Music was despicable in 1981. MTV started in August of that year, and music was just the shittiest corporate MTV-whoring pusillanimous-so-they–can-fit-more-ads-on-the-radio caca. Think Phil Collins, "Something In The Air Tonight", and Kim Carnes "Bette Davis Eyes", and Rick Springfield's "Jesse's Girl". There were glimmers at the edges - The Stray Cats, Adam and the Ants, "Taintend Love". The Clash were a bright bit of light when they rocked the casbah in 1982. 1983 Cyndi Lauper said Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and Quiet Riot made metal a thing that got played on the radio with "Cum on Feel the Noize". (Yeah, you kids today think you are so cool with your alt-spellings...) It was a Dark Time for music. But, this dark time did a lot for the future of music... A few of the bands founded in the 81-83 timeframe: Anthrax Foetus Front 242 Beastie Boys Butthole Surfers Dead Can Dance Loudness Metallica Throwing Muses Tom Tom Club Pantera Run DMC Shonen Knife Dio Crazy 8s The Lords of the New Church Nitzer Ebb They Might Be Giants The Pogues Public Enemy Voivod Queensryche WASP Art of Noise Bronski Beat Bon Jovi The Housemartins (say hi to Fatboy Slim's first band!) The Dead Milkmen The L.A. Guns (1/2 of Guns and Roses, later on) Megadeth Melvins My Bloody Valentine Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Phish Red Hot Chili Peppers So yeah... the suck of the early 1980's drove people off the their asses, and got them to form many of the bands that still define many genres of music today. And that's just over 3 years...
Thanks for sharing goobster. There are definitely some bands in there that maybe shouldnt have been formed. Cough... Bon Jovi. I’ve been wanting to dedicate some time to listening to Dead Milkmen again. Haven’t since I was a kid. Will fix that now. Thanks for that nudge.
Yeah... not a fan of Bon Jovi either, but I can respect that the dude can draw a CROWD, and has had oodles of hits over several decades. There's definitely some there there, but it's not my kind of thing. It's funny. I was going to list 2 or 3 bands that started in the early 80's... but the list was just SO AMAZING, I kept going. Such a range of things... Nick Cave and Run DMC started the same year as Metallica?!? Really? Crazy stuff.