House Music - 1980s Origins...

House music was a brand new dance music genre which originated in Chicago in the early-to-mid 1980s. House was influenced by Disco and many other music styles, just as Disco was influenced by soul, R&B, funk, pop, Motown, etc.

Disco really did not invent the wheel (or four on the floor), and all dance music styles after it should not be tagged post-disco. Disco takes its own place as a descendent of many other styles. Disco? Post-soul. Post-pop. Post R&B. Post-Motown. Post-...

If you think pop music by Black people only came into existence in the 70s, do explore the 60s, and even 50s rock 'n' roll. You're in for a real eye-opening treat.

Disco has been inflated into something it wasn't, and this is partly of because of 'right on' attitudes. Disco was, apparently the province of black and gay people, so the Disco Demolition Night in Chicago in 1979 was seen as something racist and homophobic. 

Was it? I don't think that's the whole story. Disco was formulaic, and the formula was wearing thin. I'm not American, so I don't know how much bigoted attitudes contributed, though I'm sure they did. But they weren't the whole story.

But, over here in England, Disco was getting tired. Most discos were nothing like Saturday Night Fever. Our local was a dive, with nicknames 'The Meat Market' (pick-ups) and 'The Blood Bath' (fights). 

The whole thing was beginning to seem a bit seedy, and a lot of the English venues certainly were - from their beginnings.

So, as Disco declined, I wasn't terribly aware of what was happening in America, but I did think it had run its course.

And I'm not a racist or homophobe.

Ironically, the Stock, Aitken and Waterman brand of dance music in the late 1980s was similarly reviled as formulaic and naff. And it was produced by three white men.

So, how did "House" get its name? There are several answers to that! 

Was it named after Frankie Knuckles' disco, The Warehouse? The Warehouse played disco, Philly soul, and other music, but in the early 1980s some patrons were apparently referring to the disco/soul music heard there as "house", simply because it was heard at the WareHOUSE! Did this name then pin itself on to the new Chicago music, the first true House sounds, later?

Was it thus named because some people were producing these new sounds using machines in their own homes in the early to mid 1980s?

There are other theories, but it's really of no consequence. The origins of the name are actually quite blurred, and perhaps the "House" tag originated from more than one source, although I do think the Warehouse was certainly the main one.

But house music? Well, it didn't originate in the late 1970s. The Warehouse  opened in 1977, but that wasn't the start of House music. 

Let me put it this way: in the 1960s, people were dancing to music at discotheques. Before the end of that decade, the name was being shortened to discos. So, people dancing at a disco in 1969 - were they dancing to Disco music? Does this mean Disco is a 1960s creation?

The creation of House music depended on newly available commercial synths and sound machines, as well as various antecedents.

The legendary Frankie Knuckles, of the Warehouse and then the Power Plant, pinned the beginnings of House music, the genre, to the early 1980s. He said: "Kraftwerk were main components in the creation of House music in Chicago. Back in the early '80s, I mixed our '80s Philly sound with the electro beats of Kraftwerk and the electronic body music.'

But we were not yet home at House. The release of various 'winky wonky' (my phrase) synths and sound machines in the early to mid 1980s would have a huge influence on democratising who could easily produce music as they became affordable (or could be bought second hand), and the cutting edge House sound.

Chicago DJs like Knuckles began working with the new machines, and we edged forward. The DJs who had previously been kings of Soul and Disco were adapting to the new times. I think Disco Demolition Night in 1979 really did hurt a lot of the DJs. I can't imagine what it was like, living over here, but a lot of them didn't lay down. As Knuckles said in 1990, House was 'Disco's Revenge' - not Disco, but some of the people who created it had definitely felt the 'backlash' quite fiercely, and had gone to work to produce something that would attract the same dancers to the nightclubs, and appeal to younger people.

Blasting out of mid-'80s Chicago, the brand new sound of House became increasingly prevalent and popular, hugely popular with the gay scene, but quickly crossing over to include many others. The first House track to chart in the UK was Jack Your Body by Steve "Silk" Hurley in 1986. 

This new popular music genre depended greatly on the new and affordable technology on which music could be made in the early-to-mid 1980s. And, round again to Frankie Knuckles himself: 'Back in the early '80s, I mixed our '80s Philly sound with the electro beats of Kraftwerk and the electronic body music.'

This was the beginning of what would become House.

So, good things did come from the 80s, the decade so many people like to priggishly revile!

