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Why do 80s have so much staying power?
- Thread starter Dust
- Start date
I don't think people in general were actually any more eccentric, the average person and family was just as boring in the 80s as they are today. At least in America.
But the media was on fire in the 80s. I mean the shit they were making was bananas. Like after Ralph Macchio becomes a star in Karate Kid one of the next movies he makes is about a guitar player who wants to learn the blues and then he finds out that his favorite musician sold his soul to the devil and has a literal guitar battle with the devil where their souls are at stake. Not saying that is a brilliant idea and honestly the movie was just ok, but its an entirely original and kind of crazy concept. Everything has become so much safer since then. But I think that is what still resonates with people.
The best karate kid movie is still the OG from the 80s (and we had never seen anything like it when it came out). The best action adventure movie is still Raiders of the Lost Ark. The best teenage movies are all from the 80s from Hughes. The best mockmentary is probably the first one, Spinal Tap, from the 80s. If you like B action movies, man did that ever peak in the 80s. The best and maybe only movie about wrestling is from the 80s. And on and on. That was really a good time for original Hollywood movies. There was still a ton of shit, but man were they taking chances. I think that resonates with a lot of people. Would love to see boom like that in television with all of these streaming services just throwing money around like crazy, but unfortunately most of it seems to be going to established properties and not so much original and crazy shit.
80's movies will never be topped imo. TV was a little better in the 90's though. TGIF and SNICK was must see TV growing up. Kids today don't know what they're missing
Danger Bay, The Beachcombers, and The Littlest Hobo were all on TV at the same time. Peak CanCon!
A song that was literally about gay sex was one of the #1 hits of the '80s, and most people are still oblivious about it to this day.
Lol, you sure? First video...
Insane shit on network tv? Whats the problem?
Sledgehammer! Was a cop procedural that killed its entire cast in a nuclear explosion then brought them back anyway for season 2 like "what bomb?"
Can't say for sure, but it feels like that was the decade that marketing really found its footing and intersected with increased commercialization and consumerism. The shot of the coca-cola ad from Blade Runner feels symbolically perfect distillation of what was happening. At that was only in 1982.
Maybe it was just household TVs hitting a saturation point. Or the adoption of cable.
Maybe it was just household TVs hitting a saturation point. Or the adoption of cable.
After watching that one 80s horror movie documentary, something they said rings true about the decade in its entirety. People were finding different ways to make it big, make a scene, that basically you had every type of genre getting greenlit and rocking the pop culture. With horror, for example, they noted that it wasn't focused JUST on "remakes", "found footage" or JUST on "zombie movies" (nowadays, to prevent loss and play it safe, studios only chase trends and rarely love to gamble), but you had zombies, aliens, werewolves, witchcraft, demons, killer robots, ghosts, haunted houses, man-eating blobs, mutants, maniacs, undead slashers, living dolls, Lovecraftian abominations, Cronenbergian body horror and so on. Everybody was throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck and that wind up resulting in a large variety that was the equivalent of browsing an all you can eat buffet with an empty plate and a growling stomach.
You also saw this a lot with different aspects of that decade, be it with other movies, cartoons, and music. I think that kinda thing has an impact on people.
You also saw this a lot with different aspects of that decade, be it with other movies, cartoons, and music. I think that kinda thing has an impact on people.
You could see changes coming in the late 70's though. Disco was on it's way out, bands like The Cars, The Police and Blondie were starting to make a splash. Heavy Metal and Hard Rock were about to make a massive comeback with the rise of the NWOBHM movement. Star Wars and Halloween also made big impacts on their respective genres aswell which lead to the summer blockbuster and slasher crazes.
Speaking of which this hack shook as as kids.
80s had more variety. On a radio's pop station, you could hear something New Wave, something Reggae, something that was smooth Soul, something Punk, something AOR, something Hip Hop, and something Rockabilly.
That whole "fake 80s" look, I always chalked it down to being people that either didn't live back then (that's their take on the 80s through pop culture) or they lived back then but are more aimed at making an idealized, romanticized take on the 80s. It's like those 80s theme parties or even some movies/shows set in the 80s that have the look all wrong. I'm reminded of this comparison:
So many movies and tv shows fail in that regards. It wasn't some decade baked in neon glow where everybody wore sunglasses at night and rocked dayglow colors every chance they got. REALISTICALLY, it was more like this:
Langham Creek High School Opens 1985 KPRC TV
News story that ran on Channel 2 KPRC-TV in Houston, TX about the opening of Langham Creek High School. Located within Cy-Fair ISD, it was the largest high s...
