Most influential 80s alternative rock band?
 

Which 1980s alternative rock band would you regard as the most influential, particularly on 1990s music? A lot of people have said The Smiths and the Pixies, however I'd have said Husker Du - they were a major influence on Foo Fighters, not to mention Pixies and Nirvana. A lot of the Smiths stuff sounds similar to bands such as Joy Division or the early Pulp, so while they may have still been influential, I'd hardly categorise their style as original.

As a Husker-Foo similarity example, listen to the Husker Du song Games from their album Flip Your Wig (released 1985) and then compare it with the Foo Fighters song Sean from their St Cecilia EP (released 2015; free download) - both songs are in the same key and feature a similar style of guitar playing. The production is a little better in the newer one, but I can still hear the similarity.

What do you think the most influential alternative act of the decade was? Would you agree with me or do you have a band that I haven't mentioned?

Shocking no one, I'm gonna have to say the pixies. They influenced Weezer, Nirvana, Bush and European bands like Blur, Radiohead and Travis and the list goes on to more modern bands like Interpol and OK go.

I can't actually claim they were more influential than Husker du, that band influenced a lot of musicians and I'm not really that familiar with the extent of their influential reach but I sure know the pixies one and it was pretty damn broad.

Also I want to say Pavement influenced a couple of bands too. I can definitely hear their influence in a lot of bands and i can definitely hear it in some Sonic youth mellow songs. They started in 89 so they barely made the cut but I think they should count cause I like them too much.

i've never heard the Fall.

I would say The Smiths and Pixies belong on the list, The Cure to a certain extent, Sonic Youth, and perhaps maybe even The Melvins

What the **** is this Francis

Here, have a new favourite band

I agree with it being Husker Du. They really laid the groundwork for what alternative would become and were also heavily influential on some of the most influential bands like the Pixies.

I'd also give honorable mention to the Replacements.

So basically Minneapolis deserves some kind of alternative rock award.

I'm not an expert on the replacements, so my word is poop when it comes to them. That said, I can't think of anything of note they did. If I'm wrong please correct me. Like I said, I'm by no means an expert.

As for the Pixies being the most influential, i could agree with that. I might say the cure, but their music in my opinion hasn't stood the test of time as well. They don't seem to still be influencing musicians the way the pixies do.

Well, they released Let It Be, which is generally considered a classic alternative/college rock album, and they were influential on a lot of later bands, including the Pixies.

I could understand giving them honorable mention then.

Two 80's bands really stand out in my mind as influences for many others to come throughout the 80's, 90's and beyond. I remember when both of their debut albums came out in 1980, hearing cuts from each played on a local college radio station, (the only radio stations willing to play newer "underground/alternative" music at that time), being blown away by what I heard and going out and buying both albums as a result (still have them.) The music of both bands stood apart from everything else I can recall at that time and both were significant influences on so many bands to follow.


Wipers - Is This Real? (1980)

The Wipers debut album was released in January of 1980.

And...


Killing Joke - Killing Joke (1980)

Killing Joke's debut album was released in September of 1980.

I don't really think of Killing Joke as alternative rock but they are a great band and certainly very influential.

I subconsciously heard "Left of the Dial" and assumed it was a Pixies song for a while, until I heard it again. Still, some of the Replacements music reminds me of The Police circa-1978.

Wipers come across to me as a major influence on the Meat Puppets.

Although the Killing Joke vocalist has a very typical singing voice for British bands of the late 1970s/early 1980s (post punk cockney vocals went out of fashion) the guitar playing sounds influential on later bands. I'm guessing that if it was released January 1980, it was recorded sometime in '79. I hear hints in "Requiem" of "She's So High" by Blur and "Ruby" by the Kaiser Chiefs.

Not sure if this counts, since the song I'm thinking of was released in 1990, but Husker Du front man Bob Mould recorded "Stop Your Crying", and the opening reminds me of the chorus in Ruby (the same song that I mentioned earlier).

Interpol also sound a lot like bands such as Joy Division and Wire. Since I wasn't alive in 1980, I'd not got round to hearing any if their stuff until recently, but I'd heard an Interpol album about 10 years ago without knowing it was them, and when I looked up Wire and Joy Division more recently, I thought I'd heard them before. In fact K was actually thinking of Interpol.

Cobain is clearly a moron. Nirvana is a Pixies cover band.

I'm just gonna leave this here cause I think it's somewhat relevant and quietly walk away.

I'm not their biggest fan but I like them.

I think I'm gonna go with Coil because they opened up a whole new world for industrial music.

There was this Welsh band called Young Marble Giants in the late 1970s who Cobain claimed he was a fan of. They have a unique sound, different to any other British band that I can think of from that era. It basically consists of quietly played guitar/bass and a keyboard, with female vocals.

For some reason, most English and Scottish bands from the 1980s had a common sound - jangly guitars, drums with a small amount of reverb, either northern or cockney vocals (excluding the Scottish bands) etc, but then a lot of Welsh and Irish groups of this era sounded different. Young Marble Giants (Welsh) had their own sound, while U2 (Irish) sound a little like a prototype Coldplay, and My Bloody Valentine (also Irish) seem to have more in common with Dinosaur Jr (USA) than their English counterparts Ride and Catherine Wheel. Were there any English bands of the 1980s that you would say meet all of the below criteria:
*Regularly used either distorted or acoustic guitar
*Did not use noticeable reverb on drums
*Did not sing in an overtly English accent (Northern/Cockney)
*Did not use a fretless bass

So I mean bands which had a sound similar to Dinosaur Jr, MBV, Husker Du, or even Mission of Burma and Young Marble Giants. Odd songs by The Wonder Stuff (1988/9) are heading that way, as are some Levellers demos (1989). Otherwise I haven't found anything.

You see, this is why we can't do an alternative big 4, just pick one dude and keep in mind he said it has to be an 80's band.

How bout alternative rock, is that better? I'm not saying your definition is wrong but it's not that hard to recognize when a band plays alternative rock. You should know I'm not one to get picky about genres I mostly use them just as a simple reference.

Is there a difference between alternative rock and indie rock? Not by the actual definition, but by the way people use them?

Depeche Mode - perhaps their most influential stuff came late in the decade and in the 90s.

Sonic Youth , because their influence can be heard in contemporary groups.

The band - I, Ludicrous for me! They are so underrated too!