The Final Pick Of The Pops From 1986 And 1987 - Love Can't Turn Around, Jack Your Body, Animal, I Wanna Dance With Somebody, Boy In The Bubble, Get Fresh At The Weekend, Human, Wonderful Life, The Way It Is...

Love Can't Turn Around - Farley Jackmaster Funk with Darryl Pandy on vocals. House music: Year Zero 1983 - the very beginning. 1986 - house music beginning to burst out. This is legendary - the very first house music hit in England.

More House - Jack Your Body - Steve 'Silk' Hurley from 1987 - simply fabulous. Gives me a happy glow even now as I teeter past my mid-fifties... not so bad getting older when you have music like this to bring the memories of youth flooding back.

 1986 and Bruce Hornsby and The Range railing against social injustice - beautifully. The Way It Is.

I'm not really a 'rock' man, but this sublime 1987 hit from Def Leppard pushed my buttons. Somehow rockin' but also dancey... Happy nights.

The wonderful Whitney Houston - with the ultimate feel good pop/dance hit. This was 1987 - and it's as good today as it always was.

Wonderful life - a gorgeous summer hit from 1987. A walk in the sunshine, weighed down by melancholy... Once again, I was having a crisis - the (then) love of my life had just walked out. This song suited me down to the ground.

Boy in the Bubble - Paul Simon, 1986 - from his Graceland album. This song tapped into a feeling I had at the time. There was a sudden onrush of new technology - either things just becoming affordable and widespread - like the VCR and microwave oven - or brand new launches like the mobile phone and the Apple Mac. The world was buzzing - and there were millionaires and billionaires and sophisticated weaponry and lasers in the jungle... Probably.

 It was a vibrant time, but it felt somehow frantic and topsy turvy. A very transient era - rather like my youth. Bright and shiny and fresh with loads of new things happening. But was the sudden onrush of technology going to turn out a good thing? I mean, can you imagine making a phone call while you are walking down the street?

Who was the boy in the bubble? David Vetter, born in 1971, died in 1984, who had to live his life in a highly sterile 'bubble' environment due to severe combined immune deficiency. And the baby with the baboon's heart? Baby Fae born in October 1984. She lived until November.

Get Fresh At The Weekend. Lovely Mel and Kim. I saw these two being interviewed by Andrea Arnold, who played Dawn, on Saturday morning kids' show Number 73 and could have sat down and joined in the chat. Down to earth English girls - cockneys in fact - with a great sense of fun (not like the characters in EastEnders at all!). I really liked them. And the more 1980s music banged and clattered, the more I loved it.

The Human League, Human. When Phil Oakey spotted those two girls dancing at the Crazy Daisy Nightclub in October 1980, a legendary alliance was formed. This song is beautiful - with a great twist at the end.

Coming soon, we trip back to 1985 (the first year of the second half of the 1980s) and 1984 (the last year of the first half of the 1980s) to discover The Man With The Power That Promised You The World...

Some 1980s Vibes: When Corona Was Fizzy Drinks, Frankie Wanted To Arm The Unemployed And West End Girls Prowled...

'West End Girl' - a 1987 poster by Athena. The spiky-haired foxtress has obviously been surprised on the fire escape. Wonder what she's been up to? Eurythmics's Annie Lennox, in the guise of her horrid middle class housewife in the 1987 'Beethoven (I love to listen to)' video, would no doubt, have been fascinated!

So, the 1980s.

BOOM! BANG! KER-BLAM! Love Thatcher/Reagan? Hate Thatcher/Reagan? Wanna be a yuppie? Wanna join Red Wedge and tear down the whole capitalist system? Wanna eat Nouvelle Cuisine? Wanna eat bubble and squeak portions from Bejam? Love the brand new House Music sensation? Prefer the brand new indie sensation that was The Smiths? Love to power dress? Love to wear deelyboppers and jelly shoes?

The 1980s seemed full to bursting with contrasting thingies. And now it all looks like a different planet. How things have changed! Take Covid-19. Back in the 1980s if you mentioned 'Corona' in England and Wales, a range of fizzy drinks immediately sprang to the forefront of most minds - not lockdowns and social distancing.

This Corona bottle dates from 1982, as indicated by the date on the promotional blurb on the back of the label. The label features the little bubbly thingie from the early 1980s 'Every bubble's passed its fizzical' TV ad, which was then current.

Environmentally friendly? 'Course we were - 10p deposit charged on the bottle. My favourite Corona drinks were orangeade and cherryade. Every Christmas we used to order a crate of assorted Corona drinks from the milkman.

