1980s Music in Sheaman

## Rock

### Hard Rock & Heavy/Glam Metal

Between 1980 - 1986 Hard Rock was a relatively popular genre in Sheaman as the previous decade it had been made popular by Punk Rock which embraced harder sounding songs. The success of Hard Rock however came with the album Appetite for destruction by Guns N' Roses in 1987. Guns N' Roses had major success in Sheaman and completely changed the music industry in Sheaman, shifting most rock into harder versions as well as leading to a decline in the popularity of pop that continued all the way until around the mid to late 90s after the death of Grunge. Hard Rock bands/artists such as Guns for Hire, God Bless Sheaman, The Alienators, Derek Haud, and Changing Religions were among the most popular hard rock bands of the late 80s, many of which also incorporated heavy metal and glam metal into their music.

#### Hard Rock

Guns N' Roses allowed hard rock to become popular and pushed the genre into the mainstream for music. The hard rock scene had many popular albums such as Give up the fight (1989) by The Alienators that is considered the most popular Sheaman hard rock album in the 80s.

### Punk

#### Decline of Punk Rock

The early 80s saw the decline of Punk Rock and by around 1981 Punk Rock had lost mainstream success with the popularity of Synth-Pop and other pop related genres gaining popularity. The rise of pop and more mainstream and easily accessible music stopped the progress of Punk Rock as well as many other Punk artists deciding to experiment, creating the genre of Post-Punk as well as the rise of Art Punk. The Alienators quickly moved away from Hardcore Punk music to Synth-Punk and artsy forms of rock as well as Synth-Pop which seemed to also lead to the decline of Punk Rock as they were easily the most popular Punk Rock band of the time. Punk Rock saw decline in 1980 and lost its mainstream success in 1981 after The Alienators released their new album.

#### Post-Punk & Art Punk

As Punk Rock declined in Sheaman Post-Punk and Art Punk rose in popularity as more experimental versions of Punk Rock. Post-Punk was very popular as a rock genre in the early to mid 80s and saw major influences from the Irish band U2 with their Post-Punk albums, Boy, October & War being influential among Post-Punk bands as well as The Unforgettable Fire pushing Art Punk up in music. Although throughout most of the 80s The Alienators focused on Synth-Punk & Synth Pop they still pushed forwards with Post-Punk music and Art Punk. their 1989 album was easily their most popular album of the 80s and being one of their most punk-sounding albums they ever made. The album also played with Grunge and some metal themes which allowed the band to introduce Grunge in the early 90s. Other bands such as Marching Berries had major success with Art Punk & Art Rock in the early 80s after the decline of Punk Rock. Post-Punk & Art Rock remained really popular in the 1980s with Post-Punk beginning to decline in 1986 but Punk itself making a brief comeback in 1989 and Art Punk continuing its popularity until the mid 80s until it lost popularity from the success of other Art & Progressive genres. The success of Punk Rock in 1989 continued into the 90s until Nirvana released their album "Nevermind." The release of Nevermind transitioned many Punk artists into grunge themes, many completely rebranding themselves as Grunge bands.

### Alternative Rock

Alt-Rock was not a majorly popular genre in the 80s but every year or so a really popular alt-rock song would release and be really mainstream for a couple of months until everything blew over. R.E.M was a popular band in Sheaman that pushed Alt-rock up in the music industry. alternative rock tended to be quite underground or teenage bands in secondary school and it never had mainstream success continuously only every so often would it have major success. However as early as 1985 Alt-Rock began to show signs of popularity in the music scene with rock diversifying as well as pop beginning this diversity around 1987, many bands that used to be considered Indie were now considered Alternative. This brought a new wave of music in Sheaman with bands such as Yankees in Chicago, Rage, Dr. Dristkt, and Typical band were some of the most popular Alt-Rock bands. Yankees in Chicago were among the most popular of those bands garnering a lot of attention for their gothic rock, indie rock, and Shoegaze that majorly popularized alt-rock. Their album "Continuous dread" in 1987 pushed the alt-rock scene into the mainstream alongside Metal & Hard Rock bands becoming their competitors. Alt-Rock intended to show a more experimental never-seen-before kind of music that reached out of the normal atmosphere of rock music and made it more accessible and possible more relatable. hard rock & metal at the time were not showing as much of that and although it became really popular it did not show as much diversity compared to alt-rock at the time.

### Pop Rock

As the pop scene grew in Sheaman so did fusion genres for Rock to try and work with the new popularity of pop. Although rock was still the leading genre of music in the 80s pop had grew and so many rock bands tried to play both sides with the fusion of pop and rock which became very popular in the 80s. Many traditional rock bands and even pop bands used pop rock to appease both sides and it usually worked garnering major popularity. Bands such as Gator, Forensic Villain, and Kirkwall Stoners were popular Pop Rock bands with Gator releasing their 2nd album "Romance" in 1983 that exploded in popularity and gave pop rock masses of respect. Kirkwall Stoners also released their album "Forever in name" in 1984 that had similar popularity to the album Romance. Pop Rock led the pop/rock scene throughout the early to late 80s but lost some popularity after metal, hard rock and grunge started to gain popularity in the late 80s. Pop Rock attempted to overshadow the success of metal and hard rock in the late 80s with some bands choosing a more pop-like route to try and devalue rock but instead of it working it failed and hard rock & metal became the most popular genre in the late 80s.

## Pop & Synth Music

### Synth-Pop & Synth-Punk

Synth Pop was massively popular in the early and mid 80s with bands such as Malcom X & the Tigers, Changing Places and even The Alienators being the most popular synth-pop/Synth-Punk bands/artists. The Alienators are usually known for creating Synth-Punk as a way to work with the new found success of pop but in their own way and Synth-Punk was largely as popular as Synth-Pop was. Synth-Punk & Synth-Pop were leading the synth scene and made a lot of money but as a lot of pop did, they lost some success in the late 80s due to the rise of metal & hard rock.

### Dance Pop

Dance Pop seemed to somewhat replace Disco of the 70s and was also a relatively popular genre in the 80s and had a decent amount of following. Madonna was a major Dance Pop influence in the 80s and although Sheaman did not have many popular Dance Pop bands they did have major outside influences. David Bowie's early 80s Dance Pop music, Whitney Houston as well as Michael Jackson all being influential artists to Dance pop and allowed it success to continue. One of the only "mega-popular" Dance Pop artists from Sheaman was Zazzey Kazz who was quite influential in the early Dance Pop scene until Zazzey Kazz would begin working in the pop rock field until completely switching over to Psychedelic Pop & Neo-Psychedelia by 1990.

## See Also

1970s Music in Sheaman

1990s Music in Sheaman