Quotes & Sayings About 80s Rock

Back in the "leather and lace" eighties, I was the fantasy editor for a publishing company in New York City. It was a great time to be young and footloose on the streets of Manhattan - punk rock and folk music were everywhere; Blondie, the Eurythmics, Cyndi Lauper, and Prince were all strutting their stuff on the newly created MTV; and the eighties' sense of style meant I could wear my scruffy black leather into the office without turning too many heads. The fantasy field was growing by leaps and bounds, and I was right in the middle of it, working with authors I'd worshiped as a teen, and finding new ones to encourage and publish. — Terri Windling

If reggae comes from another country, you can have the relationship to reggae that I have to rock. But it's something I grew up with. It's probably something I appreciate more now. In the '80s, I was all about New Wave and synth pop - New Order and Depeche Mode and Eurythmics and Michael Jackson and tons and tons and tons of Prince. — Marlon James

As the final decade of the millennium dawned, there would be no greater expression of the cultural, economic, and social revolutions to come than fashion. What rock 'n' roll was to the '50s, drugs to the '60s, film to the '70s, and modern art to the '80s, fashion was to the '90s: the fuse, then the filter. — Maureen Callahan

My granddad was an evangelist, and my grandma, she was as tough as nails. She watched 'American Bandstand' every day when she was in her 80s, 90s. She loved rock music. I never had anyone in my family that was anti-rock n' roll. — Alice Cooper

Now that the generation that grew up on '80s indie-rock has attained influential positions in the culture, that music is the new yardstick. And that will shift yet again some day. — Michael Azerrad

In the late 80s though, during the new Glam Rock, leather trousers came back with a vengeance. In a way they replaced Spandex, which had slipped slowly out of fashion due to bands like Saxon never being out of the stuff. These new leather trousers began to develop accessories such as tassels, sequins, and laces up the sides. This all looked quite nice for a while, but in the end they were just another easy target for Kurt Cobain and his subversive cardigans. — Seb Hunter

With how huge Yes was, especially in the '70s and '80s, as a touring band and actually playing at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia to 130,000 people, which is the biggest-paying show ever in rock history, you would think we'd done enough for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. — Chris Squire

As a kid, my parents had the typical stuff going on in the home, like Bee Gees, The Carpenters. Then I got exposed to what my brothers were listening to: a lot of classic rock, Led Zeppelin. It was around the mid-'80s when the whole Electro-Techno-Pop-House music thing started happening in Chicago. — Kaskade

Everybody was sorta going to sleep twards the end of 1983, and I felt that they had to be woken up! — Morrissey

I grew up with rock and pop music from the 70s and 80s. I had to play guitar in school - it was a music college and we had to take instrument classes there - so I think guitar playing and guitar sounds have always been an influence. — Christian Fennesz

I love '80s rock music. I was fascinated with Stevie Nicks when I was growing up. — Bresha Webb

I've been a Nick Cave fan since the early '80s when he was part of The Birthday Party thing singing Australian self-destructive rock band and I've always followed his work and loved it. — Aleksandar Hemon

You just don't get it, do you, man?' I said. 'In the '80s if you were in a rock band, when you asked for a hummer, you got a hummer.'
Dr. Roberts nodded and wrote something down on his pad. Maybe it was 'motherfucker'. — Stephen Pearcy

Music was segregated in the '80s, and then in the '90s the boundaries started to break down, and rock kids got into electronic music. But then you got this reverse snobbery where people would only listen to electronic music and not rock. — Thomas Bangalter

It seemed like, in the early '80s, there was just a moment where there was suddenly no specific notion of what a rock band could be or what a song could be. — Bucky Pope

When I first started in rock, I had a big guy's audience for my early records. I had a very straight image, particularly through the mid '80s. — Bruce Springsteen

Well, what I love about '80s rock music is the amazing, fantastic melodies. — Julianne Hough

My friend Fred Coury, the drummer in '80s rock band Cinderella, told me that in the rock world, you're either still there, or you're struggling to get back to where you were. — Steve Valentine

What I love about '80s rock music is the amazing, fantastic melodies. In pop music, it's all about the techno beat to dance to in the club and the repetitiveness, whereas in rock music there is literally, like, balls-to-the-wall singing and playing. I love it. — Julianne Hough

Country is bringing in a little rock element ... a little '80s element. Melody is king now. But its just in the music, its not so much in the songwriting, which is still very basic to the storytelling aspect of it. — Lionel Richie

Mullets and questionably tight pants aside, the best music in the world was '80s rock, and I had no qualms about admitting it. I didn't want music that was maudlin and depressing - I wanted music that put me in a good mood and made the world look a little bit brighter. — L. H. Cosway

The first time that I came to New York to work properly was the mid-'80s, but I was doing eight shows a week. You have no life. Going to a punk rock club - or whatever the music was at that time - would not have been on my agenda. — Alan Rickman

Country sure has changed in the last 10 years. It was one thing, then it was another. Country has slowly marched toward a rock beat and rock preservation. Country artists of today. Man! That's how I used to sound in the '80s. — John Mellencamp

People define themselves to some degree by the music that they listened to as teens. My mom had Elvis. Me, I had 'The Who' and later punk rock. Kids who came up in the '80s had other songs and bands. It's a way of placing ourselves culturally and temporally. — Jennifer Egan

I started buying records in the '80s. I listened to everything new wave, disco, funk synth-pop, rock, but in my house we were listening to bossa nova, tango, and folk. — Juan Campodonico

I wanted to be a rock star. I dreamed of it, and that's all I dreamed of. To be more accurate, I wanted to be a pop star. This was in the late '80s. And mostly, I wanted to be the fifth member of Depeche Mode or Duran Duran. — Eric Whitacre

I grew up in the '80s and '90s listening to Public Enemy and Mobb Deep and the Smashing Pumpkins. I don't even know what it was like in the '60s - I wasn't alive then - so the Mayer Hawthorne sound is taking what I can learn from the classics, and blending it with my hip-hop DJ and producer background and punk-rock bands that I played in as a kid. — Mayer Hawthorne

When people talk about gender-benders and bracket me with George, I always think I'm not like that. I had more of a rock edge, mixed with the 80s electro. — Marc Almond

There were incredibly few rock songs making it out to the airwaves until the '80s came along. — Joe Elliott

There's a difference between music that's original and music that's retro. A lot of bands now are kind of retro 70s whether it's Kraut-rock or ... I've heard people suggest that we're kind of retro 80s. — Bill Orcutt