If you paid any attention to rock music during the eighties, you've seen a bunch of Lynn Goldsmith's pictures. She shot all of the decade's biggest stars from the coolest (Prince, The B-52s, The Ramones, Siouxsie) to the squarest (Barry Manilow). The variety of her photos is as eclectic as the people she photographed. She took glossy posed pics and candid back-stage ones that could be Polaroids. She took black and whites and colors and electrifying live shots and casual al fresco ones. My personal faves are the weird after-party pics featuring unlikely gatherings of stars. You want to see John Mellencamp beaming alongside Jayne County and David Johansen? You want to see Nile Rogers, Chrissie Hynde, Dexter Gordon, and Paul Shaffer sharing a table? You want to see Darlene Love in a clutch with Joan Jett and Elton John, who's wearing a huge, fake mohawk? Then Music in the '80s is the book for you. Music in the '80s collects 350 pages of photos Goldsmith took during that most absurdly photogenic decade of garish fashions and hairstyles. Text is limited to a paragraph on the decade by the author and four pages of decade-centric quotes from photo subjects who speak highly (Kate Pierson, Hall and Oates, Tina Turner, Alice Cooper), lowly (Laurie Anderson, Bernie Taupin, Chris Stein, Gene Simmons, Iggy Pop), and foggily (Keith Richards) of the eighties. It would have been nice if Goldsmith provided some of her own captioned remembrances to further illuminate her pictures, but considering the kind of shit that was going on in the eighties, her memories might not be the sharpest. That's probably fine, because most of these pictures speak for themselves.
