You can write songs about despair in different ways.
If you're Bruce Springsteen, stories of a bleak future make for anthems. And his crowds find catharsis in a kind of communal Jersey church.
However, other groups choose a different path. Their songs sound as bleak as life's harshest realities. If you're cynical, you call it wallowing. But underground bands in the 1980s became mainstream because they found listeners who felt as alienated as they did.
Following punk rock, many artists continued to reject the arena-rock excesses of the 1970s. But they also moved away from the abrasive power chords and frantic tempos of punk.
Below are three very different approaches to crafting moody classics. First, Echo & the Bunnymen use hazy language and psychedelia to examine the tortured soul. Next, The Smiths turn Morrissey's frustration into a chiming banger for outsiders. And finally, an inspiring jam from The Psychedelic Furs.
Caterpillar girl
Flowing and filling up my hopeless heart
Guitarist Will Sergeant and bassist Les Pattinson discovered an instrument called the balalaika while in Russia. They emulated this folk instrument using Sergeant's Vox 12-string guitar and Pattinson playing his bass like a mandolin, merging Russian folk music with British post-punk. Meanwhile, singer Ian McCulloch woke up one morning with the chorus in his head -- like Jim Morrison had dropped a gift into McCulloch's lap. Next step, reverse the chords to David Bowie's "Space Oddity" and you have Echo & the Bunnymen's defining song.
Fate, up against your will
Through the thick and thin
He will wait until
You give yourself to him
Trying to pin down Johnny Marr's best guitar riff isn't easy. Nearly everything he played in The Smiths created a blueprint for future guitarists who wanted to avoid the blues rock tradition. But Marr's grand arpeggios offered a majestic canvas for Morrissey's rejection. Moz reveals a secret to a friend who recoils in return. The Smiths' groundbreaking debut stood apart from 1980s rock music with a guitarist who shunned licks for jangly chords and a singer who looked to Oscar Wilde to source his dramatic annoyances.
The devil will find work for idle hands to do
I stole and I lied, and why?
Because you asked me to
But now you make me feel so ashamed
Because I've only got two hands
Well, I'm still fond of you
A moody tune can be uplifting too. Richard Butler shares a similar gift with The Cure's Robert Smith -- using an outsider, sometimes broken voice to deliver anthemic pop. "Heaven" features the same timeless triumph that inspired John Hughes' Pretty in Pink. Butler describes an escape to a place where you'll find the "whole of our hearts." A place that won't "tear you apart." In 1984, The Cure appeared on a French television show and named Mirror Moves one of their favorite albums.