Simon Reynolds on whether there will be a revival of mid-'80s bands. Don't know any of the ones he's talking about (from '83-'86 or current soundalikes). I switched to stations playing hiphop and classical in that period. To me the mid-'80s is the Smiths, pop-wise, which I didn't hear until '89 or so. This comment from "Chewtoy" made my ears perk up, though:
1983 - 1986 was the period of what NME's Chris Bohn (a.k.a. Biba Kopf) called "Hardcore", which was not so much a distinct style but an attitude. It included Nick Cave, Sonic Youth, the Butthole Surfers, Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins, Flipper, Hüsker Dü, No Trend, and the complete roster of the Some Bizzare label and its K.422 sublabel: Einstürzende Neubauten, Test Dept., Psychic TV, Coil, Foetus, The Swans, Wiseblood, The The, Marc & The Mambas, Dave Ball, Cabaret Voltaire.
And then there were a whole bunch of experimental groups lumped together under the terrible misnomer "Industrial", such as Nurse With Wound, Current 93, Death in June, Zoviet France, Laibach, Greater Than One, Controlled Bleeding, Die Form, SPK, Lustmord, Muslimgauze, Bourbonese Qualk, the Anti Group, Severed Heads...
1986/1987 saw the emergence of the more danceable Electronic Body Music with bands like Front 242, Skinny Puppy, Nitzer Ebb, Renegade Soundwave and Meat Beat Manifesto.
Ahhh, that I can follow.
Update: A few of Reynolds' references are ringing a bell. Portion Control I learned about from the Mutant Sounds blog. I can't who remember who recommended the Wolfgang Press to me back in the day but I'm fairly I certain I never heard them before the YouTube video Reynolds links to. (It's not very good.)