Were Birdland the most important band of the 80s or what?
 

Come on...you know it makes sene.

Um.......no. Still, they were about a million percent better than any of Paul Weller's bowel movements, so you may have a point.

EDIT - Who WERE the most important English band in the 80's. The Smiths? New Order? Napalm Death? Someone else?

Certainly not important...and certainly a bag of shite, like most 80's indie music.

I think that whatever reputation they had came from covering a Patti Smith tune, at a time where nobody gave a shit about her. That and the blonde hair. They must have been popular with boy-friendly managers...

napalm death.

I knew a lot of poser indie kids at the time who liked them, largely because of the way they looked. American bands like Sonic Youth, Big Black, Minutemen, Dinosaur, were very unfashionable but had the honesty and unselfconsciousness (or so it seemed at the time) that a lot of British bands didn't have.

The first two are obviously pretty signif, but have been thinking about ND recently.
Their impact on the metal scene is basically massive. Arguably the most important British band since punk. Seriously.

The press (up to a certain point) used to loathe bands like Spacement 3 and World Domination Enterprises, who, whatever their respective merits (or lack of), at least didn't try to pander to some contemporary scene.

Spot on. They've influenced and inspired so many bands, their influence has been to some degree as important and pervasive as the Sex Pistols.

Greatest record of the '80s?

Side 1 was Crass vs Celtic Frost (perchance the likes of Sepultura were listening to this?)
Side 2 kicked off the whole goddamn grindcore/sludge metal scene

Perhaps not the 'best' record per se, but undoubtedly one of the most influential.

Remember buying it in the local Our Price back in the day. The first metal i'd heard that you could like without having to even THINK about Deep Purple.

Remember them on that Arena documentary? "This one's for the BBC. It's called 'You Suffer'......YOUUUAAARRRGGGHHH!"

Classic! I really wish they'd release that on DVD. I can't even find it on Youtube.

That doc was so great (Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden fencing and looking at Jimmy Page's stagewear, interviews with Mr Kerrang, Napalm Death interviewed in their bedroom), the only minus was that odious guitar-widdling 10 year old. Wonder what he's doing now, fixing exhausts ('Yew done mi motor yit, yew fookin' coont?')?

Are you two fucking mental. Napalm Death were a shitty heavy metal band who influenced a lot of other shitty heavy metal bands.

Yes on the mental front, don't agree with you on the "shitty heavy metal" comment. But hell, what's the beef? We all have different opinions here, that's what makes it interesting.

Napalm Deaths first two alums were really, really good then they got really bad.

Sorry, I should have added a ;) to the end.

"Are you two fucking mental. Napalm Death were a shitty heavy metal band who influenced a lot of other shitty heavy metal bands.;) "

Sorted.

I realise that I also called Birdland a bag of shite in this thread. I'm not usually so negative. I just remember the lengths I had to go to in the 80's (pre-internet kiddies) to find decent music. And often I'd give in, and buy something like Napalm Death (I got the first LP) only to find it was incredibly ORDINARY.

...Okay, ANYWAY, the best English indie band of the eighties was The Sound. Please, for the love of fucking Christ, download some of their stuff... you won't be disappointed and I mean it.

Call it paranoia, but do you ever get those days where you're sure everybody is getting together to wind you up.

THE SOUND?!!!

Someone's pissed off. The majority of post-punk bands today are just Sound-lites. Have you got a lot of their stuff? Maybe you got the shit one they did (Thunder Up or something?).

I actually listened to the Sound a fair amount back then, but I think the first 3 Echo & the Bunnymen albums walk all over them in terms of long term relevance. Birdland was just another NME/Melody Maker flavor of the week.

I don't know how they possibly could be since I've certainly never heard of them.

Please don't go out of your way to hear them. You'll be so disappointed.

You got it.

pookie - I can remember buying some very crappy records in the 80's (frankly, I'd have to be prety pissed to admit what they were). Probably like you, I ended up being very wary of anything that Melody Maker, NME or Sounds tried to thrust my way. I was very lucky however in living in South London, so picking up records wasn't difficult for me. I can only imagine what it must have been like without a local and reliable source for records.

Although the hunting was part of the fun. And using mailorder, getting records sent all the way from AMERICA!

I remember paying £16 for Double Nickels On The Dime (in 1985! a small fortune), which was only available on import for quite some time.

And I did buy some 'second choice' records because sometimes you wanted to just pop into your local Our Price and buy a record.

We used to have an Our Pirce in Croydon that sold records by Swans, Psychic TV, Loop etc amongst all the crap. Well, Psychic TV sucked, but at least it wasn't 80's chart fodder. These days, I really don't buy much from records shops at all, preferring to use either distros or E-bay.

We had an Our Price as well, which had the odd good record to be fair, and lots more good records when I started working there. We had quite a lot of say in what we stocked.

But it was still a very limited choice you had.

swa(y) - you're right. For instance, my 'best of 1987' would be a 3-way between 'Sister', 'Locust Abortion Technician' and 'Songs About Fucking'. However, then I think about hip-hop LPs that came out then, like "Yo! Bum Rush The Show" and "Criminally Minded". Then I start remembering albums like Napalm Death's "Scum" and Loop's "Heaven's End", and then give up trying to choose a best of for that year. I know a fair few people who woiuld vote for the Smiths, Happy Mondays and a whole bunch of acid house craziness just for '87.

I like Second Layer better than The Sound.

It's easy to forget what a fantastic and utterly breathtaking album Yo! Bum Rush The Show was. Definitely my favourite of theirs; a completely unique record.

Not particularly fair to say "Psychic TV sucked" as they are so different from record to record and phase to phase that such generalities can't possibly stick. Of course the opposite extreme is somewhat true to - you can't say "Psychic TV ruled" either because they attached their name to some not so memorable acid house one offs, but that was after the '80s.

Dreams Less Sweet, however, is a fucking brilliant piece of avant pop-culture folk that honestly stands among some of the best records ever made in my opinion. From the '60sish folk rock of "White Nights" to the scratching noises from a coffin that record really is an accomplishment that measures up to Genesis' best moments with TG. On another extreme "At the Berlin Wall" is a great live set of brutal rock satire that mocks (and at the same time pays tribute to) everyone from The Velvet Underground to De La Soul.

Oh, I get the joke. Birdland weren't good enough to last more than a few seasons, let alone influence other bands. Unless we're thinking about The Horrors, of course.