80s music: A disproof of a Western cultural universal of music perception?

[u/concernedaboutmetal]

Why is 80s music so polarizing?

It's not just about whether people like or don't like 80s rock, pop, RnB and alternative music.

It seems like two people can hear the same song and reach completely different conclusions.

A song that makes one person want to get up and dance is a chill driving or studying song for another.

A song that one person sees as rowdy and manic can come across as safe, banal and wimpy to another.

Some hear the sound design of 80s synth presets as alien, or even alienating, while others comment on how ordinary the sound is.

I think this throws a monkey wrench in the concept of sound being a universal way to convey an attitude.

[u/Moiyub]

the concept of sound being a universal way to convey an attitude

the what now?

[u/stikkybiscuits → u/Moiyub]

Another way of saying music is can be a universal language. The way we hear a song in another language but understand it’s sad, or about a love story, etc.

[u/Slickrock_1 → u/stikkybiscuits]

The vague concept may be universal, but music is cultural. Why should we expect someone weaned on western music to identify a love story if it happens to be from a Malian griot or a traditional Chinese opera?

Even in the western tradition that's changed over time. Modal, diatonic, atonal, pentatonic/blues, and exotic music have entered our aural palette at different eras in western cultural history.

[u/Red-Zaku- → u/stikkybiscuits]

That itself is a romantic notion but a false one. Across different cultures, there are sounds in music that one culture can identify as festive and jovial while another will identify it as mournful, sounds that one culture will see as empowering and another will see as frightening, sounds that one culture will find to be peaceful and meditative yet another will find to be harsh.

Much like spoken language, music has multiple different languages within itself that can lead to totally different perceptions of the things being expressed.

[u/stikkybiscuits → u/Red-Zaku-]

As a musician myself, there have been many instances where I’ve heard a song with no clue of the language, if there even is language, and understood the general emotion behind it. I may not know the exact story but could be moved by the piece without context. Maybe it’s the lived experience of musicianship that allows that to be more common for musicians to experience.

Also I’m not OP, btw, someone asked what they meant and I simply explained what they meant.

[u/Red-Zaku- → u/stikkybiscuits]

Language isn’t the only issue, there are literally entirely different rhythms that are meant to convey a dance structure in one culture/musical language and yet would convey instability and chaos in another musical language or culture. Darker harmonies that are not seen as dark in another culture, and brighter harmonies that are not bright in another culture. What you’re describing might be more hubris than experience

[u/Moiyub → u/stikkybiscuits]

If you dont speak the language then how could you possibly know what the lyrics mean? This sounds an awful lot like getting a chinese character tattoo that you think means "inner peace" but is actually "pork dumpling" or something.

[u/stikkybiscuits → u/Moiyub]

Inference of emotions. When someone is singing or expressing their instrument with emotion it can permeate beyond language.

[u/Moiyub → u/stikkybiscuits]

Ok but how are you supposed to know the lyrics are about a love story if you have no idea what theyre saying?

[u/Illustrious_Try478 → u/Moiyub]

Because the lyrics are supposed to be the Cliffs Notes SparkNotes* for the emotions the music is supposed to convey.

*oh ffs I feel old

[u/chunter16]

80s music has nothing to do with your conclusion, even though your conclusion is correct.

Music universally creates responses in people. What those responses are depend on a lot of nature and nurture. There is no guaranteed way to get a specific reaction from a person using music, and that's why composing music is fun.

[u/italianprog]

The notion of music as a "universal language" itself assumes a Western cultural perspective. In ethnomusicology, the 80s are divisive because that's when "world music" entered the commercial sphere (Graceland, WOMAD, etc.). See Bob White (2011) regarding world music and essentialism. Regarding synth presets, see Theberge (1997)

[u/Chris_Golz]

I don't understand any of this. What is the point? Why would anyone think that all people feel the same way about a song, whether it's an 80's song or a polka? I listened to Depeche Mode, and my dad hated it. Now my teenage son can play music that I hate. The cycle continues.