www.youtube.com
Christmas In Bergenfield 1985 (Complete & Enhanced)
Vintage Home Video Documentary Of Christmas Eve 1985 On Washington Ave. In Bergenfield, NJ. Filmed by the DeFeo family.This is a re-post of the video I first...
www.youtube.com
For my East Los brothers and sisters:
Whittier Blvd 1986
I shot this in 1986 with an 8mm video camera. I just drove up and down Whittier Blvd. in East Los Angeles a couple of times with the camera running. The old ...
www.youtube.com
And for my general LA brothers and sisters:
Los Angeles in the 80's
www.youtube.com
I've been watching this guy's yearly music compilation vids and you can see how close in style late 70s/early 80s is (you can see the shift while some of the styles desperately tried to hang in there into the early 80s):
and
1982
For me, the last few years of a decade acts as a big five-year transition period into the next, including the first three years of the next decade. Then you get to the "Heart" of the decade (for the 80s, 1983 is the smooth transition between the previous "post-70s" years and into the three "core 80s years", 1984-1986, while 1987 acts as the doorway into the next five-year transition into the 90s). 1978-1982 is to the "70s into the 80s" as 1988-1992 is to the "80s into the 90s". Lots of similar carry-over styles and emergences of things that will become staple parts of the next decade's "core aesthetics".
Note: some of the songs appearing might've been released a year prior.
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The 80s didn't even have the internet, there was substantially less creativity, everything was corporatized. Lots of mass market lowest common denominator pablum, before the distribution channels that let creativity flourish arose in the 90s.
But the kinetics of tape players and mechanical keyboards were nice, and there was lots of stuff for people to Pavlovianly imprint on, because they were so distinct. This was also really the first decade that marketing reached its full power, and before the internet and other things allowed for reliable distribution of media catering to niche tastes.
Look - I'm glad to be the one to tell you this, because it's gonna blow your mind - there are hundreds of thousands Max Headrooms recording and broadcasting, right as we speak! They don't even need to hijack a television broadcast to do it! It's a site called "Youtube," and people can record whatever they like and post it for anyone on the network to watch! You can even broadcast live! There's lots of dadaist social commentary like Max Headroom, of course, but also all kinds of experimental music, in-depth tutorials on obscure hobbies, it's great!
But the kinetics of tape players and mechanical keyboards were nice, and there was lots of stuff for people to Pavlovianly imprint on, because they were so distinct. This was also really the first decade that marketing reached its full power, and before the internet and other things allowed for reliable distribution of media catering to niche tastes.
Look - I'm glad to be the one to tell you this, because it's gonna blow your mind - there are hundreds of thousands Max Headrooms recording and broadcasting, right as we speak! They don't even need to hijack a television broadcast to do it! It's a site called "Youtube," and people can record whatever they like and post it for anyone on the network to watch! You can even broadcast live! There's lots of dadaist social commentary like Max Headroom, of course, but also all kinds of experimental music, in-depth tutorials on obscure hobbies, it's great!
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Because the people with buying power and disposable income are 80s (and 90s) babies and have an overly romanticized and nostalgic view of that period. 30 years ago you saw this same kind of nostalgia for baby boomer shit. In 20-30 years people won't care about the 80s.
The 80s was a time of increasing corporatism and in reality pretty oppressive. There's a reason why the decade gave birth to the genre of cyberpunk and images of future corporate dystopia.
At the same time, the decade is when technology really began its insane acceleration. Everyone was trying to get ahead of the future and market it as rapidly as possible. This lead to some crazy experimentation in aesthetics. I think part of its staying power is the fact that much of the pop culture was themed around urban environments and technology. In a firmly technological world, that has helped it stay relevant. The same thing is happening with the 90s.
I don't see younger people Get Excite when exposed to culture from the 50s, 60s, or 70s. But nostalgia alone doesn't explain the 80s appeal. People who weren't even born then find that shit appealing.
At the same time, the decade is when technology really began its insane acceleration. Everyone was trying to get ahead of the future and market it as rapidly as possible. This lead to some crazy experimentation in aesthetics. I think part of its staying power is the fact that much of the pop culture was themed around urban environments and technology. In a firmly technological world, that has helped it stay relevant. The same thing is happening with the 90s.
I don't see younger people Get Excite when exposed to culture from the 50s, 60s, or 70s. But nostalgia alone doesn't explain the 80s appeal. People who weren't even born then find that shit appealing.
I hope this is sarcasm. There was more creative expirimentation in both film and music in the 1980's. And you are really arguing things are less corporatized today than then?