Daily Mirror, 27 February, 1985:

Frankie goes to Downing Street
Leading pop stars have signed a "celebrity petition" to be handed in at 10 Downing Street tomorrow. It opposes Government plans to axe supplementary benefit for school leavers if they do not take part in the Youth Training Scheme. Holly Johnson and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Paul Weller, Madness, Smiley Culture, the Flying Pickets and Alison Moyet are among the entertainers whose names will be handed in. The Downing Street visit is part of a national rally and lobby of Parliament organised by the Youth Trade Union Rights Campaign.

The Youth Opportunities scheme had been introduced by the Callaghan Labour Government in 1978, in response to rapidly rising youth unemployment. A YOP provided work experience only, although in 1982 a training element was added. In 1983, it was replaced by the Youth Training Scheme (YTS), which, as the scheme's name suggests, was centred around training for skills.

So, what was the beef with school leavers having to go on a YTS scheme to qualify for Government money? Did they not want training? Well, looking back, the reasons I heard bandied about were that the Government was simply using the scheme to make the unemployment figures look smaller, and that minimum age school leavers had a right to expect a proper job.

This interested me as, as far back as the mid-1970s, the fact that graduates with degrees were finding it impossible to find work was being widely reported.

But in the 1980s, any initiative on the part of the Thatcher Governments was seen by many of us as a plot to do us down. Her first government's concentration on inflation rather than unemployment early in the decade had cast her out forever as far as I was concerned.

And, although I had a job and was completely unaffected, I still ranted my disapproval.

Maggie Thatcher would probably have dearly loved to give Frankie a spanky in the mid-1980s.

Wikipedia - Is House Music Derived From Garage?

An e-mail from Sam:

Seems to be some sort of editing war going on on Wikipedia, with one editor insisting that modern day House Music is derivative of Garage Music (without backing this up with any reliable links I might add!) and another insisting it isn't. Do you know the answer, oh '80s Guru?

LOL, Sam! Had a similar query a week or two back, but I'll address the question again - just for you! Wikipedia has many great folks involved with it but it is not, at the end of the day, a dependable source of information because anybody can edit anything and edit wars do take place! No, house music is not derivative of garage music. None of my 1980s/1990s literature on the subject mentions such a link. The two forms of '80s dance music are related as they were developing at the same time, but separately.  I believe New York garage slightly pre-dated Chicago house, but house broke through into the mainstream much earlier. The Channel 4 documentary Pump Up The Volume, which contains many interviews with original house music pioneers, describes 1983 as "Year Zero" for the genre. It was hitting the mainstream pop charts here in England from 1986 onwards. Garage was something I heard more of in the 1990s. I'm not sure about modern day house, but garage should certainly not be listed in the "stylistic origins" section for house on Wikipedia. That is potty.

I'm amazed that sources like the BBC link so readily to Wikipedia. It is worrying. Wikipedia is a great idea, but needs closer monitoring. It is one of the biggest purveyors of misinformation around - and that's a great shame.

House Music And Garage Music... Separate, Not The Same...

Joanne has written:

Were the dance music genres of the 1980s, House and Garage the same thing? I remember as a kid them being referred to separately, but I recently read of something called "Garage House" on a not very accurate site, and thought I'd turn to you for the answer!

Yes, they were separate, Joanne. House music as a distinct genre of electronic dance music began in Chicago - 1983 was described as "Year Zero" for house in the Channel 4 documentary, Pump Up The Volume. House, of course, hit the mainstream in the mid-1980s. Garage I knew little of until the 1990s, when I heard talk of "house and garage". There was also talk of something called "shed" at that time. It all seemed quite witty, but I was married by then and no longer part of the nightclub scene so know little about Garage. It apparently began in the early 1980s in New York and New Jersey, USA, and was influenced by the same sudden explosion of electronic instruments - synthesizers, drum machines, etc - as house.

The origins of the two genres are separate though.

Acid House

One of the big "things" in 1988 and 1989 - the smiley face! Created in the 1960s and long associated by us plebs with kids' badges and jolly tea mugs, the face was suddenly the symbol of a rather frantic and frankly rather naughty progression from the House Music scene called Acid House. I was confused. House music had been created in Chicago - 1983 was 'Year Zero' for House - and the sound had not begun to go wide until midway through the decade.

And now we had ACID House. Say what?!

