend to be refined every now and then when I travel around Asia. If I could transport my life along with all of these romantic ideas to the 1980s, I probably would, and the soundtrack I’d select to play behind it would be right here.
mega.nz/file/1uIClYoZ#gf2-zxydSPgjdIGBp-gt8EufBNAZ_QnKDCPdNl6Vtfo
ReplyDelete