Big 4 bands of 80's rock

[TAC]

I had Back In Black and Hi Infidelity on 8-track.

[KevShmev]

I'm surprised you've even heard of REO Speedwagon.

[King Postwhore]

He heard it from a friend who,  heard it from a friend who.....

[TAC]

I'm surprised you've even heard of REO Speedwagon.

Why? High Infidelity was huge. I was in junior high when that came out. Their live show from Denver from that tour was played quite a bit on MTV. They had a ton of great songs..Back On The Road Again, Riding The Storm Out, etc...

I actually have Hi Infidelity on CD.

[King Postwhore]

They put on a good like show as well.

[Cool Chris]

I owned 6 of those at some point in time. 1 of them now in physical form (Back in Black). Hysteria was probably my #1 favorite CD for a good 5 year stretch when it was first released. It was the first or second CD I bought with my own money.

[The Curious Orange]

While I appreciate that bands like Van Halen were huge in the US, they never made that much of a splash over here in the UK. So from a transatlantic perspective:

Queen
Bon Jovi
Dire Straits
Def Leppard

were all hugely popular in the UK in the 80s.

[Stadler]

I would venture to say that no kid that went to a school dance in 1981 can claim "I never heard REO Speedwagon". 

I don't have it on CD, just LP, but that "side one" is solid as a rock. 

[pg1067]

I would venture to say that no kid that went to a school dance in 1981 can't claim "I never heard REO Speedwagon". 

There's no way this isn't not true!   

[Stadler]

I would venture to say that no kid that went to a school dance in 1981 can't claim "I never heard REO Speedwagon". 

There's no way this isn't not true!   

Goddammit!! 

Fixed.

[El Barto]

He heard it from a friend who,  heard it from a friend who.....

I using MTV as a barometer, and I think Def Leppard takes this kind of easily. Where we run into a problem is that so many of these bands were hugely popular in the mid 80s or the late 80s and so few were popular from 1980-1989. Bringin on the Heartbreak was huge for them in 81. Pyromania was epoch shattering. Hysteria carried them right on through to Adrenalize. That's a run nobody else tops.

ZZTop fits into the conversation. El Loco through Afterburner kept them on MTV and the radio for most of the 80s. They were huge. And while we probably won't consider her rock, Madonna probably had the best run of them all with ST, Virgin, True Blue, Prayer (83-89) (71 million units).

[bosk1]

I using MTV as a barometer, and I think Def Leppard takes this kind of easily. Where we run into a problem is that so many of these bands were hugely popular in the mid 80s or the late 80s and so few were popular from 1980-1989. Bringin on the Heartbreak was huge for them in 81. Pyromania was epoch shattering. Hysteria carried them right on through to Adrenalize. That's a run nobody else tops.

That's true.  But they also had pretty big gaps between albums as well where nothing was going on. 

[KevShmev]

I using MTV as a barometer, and I think Def Leppard takes this kind of easily. Where we run into a problem is that so many of these bands were hugely popular in the mid 80s or the late 80s and so few were popular from 1980-1989. Bringin on the Heartbreak was huge for them in 81. Pyromania was epoch shattering. Hysteria carried them right on through to Adrenalize. That's a run nobody else tops.

That's true.  But they also had pretty big gaps between albums as well where nothing was going on.

True.  Def Leppard was mostly MIA on MTV from 1985 till later 1987 since they rarely played older videos once they ran their course except when they did best videos countdowns or rock blocks or stuff like that.