Even though we have the best technology available, current mixing and mastering practices are ruining the records. What legacy will we leave ?
At least I can see fotunes made by record companies with the endless 22nd Century remixes and remasters to fix what shouldn't have been broken in the first place.

The trouble I find with a lot of 80`s stuff is the drums date them rather, not so much the case with Bros I agree, although slightly.

We were discussing in session yesterday how we cringed when a lot of the younger musicians of that time became interested in the sort of 60`s beats used by Jim Hendrix/James Brown and others, which I thought was a bad idea at the time.
Isn`t it interesting that they have still stayed and developed whereas the stright bashes of the 80`s have not so much?

I think it is a bit early for the reverb'd drum hits of the 80s to make a comeback. Considering how popular 80s nights are and the pervasiveness of the 80s synth pop/electro/new wave revival, don't be surprised if we see the return of the 80s drum sound.

Mind you it depends what drum sound you are talking about. American big stadium sized reverbs, hmm maybe but Tears For Fears, Simple Minds Frankie and other UK produced tracks had excellent drums which don't date so easily, so did Prince and a lot of the r&b sounds used drum machines which are enjoying a healthy revival thanks to sampling.

Prince will always be an innovator, as will Bob Clearmountain as a sampler of live drums combined with Simple Minds (B.Adams?)et al.

I for one am not ready for an 80`s metallic mechanistic revival , which I feel (and ,this is because I am possibly getting on a bit now!)was an emulation of how to make the machine sound of a lot of underground bands in the late 70`s/early 80`s were eventually into a hit song and probably , this time, should it happen again, without explanation of where these sounds came from!

When I think of the first Moog...don`t ask me...I`ll go there one day!.....

Haha Mart,

Surely the 80s weren't that bad think: OMD "Talking Loud and Clear", "So In Love" Propaganda, even Eurythmics. The thing is that because most of today's mixes sound cluttered & over compressed in comparison to the 80s mixes particularly the late 80s from 87-89 before Dance music took over, I think producers will soon look for more clarity in mixes and less of the loud is more approach to mastering. It was refreshing to hear the clarity of the Bros record.

It is just a shame that with technology being at its best quality, productions are only scratching the surface of what could be achieved. I blame dance music for this. Not that I hate dance music, but a lot of the producers of it are DJs who really haven't listened to the likes of:

Bob Clearmountain
Hugh Padgham
Chris Hughes
Steve Lillywhite
Steve Levine

I probably cringe a little more than I should as I suppose it was my era, the same as a lot of people would consider the 60`s theirs.
"Dr Mabuse" by Propaganda remains one of the breakthroughs in production from that era for me, and that one ,notably has not dated.(I proved this by just digging it out, superb)
I loved OMD at first, but still feel as the equipment improved, they remain one of the bands I still can`t listen to from that time, to this day, even though, they were even nice enough to write me a letter once, which wasn`t even typed and I still have.
The case of Simple Minds is very relevent to what has happened to todays music. They were permitted to release so much experimental music during a time when they were not getting hits and arguably had a very good stab at introducing industrial music into the mainstream at some points, before turning it all into a hit sound.(Talking of which, their biggest hit, "Dont You Forget About Me" almost parodied their own work at the time)
Bowie of course, also typifies the 80`s by another re-invention of himself to a new audience.

Mind you it was my era particularly from 1984 to 1989. I was living in Nigeria at the time and we lived for The Music Video Show on Lagos State TV to watch Top of the Pops, the videos from that time and I began my interest in music pretty much from then. I think the 80s was the best decade for music, even more than the 60s. So much innovation, so much sound, yeah it dates but so what ? Believe me when I say this when I was DJing the 80s was all the rage and a lot of todays dance music is borrowing from the 80s but I take your point and I understand the love/hate relationship you may have with the 80s.

I think the key point to the 80`s was the underground DIY (yes!those three little letters oddly enough), from around 1979, which sounds obvious, but if you look at it musically and historically, this does not always appear to be a widely mentioned theory.
We saw bands emerge like Wire (well done Mike Thorn) and Cabaret Voltaire and this set a very strange and eclectic period which crept into popular music , inevitably, but surprisingly, to my generation and in many ways, we did not want to share it with the masses, it was ours.

I have the first OMD single still on Factory, so in retrospect I do take your point about them, as the synthey strangeness, of the time, was gradually turning into pop, notably, done on the cheap because that was all they had at their hands.

But when Paul Young, turned a heartfelt classic from Joy Division into a major company production, the welcome floodgates of income came to the industry and the beginnings were all over, some of us went with it, some of us continued the quest for "cult hero "status.

I also saw a very early and supportive journalist of Adam Ant , cry, when the Ants signed to CBS.

Punk was over, but now the rebellious kicking and screaming "post punk" was now gone.

Besides which, we were all told ,that the world would end in 1980! (it did not, as we know!)