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It was bound to happen. There have been little rumblings here and there, the occasional cover song, the Big 80's TV show on VH-1. VH-1 targets my demographic, rerunning those glory days of wasting our lives away in front of that new fangled cable television, gawking at Pat Benatar on MTV. The other day I saw a very haggard looking Nina Blackwood, the babe of early MTV veejays, hawking some compilation of the biggest hits of the time, trying to tell us that Culture Club really was cool. Ouch. The pendulum has swung again, and Nina is selling us on "the original alternative music." Worse yet I saw a commercial for Time-Life Books "History of the 80's" CD compilation. You get one to examine every other month. If for some reason you don't like it, simply return it. Try another culture out for a few days. If it's as bad as the 90's, simply send it back. We'll credit your Visa bill.
Culture in the 90's is about how quickly we can recycle material and dub it retro (cool), or nostalgic (heartwarming). We used to wait for a little while before we were forced, usually by old people, to endure some recycled history. 50's nostalgia at least took until the 70's to strike fear in our hearts. 60's retro had its heyday in the mid to late 80's, although Baby Boomers are still picking on us, feeding us that balderdash about all the positive change they made in the world, all the while eyeing all that money we're putting in to their Social Security. We're running out of contemporary vision. We seem to be on such slippery ground with our own identity that we have to suck up the culture from other, remarkably lame decades, not just to make money, but to have any vision, creative or otherwise. The first video ever shown on MTV was "Video Killed The Radio Star" by the Buggles. Intentionally chosen as the debut video for its prophetic nature, the song was supposed to hold to some sort of lesson. Um, right? Well, today, we kill video stars in seconds when it used to take, well, at least minutes. Our culture turns heroes in to goats overnight. The tabloid expose proves everyone has feet of clay, and maybe it's better to not be famous. Our desire for stars is still insatiable though. Now we turn to has-been stars, give them a comeback tour until we're bored, and send them packing again. Tonight, on 120 Minutes, MTV's almost alternative show, some hipster band was covering a Men At Work song. Couldn't tell you which one. They only had three or so that anyone would remember, and it wasn't "Who Can It Be Now," so you could probably figure it out if you actually cared to. The weirdest part was when I turned away, I heard that unmistakable voice of that guy who was their lead singer, and there he was, looking somewhat ghoulish, reprising one of MAW's short lived hits. I almost have to feel sorry for Men At Work. The industry of modern culture will reunite them, bring them back from whatever obscurity they've been languishing in, and put them back there in six months. Heaven forbid we will have to suffer through another "Aussie" craze. Koalas were disgusting enough once. The 80's weren't just an awful decade for music. Does the name Reagan ring a bell? What about those tacky haircuts? I wish I could seize and burn every Cibola High yearbook with that picture of me and that unfortunate rat tail do. For those of you too young to understand the horror of that particular hairdo, check out the lead singer of the Thompson Twins in any video from the 80's. Be afraid. The 80s were the morning after the bad quaalude trip of the 70's. We were awake, we just had no clue what we were going to do with ourselves now that we had regained consciousness. Amidst the other horrors of the 80s, including the way too much eye make up trauma, we had the music. We had the skillful pop of the Cars, the safe anger of Billy Idol, and the zaniness of Madness. Band names were images. We wanted a car. Hell, in the 80's, most of America damn near banned busses for being so democratic. We wanted to be punk, but within reason. We got ourselves an idol that was a safe one. Madness was a collective feeling, but we didn't want to go too overboard. Just the catchy ska ditties, thank you very much. There wasn't really much of a drug culture then, unless you count crystal meth, the drug that makes you work more. Rehashing any time period and looking back fondly at it is an inherently fruitless venture. There really never has been a good time, ever, in American history. Beware of people who say "I Love The 80's." The 80s was a real stinker as far as decades go. OK, it certainly wasn't as painfully dull as the 50's, as pretentious as the 60's, or as downright tweaky as the 70's (what was up with interior design then? Brown and rust in the den?), it was just devoid of substance. It was the decade when we found out conformity could be the best drug ever, video could kill radio stars and that dude from the Eurythmics was really a woman. |
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