2020s are rubbish, so were the 1980s any good?

ZombieCake

ZombieCake

Well-known member
This decade is looking a bit naff. So I was wondering about the 80s, which were nice, to compare and contrast.  I'll start with a summary.  As ever thoughts and contributions welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0eflYLkI4A
 
In 1980 we had Debbie Harry. Still unsurpassed in any respect worth bothering with. Although I have a soft spot for Annie Lennox my kids will tell you.

Honestly, it?s been shit since the 1980?s for everything except cash flow. Back then we watched Threads and most assumed we were about to be vaporised, so f*** it. Or not vaporised, which was apparently worse. Kids these days think pronouns are edgy. There has been a noticeable drop off in more risky sport activities, and it?s not just demographics.
 
Debbie Gibson? Now I'm hearing the voice of Bill Hicks tearing into her "get back to the mall that spawned you!" As for Threads, I seem to recall the choice you got  in that was being incinerated in the blast or staggering around the Peak District in a nuclear winter, gnawing bits off a dead sheep while you slowly died of radiation sickness - cheery stuff! Since we're covering both 80s music and nuclear annihilation, we get to choose between OMD's "Enola Gay" and Nena's "99 Red Balloons"...
 
pwhole said:
Well, much as I miss Debbie Gibson, the 1980s was when I grew up and found proper music. Like this, from..erm..1980!:
Click to expand...
Apparently she had a top 5 single in US Dance chart last year! (or there were the Mega Shark movies - Mega Python even included Tiffany...)
 
Not quite the 2020?s but I saw the Cure?s Glastonbury set in 2019 and I?ve got to say they were even better than they were in the 80?s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD9Q1lctyo8

Mark
 
Didn't Threads get banned or something like that?  Pretty good film as I recall. Is it OK to go to Sheffield these days?  Most scary thing I read was 'Protect and Survive', makes the current stuff look rather interesting in context of the communications.
Of course in the 80s Hair Metal also destroyed the ozone layer...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDK9QqIzhwk


 
Well I'm in Sheffield all the time, only half a mile from the nuclear epicentre in fact, and I'm still here. Maybe suffering a bit of fallout damage, but otherwise intact.

Another good thing about the 1980s was the rise of On-U Sound Records, which was the perfect blend of black and white street consciousness and stoned humour rendered with the heaviest dub imaginable, all produced by Adrian Sherwood. Mark Stewart, late of The Pop Group, did a wonderful album, Learning To Cope With Cowardice - I saw him doing this live:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29aT2UD0eJk&list=OLAK5uy_mxYOFrucSxDbs6XPdVjskBAgtKb4hT35c&index=2
 
pwhole said:
?.On-U Sound Records, which was the perfect blend of black and white street consciousness....
Click to expand...

On-u Sound Sytem! Gary Clail.

Some things go round in circles, or perhaps never change.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2Qg73_lK1A



 
AR said:
Debbie Gibson? Now I'm hearing the voice of Bill Hicks tearing into her "get back to the mall that spawned you!" As for Threads, I seem to recall the choice you got  in that was being incinerated in the blast or staggering around the Peak District in a nuclear winter, gnawing bits off a dead sheep while you slowly died of radiation sickness - cheery stuff! Since we're covering both 80s music and nuclear annihilation, we get to choose between OMD's "Enola Gay" and Nena's "99 Red Balloons"...
Click to expand...

I rather enjoyed the 80's I only have a faint recollection of 'Threads' I know people often say it really upset them at the time but I don't recall anyone I mixed with taking it particularly seriously  :shrug: Music was always on but I never got to into any particular artist or style.

Back then BMX was my main concern. I was no good at fancy tricks and stuff, we mainly used to line each other up and see how many of our mates we could jump over with ramps made of old doors and concrete blocks.

from 13 onwards we all had Saturday jobs at various places and therefore what seemed at the time like quite a bit of cash. I worked in a builders yard washing vans and helping in the joinery machine shop. Various pubs in the village would serve us providing we were discreet and on one memorable occasion we bought an old Honda Civic MOT failure in exchange for a couple of packs of fags and my mates brother drove it onto the dump at the back of the factory where his dad was manager, we used to race it around imitating the Saturday teatime heroes from the A-Team and Dukes of Hazzard. Sadly we got too cocky and tried to jump it off the lorry loading ramp with 4 of us in it. Somehow we didn't die but all 4 tyres burst and the engine mounts broke so it wouldn't drive any more - it's not like that on TV  :-\







 
ttxela2 said:
Sadly we got too cocky and tried to jump it off the lorry loading ramp with 4 of us in it. Somehow we didn't die but all 4 tyres burst and the engine mounts broke so it wouldn't drive any more - it's not like that on TV  :-\
Click to expand...

I did exactly the same thing with a 1972 Datsun 1200 B110 Coupe, back in 1980.
Bought by me and my mate for ?50 all in, aged 12 we ragged it around the fields all summer, rolled it and then jumped it off a loading ramp and killed it. Then we tipped it over the edge into Pant Gwyn slate mine, which was where all dead cars ended up back in those days, here:

https://www.aditnow.co.uk/Mines/Pant-Gwyn-Slate-Mine_1291/

Current value of a Datsun 1200 Coupe? Around ?12k for a nice one.

The previous year we had done the same thing with a 1957 oval-window VW Beetle.
Current value....?25k for a nice one.

Then there were the countless Minis and Escort Mexicos that we bent. Oh god, the waste!!

 
Not having anything much better to do these days just dug out Threads from the DVD pile (it was released a few years ago) and re-watched it.  Still the cheerful programme I remember.  I'm off to dig a bunker. 
 
I too was more interested in Wendy & Lisa if I'm honest - their first album was fantastic. That's kind of what I liked about Prince though - he had a good team together and loads of spin-off bands came out of his projects. Madhouse was his backing band doing a jazz thing - 2 albums:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=entmePV0CpA

The Black Album was the last one I got though - it seemed to go rapidly downhill after that, especially when he started telling folks not to buy it as it was evil! That didn't go as planned ;)

I thought A.R. Kane were a phenomenal British band, and they've recently half-reformed - from 1988:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wes8tT2_YG8
 
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