Henry Rollins: In the ’80s, Even I Listened to Madonna

” I have several Remember the ’80s compilation CDs. I don’t keep them as a joke. I find them to be a fascinating time capsule and a great vantage point by which to view a decade that is not all that far behind us yet sometimes seems centuries in the past.For the last few weeks, I’ve been listening to a lot of 1980s records by artists who emerged in that decade, like Madonna, as well as acts such as Bowie, Springsteen and ZZ Top, who found themselves suddenly verging on the archaic as the decade almost ran past itself at MTV warp speed. These three changed their sound radically and, by doing so, not only survived the ’80s but fairly exploded in popularity, with records that sound alien to what they did before.In the 1980s, even I used the music at times as a narcotic.

In 1984, a particularly grueling year of touring — fraught with violence, tough living situations and an overall aura of hostility — I taped music at the homes of two different industry people who got sent everything. I hauled Culture Club, Duran Duran, ABC, Cyndi Lauper and others through one American city after another. I bought a used cassette of Madonna’s Like a Virgin and played it multiple times a day to prepare for the ashtrays whizzing by my head that night.”

Source: La Weekly