It is because people get second hand nostalgia. People who grew up in the 80s exposed their children with what they grew up with and those kids are having nostalgia built around that exposure.
Combination of all the good stuff. It was a unique era for all sorts of things.
I recently asked people what the 2010s will be remembered as since I don't think it particularly did much to define itself like the many other decades but it takes at least a decade after to really look back and see.
I recently asked people what the 2010s will be remembered as since I don't think it particularly did much to define itself like the many other decades but it takes at least a decade after to really look back and see.
Absolutely it's less corporatist today!
Steps to get your music heard worldwide in 1980
-get noticed by corporate executive
-convince corporate executive to give you record deal.
-a corporation spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on printing,marketing, and selling your records or cassettes or CDs
steps to get your music heard worldwide in 2020:
-Record your music, or make it Using a computer program
-post it to youtube, or band camp, or tumblr, or whatever.
Thats it. If your media diet in 2020 is homogenous and corporatized, you have no one to blame but yourself. In 1980, the only things available were the ones that got through a corporate filter. The only requirement for getting published on YouTube is following a TOS.
Id argue that "corporate" music is even more corporate today because to be profitable you really need an international audience whereas in the 80s it might have been more acceptable to be just nationally or regionally popular. Everything is more global now and most industries are dominated by oligarchs instead of mid size corporations who might take more risks.
I agree with your assessment that there is more access to quality music than ever with the internet though. It's just that the pop music that does come out has been so cynically focus tested and marketed that it feels more safe.
Yeah, a lot of the retro 80s style is a fantasy and much of it didn't look like that at all.
Because pop culture peaked in the 80s. I don't know how you can argue otherwise. Much of the music, movies, and just overall style hasn't been topped since. Lots of the works that came out then are still considered the best of their genre/type.
There were plenty of indie bands in the 80's. If you compare top 40 music in the past 25 years is manufactured by comparison in order to make easy money. Heck, a good chunk of top 40 hits from the past twenty years were written by two guys, Lukasz Gottwald and Max Martin.
Night Flight Plus has tons of great music and trash movies from the 80s. Watching whole episodes is quite a time capsule trip.
Get Back In The Daze | Night Flight Plus
Night Flight has always been a right of passage, a trip of entertainment discovery, old and new. An eye opening taste of counter culture, smoked with timeless jewels of artistic buds. Now we can finally get closer to that original cable TV experience we’ve all been missing with NF Plus, an...
www.nightflightplus.com
This YouTube channel is mainly Toronto and Buffalo-centric, and stretches into the '70s and '90s, but it gives a very good look at what things were actually like back then.
Retrontario
Retrontario seeks to preserve, celebrate and research recent Ontario history and pop-culture. Our content – a mixture of rare recently digitized video from t...
www.youtube.com
It's based more on pop art style than actual 80s look.
That's a great channel.This YouTube channel is mainly Toronto and Buffalo-centric, and stretches into the '70s and '90s, but it gives a very good look at what things were actually like back then.
Retrontario
Retrontario seeks to preserve, celebrate and research recent Ontario history and pop-culture. Our content – a mixture of rare recently digitized video from t...
Yeah, 80s wasn't some magical land of neon, legwarmers and such. I made an edit to my previous post, which I should've just made a new post, but in that edit I post some footage of 80s life, be it high school footage or out-on-the-street footage. Some even of Los Angeles back in the mid-late 80s. THAT is what the 80s looked like. It wasn't like AHS 1984 or those "80s themed proms/club nights" you see happening all the time. I think the faux-pop look of the 80s, to some, is far more appealing visually than what it REALLY was like/looked like back then.
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The 80's was the height of American superstardom and access to it globally while simultaneously not being drowned out by a multitude of other content and outlets on a local, national, or Global level.
There was no internet, social media, cell phones, and so many other platforms (Youtube, etc...) to distract you.
There was no internet, social media, cell phones, and so many other platforms (Youtube, etc...) to distract you.
Each new age of humanity is better by definition to me because we get more closer to global knowledge distribution, and only when everyone in the world is aware of its basic rights will things go foward. The reason people stan for the 80's, or any time capsule for that matter, is that we only have a romanticized version of it in our heads.
If the 80's throwback movies we have today actually were like 1980's movies, you would see a LOT more of casual racism and homophobia.
If the 80's throwback movies we have today actually were like 1980's movies, you would see a LOT more of casual racism and homophobia.
True.
A lot of the crazy hairstyles people think of weren't uncommon for many young people but they usually weren't accompanied by wild flashy clothing. This picture reminds me of people in my high school in the late '80s.
