NMF: I Love the 80s

I've mentioned many times that I tend to lose a lot of stuff. I usually just blame myself and not thieves. But I do think somebody stole my old iPod photo off a table in Starbucks in Santa Barbara, CA this week. That sucks.

So anyway, this week's New Music Friday is a special "I Love the 80s" version, in which I highlight four of my favorite jams from that decade of tightly rolled tight jeans and girls with 8 inch hair. For some background I feel compelled to disclaim the following selection of music comes from a time when I lived in a town that only had a couple radio stations that could be picked up in the car and they were both AM and country western. And my older brother was a metalhead. So that's mostly what I was exposed to in the pop music front. And today, I'm only focusing on the metal songs.


Ballad of Jayne -- LA Guns
I've often wondered how the marketing genius who came up with the name "LA Guns" was. That stupid transparent ripoff name screamed "wannabe GnR" like the lead singer of the band himiself. It's really too bad, as I have to say that I reallly liked a good number of LA Guns' songs. And this gaudy ballad is their best, sappy as it is. I'm thinking a good Cody-ized, bluesified cover of this song would probably rock the house. I might have to crank one out.

Scared -- Dangerous Toys
I remember the first time I ever heard this song was when Adam Curry intro'd the band on TRL's precursor and he called this band "The NEXT Guns and Roses". Hmm, we seem to have a theme going here, don't we? Anyway, this band hailed from Austin, TX, and my older bro was living there at the time, so I gave DT a special chance. And this song, truth be told, still makes me tap the desk, though it's no classic.

Don't Close Your Eyes -- Kix
For some reason iTunes has this very flattering write up of this horrid band. I remember this song as their best, even though it, for some even more unexplainable reason isn't even available on their greatest hits album or on iTunes at all for that matter. At any rate, the song had a pretty good hook in it for the chorus when the dude screams "Don't close your eyes! Don't close your ey-i-eyes!"

Fly to The Angels -- Slaughter
I almost highlighted the better, more rockin, "Up All Night" for this bad band, but to stick with the iTunes theme of having no good reason, I chose this bad balad instead. I guess it's sorta pretty. How's that for a ringing endorsement. Here's something else I guess I could add, by saying that this band sure owes a lot to KISS, including the theme of that "Up All Night" song, no? ("Rock n Roll All Night"...)


I'm not going to highlight the worst cheesedick hairband songs from the era, including Warrant, Poison and all those other plastic bands that helped create the boy-band frenzy that later developed in the decade of the 1990s.

You do realize all those people who are proud to listen to Coldplay today will be in the same boat as the actual fans of these bands are, right? Is there a band with less soul, more sanitized and corporate-ified than those dudes?


Come back for next week's New Music Friday when I highlight my favorite new artist out there right now:

Who else but Ashley Simpson?! (Yes, I'm kidding.)


Finally, I'll quote Bob Lefsetz quoting Lisa Lampanelli at Pamela Anderson's roast:
"Pam Anderson has dated Scott Baio, the singer from Poison, and the drummer from Motley Crue. VH1 should do a show on her life called 'I Fucked the '80s'."
If you don't think that's funny, you just don't have a sense of humor.