The smiley face was soon cropping up on T-shirts everywhere, accompanied by the slogan "Right On One Matey!" The elders got themselves into a right old stew about it all, whilst many youngsters, bored with being garishly posh, gothy, Indie or synthy, eagerly embraced the chance to get sweaty under strobe lights, and move about to weird electronic noises and samples.

And if you had to break into somebody else's warehouse or barn to do it, all the better!

Some newspapers seemed alarmed. A new drug culture, and the kids acting up again. Oh dear! Where had Acid House sprung from?

The Observer observed in 1988:

Drugs Fear as the 'acid house' cult revives a Sixties spectre

"Acid house" started in four London clubs... In the past month it has "taken off", spreading to other clubs around the country.

1988 and 1989 were wild. Absolutely evil according to some! The elders were definitely rattled!

From the Sun, August 28, 1989:

More than 25,000 youngsters - some aged only ELEVEN - went wild at a huge acid house party yesterday as the police watched helplessly.

Dozens of evil pushers raked in a fortune openly selling the mind-bending drug Ecstacy at £10 a time - with a bottle of mineral water to wash it down.

A police superintendent and WPC moved through throngs of spaced-out teenagers as dealers chanted "E, hash, weed" to the beat of the music.

School-age children rolled their own reefers.

But the officers were only there to make sure there was no trouble while notices about the noise were served on the organisers.

The 15-hour bash started on Saturday night when hordes of acid house fans converged on the village of Effingham, Surrey.

Cars, coaches and vans poured into Newmarsh Farm for the £30-a-head "Energy Summer Festival".

Youngsters from as far way as Leeds, Swindon and Ipswich screamed "Mental, mental" as lasers lit the sky.

Headlines from the Sun CONDEMMING the drug craze flashed on a huge video screen.

Party organisers made an estimated £500,000 from the bash - which cost about £50,000 to stage.
Police, who only heard of the party hours before, at first stopped youngsters entering the site.
But as thousands joined the crush, senior officers decided it was safer to let them in.

About 70 police were on duty, but there were only seven arrests - two for alleged drug offences.
Police will quiz the organisers and those responsible for the land.

A spokesman said:

* An acid house bash, tagged The Heat, was smashed at the weekend because it was a FIRE RISK.

* Around 10,000 revellers were expected to head for a disused factory at West Bromwich, West Midlands.

* But the local council won an injunction to ban the party after fire experts declared the building unsafe.

* Only 30 youngsters, mainly from London, arrived at the factory, but were promptly turned away by the police.

"There could be criminal charges."

Michael Grylls, MP for North West Surrey, said: "It is a massive indictment of parents that they allow their children to attend this sort of thing."

Fellow Tory Terry Dicks said: "These parents should be fined, if not sent to prison."
Monks at a silent order at West Kingsdown, Kent, were disturbed by 3,000 at a nearby acid house party.

Master of a little-known DJ skill called Transformer Scratching (making a record sound like a robot's voice), James Dorrell was hailed as a pioneer of "English hip-hop". Dorrell, who was also in M/A/R/R/S (Pump Up The Volume), was interviewed in 1988 and said of Acid House:

"It's really crazy, psychedelic music. There's no real tune, just lots of studio technology. You can also scratch other bits of records over the top of the beat and add to the effect. The other day I found an amazing old record by Brian Clough of all people! I used this bit where he says, "He's got a good left foot that lad!" over a serious Chicago House groove. It sounded brilliant!"
Mind you, imagination and originality were needed. Dorrell again:

"If I hear another James Brown yelp or This is a journey into sound again I'll scream!"

Despite the '60s psychedelic references (particularly the return of the lava lamp, which became HUGE in the 1990s, reaching its highest ever sales), the new drug culture (just what was this ecstacy?!) and so on, followers of Acid House were not hippies. From what I saw, they were harder, more streetwise, more working class - "On One Matey!" rather than "Peace Man!" The music too was very different. 20th Century Words by John Ayto, describes it thus:

Acid House n (1988) a type of house music with a very fast beat, a spare, mesmeric, synthesised sound, and usually a distinctive gurgling bass noise. Also applied to the youth cult associated with this kind of music, characterised by a vogue for warehouse parties, a revival of psychedelia, and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs. "Acid" may well be the slang word for LSD, although many cultists claim that it comes from the record "Acid Trax" by Phuture (in the slang of Chicago, where this music originated in 1986, "acid burning" means "stealing", and the music relies heavily on "sampling" a polite word for stealing musical extracts).