[u/concernedaboutmetal → u/Chris_Golz]

"Major is happy, minor is sad, quiet is gentle, loud is bad"

[u/Moiyub → u/concernedaboutmetal]

there are many examples of this being just not the case at all. many sad songs use major keys and vice versa

[u/Slickrock_1 → u/concernedaboutmetal]

Why don't you spend the time reading the libretti of Mozart operas during some major key passages. He quite often used major to convey explicitly sad themes. Or Bach - why is "Kyrie eleison" minor but "Christe eleison" major in his B minor mass? Why is Mozart's "tuba mirum" tranquil but Verdi's is apocalyptic? Same mass, same text.

[u/PeteHealy]

Incredibly simplistic view. Do you really think that we perceive, say, 14c European troubador/trouvere songs the way listeners did at the time? (Or, for that matter, music by Machaut?) Do you really think that, for example, the melody and harmonic structure of a traditional Japanese folk song convey the same "universal" meaning across cultures and centuries? Oof. The entire "universal language of music" is silly. Beyond a few basic tendencies that arise from human physiology, "meaning" and "feeling" in music are understood through culture, which even in 2026 still differs profoundly around the world (happily).

[u/Slickrock_1]

Please cite "the concept of sound being a universal way to convey an attitide". Also, it would help if you differentiated sound from music. I can convey an attitude by speaking words. I can convey an attitude by grunting. I can convey an attitude by stamping my foot. Hell I can convey an attitude with a silent smile or stare.

Meanwhile 50s Elvis, 60s psychedelic, 70s disco, 70s punk, 90s hip hop, 90s nu metal, 00s metalcore weren't polarizing?

Or for that matter Stravinsky's Rite of Spring?

80s music isn't uniquely polarizing, and to the extent it IS polarizing has 99% to do with generation. The 1980s were bar none THE classic age of heavy metal, not to mention golden ages for genres like new wave and rap. On the other hand there is a lot of pandering pop music including pandering hair metal in the 80s that doesn't age well and even at the time (speaking as a kid of the 80s) was cringe. But that's true for every decade. The overproduced and overfunded music is counterbalanced by rebellious music.

[u/stikkybiscuits]

A layer of what you’re getting at is how people perceive digital vs analog. I read a book years ago that went into the science on this (I’ll try to find it to link later) and how our bodies process digital vs. analog and why some people prefer one or the other, as well as how some folks enjoy both.

80s music was a big wave of digital and our biology responds a certain way to that and differs from person to person.

Personally, I feel that is at the core of why the music is polarizing.

[u/Slickrock_1 → u/stikkybiscuits]

Of course with rock it's not so simple, I mean we've gone from analog systems (guitar with magnetic pickups going through analog effects processors to an analog vacuum tube based amp), and we're now making the same music and (to a casual ear) almost the same sounds with solid state / digital technology and modelers and computer processing.

High fidelity processing and production finally caught up with the needs of heavy metal around 1990 give or take a few years, which made albums much better produced but also a bit soulless. I think something counterculture about punk and NWOBHM and thrash and black metal became lost when albums like the Black Album and Countdown to Extinction and No More Tears were just so clean and polished.

[u/The_Niles_River]

It’s important to not confuse a couple different things here.

“Sound/music as a universal language” is an oft derided sentiment in ethnomusicology, especially by people coming from a cultural relativity perspective, with many extant arguments that effectively challenge the notion that music is supposedly “one language”.

This is different from the position that music is universally linguistic, or that music is a predicate to spoken languages. I think it’s much more reasonable to suggest that Jazz is a musical language form with different “accents/dialects” (if you will) and that Rock is also a musical language. These languages may not be readily understandable or relatable to someone unfamiliar with them, but they can be learned, and they can also intermingle and potentially create new ways of communicating musically (Fusion).

I’m not clear on what your so-called monkey wrench is here, or what your deployment of interpretation is meant to imply. Nothing you suggest here is novel or holds much ground when teased apart.