Did you join in or want to put an end to the "menace"? From the "Sun", November 18, 1988.

1986 - Big Bang, Walk Like An Egyptian, "Today" Newspaper, Scanner Tills, Neighbours, Baked Spuds, Chernobyl, Courgettes And Peppers...

"You've got the brawn, I've got the brain, let's make lots of money..."

Chernobyl blew and there was a sharp rise in radiation levels across Europe. I was caught out in a downpour just after it happened and, having heard that rain was a good carrier of radiation, I wondered if my snorkel parka would be glowing when I turned out the light and got into bed. Fortunately, it wasn't.

The Big Bang, computerised dealing on the London Stock Exchange, suffered teething problems. The new system was unable to cope, so traders were forced to trade in the traditional way until it was up-and-running again.

In March, Eddie Shah launched Today, the UK's very first colour daily national newspaper.

Another Royal Wedding - Andy and Fergie, this time. Not as big a deal as Charles & Di, but a good enough reason to hang the flags out and swig down a bottle of sherry for royalists.

"Hold a chicken in the air, stick a deckchair up your nose..."

Spitting Image took revenge on the merciless Black Lace for Aga Doo.

Oh dear... Ange from EastEnders made compulsive viewing as she struggled with the booze and Dirty Den, but, behind the mic, she simply proved that whilst Anyone Can Fall In Love, not everyone can sing.

Nick Kamen was charming eye candy for the girlies as he whipped off his jeans and put them through a power wash, but pure flim-flam as a singer - just like Ange.

But the ultimate stinker was designer-stubbled Nick Berry, Albert Square's Wicksy... Roll on Kylie and Jason!

Fortunately, the Pet Shop Boys saved the pop day with dance treat Opportunities - Let's Make Lots Of Money, and the Hip Hop/rock fusion of Run DMC and Aerosmith's Walk This Way was a pivotal moment in Hip Hop history. And that wasn't all! Love Can't Turn Around by Farley "Jackmaster" Funk was the very first House track to chart in England! And it made it all the way up to No 10!

I tried designer stubble, but it simply made me look seedy - the sort of character you definitely wouldn't buy a used car from.

Back to the music, and did you follow the Bangles and Walk Like An Egyptian?

It was a time when we talked Power, capital 'p' intended: of course there was power dressing, but there were also power walks/naps/breakfasts/showers/washes...

Black lycra continued to be a hit with women. With small, bolt-like metal studs dotted around the dresses and armour-like earrings, the message was "don't mess with me!" But for fun nights out figure-hugging lycra was also available in various putrid shades - you could even buy lycra micro minis. More like an elastic band than a skirt, these were essential for the girl who wanted to ensure that NOTHING was left to the imagination.

What was it with baked spuds? Perhaps the F-Plan Diet had a lot to answer for, as spud fever gripped the nation. There was a very fancy potato cafe near me, decorated with old fashioned advertisements from the early 20th Century, where you could go and eat spuds filled with wonderful things.

Now, who's for a nice jacket with prawn mayo, sliced hard boiled egg and grated cheese? Baked beans on top? OK...

In the 1970s and early 1980s I was happy to simply give a baked spud a quick dollop of marge and a bit of grated cheese before wolfing it down. Not anymore. Now I scooped out the potato and mashed it up with butter and chopped chives, before replacing it in the jacket, placing grated cheese on top and then browning it under the grill. Or the potato might be mixed with tuna, chopped peppers and mayonnaise (I didn't meet peppers or mayo until the 1980s - before that I was only acquainted with salad cream and spring onions!).

Me, a humble working class lad, was suddenly scoffing posh nosh. I was eating food I'd never laid eyes on back in 1982.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, supermarkets had reflected our thrifty (and ignorant of posh nosh) ways. Remember the wide range of "Basics" and "Economy" products on sale at supermarkets in the early 1980s? These were dead cheap versions of everyday neccessities to help us through the ravages of the recession. They started a trend, and you can still buy similar "cheap-as-can-be" supermarket items today.

Back then, Sainsbury's and Tesco's were different planets compared to the supermarkets of today. There simply wasn't the range of foods on sale. The '70s and early '80s were hard times.

But many humble, everyday supermarkets were undergoing a revolution during the mid-'80s boom period, introducing shocked shoppers to such oddities as avocados, peppers, olive oil and courgettes for the first time ever. The working classes would never be the same again.

Sainsbury's started to seem quite classy in the mid-'80s, and I'm sure I was rubbing shoulders with vicars and school teachers whenever I nipped in - and more than a few yuppie types. It all seemed very strange.

As posh nosh trickled down to the working classes, we also loved prawn cocktail - which was being slagged off by Fanny Cradock as long ago as 1967! But Nouvelle Cuisine was really "it". I could probably have eaten about nine Nouvelle sized portions in one sitting, and wouldn't give it house room.

My own favourite was all those fancy salad dressings suddenly so widely and cheaply available. When I was a kid, and indeed into the early '80s, salad to me meant cold meat or a wedge of pork pie, cheese, some limp lettuce, a few spuds and a dollop of salad cream. Not any more!

The supermarket revolution wasn't just confined to expanding ranges of food. A female friend of mine was working at Sainsbury's in the mid-'80s, and witnessed the arrival of bar code scanner tills. The beeping sound was dreadful, she told me.

Completely unused to it, the dreadful repetitive sound echoed in her head when she got home, and many of her colleagues experienced similar difficulties. On her honeymoon in 1986, my friend halted things at a very romantically charged moment to ask: "Was that a beep?" Fortunately, her new husband also worked at Sainsbury's and was entirely sympathetic!

Filofaxes and Garfield toys/posters/mugs were everywhere, Trivial Pursuit continued to be wildly popular. But what 'B' won 1986's Game of the Year title? Yes, a game based on Blockbusters. Bliss - now we could all enter into the spirit of the thing and have a 'P' at home.

An Aussie daytime soap with a stripper? Gosh! It seemed that Neighbours, which began here in October, was going to be a bit naughty - shades of a Bouquet of Barbed Wire, perhaps? But Daphne Lawrence, played by Elaine Smith, was the only stripper in the world who didn't take her clothes off, and we had to make do with commenting on her trendy hairdo and Helen Daniels' jumpers. They weren't quite in the Frank Bough league, but inspirational nevertheless.

Soon, we were also commenting on Mrs Mangel's simper and Madge Ramsay's enormous gob.

Early Neighbours was great. Read all about it here.

1987 - Nokia Cityman, "You Got An Ology?", House Music, Respectable, All Night TV, It's A Sin, The Great Gale, Black Monday, "Nessie, Are You There?"

1987 saw the yuppies reaching the height of happiness. It seemed to be the year of yuppiedom. There was a feeling in the air that mankind had been striving to reach 1987 since creation, and we were now here - chortle, chortle! Nothing need ever change again. The feeling was strong, tangible. Strolling along, reeking of Mandate, bound for yet another night out, I sniffed the summer air and felt a sense of well being I'd never thought possible.

But 1987 was not what it seemed: if most of 1987 was yuppie heaven, from late-October onwards was sheer yuppie hell and, far more importantly, that month also left a trail of death and destruction...

More about 1987's month of turmoil here.

The 1980s had built up a stock of acronyms, and these were in full bloom in 1987. Were you a nimby? This stood for Not In My Backyard. You might be happy to see hostels for the homeless established, nuclear waste dumping sites found etc - just as long as they weren't in your neck of the woods. Then, of course, there were yuppies (young urban professionals). The coining of the "yuppie" tag happened in America in the early 1980s.

20th Century Words by John Ayto, traces the name back to 1982 and defines a yuppie thus:

a member of a socio-economic group comprising young professional people working in cities of a type thought of as typifying the ethos of the 1980s: ambitious, go-getting, newly affluent, young, class-free, owing no debt to the past. Originally US; a hybrid word coined probably by grafting an acronym based on "Young Urban Professional" (or "Young Upwardly mobile Professional") on to a basic model suggested by hippie.

Coincidentally, the book traces the hippie word back to 1953! This came as something of a surprise to me as hippies and everything to do with hippiedom are usually so strongly associated with the 1960s.

Returning to the 1980s, I have read that the yuppie word was first coined in 1981, whilst 20th Century Words, as seen above, traces it to 1982. Whilst there is no doubt that it is an early 1980s coinage, yuppies were most prevalent in the mid-to-late decade.

I've also discovered that as well as plain and simple yuppies there were buppies (black yuppies), Juppies (Japanese yuppies), guppies (gay yuppies) and green yuppies (environmentally concerned yuppies).

And then there were oinks (people with one income, no kids); dinkys (people with dual incomes, no kids yet); minkys (middle income, no kids yet); jollies (jet setting oldsters with lots of loot); glams (greying, leisured affluent middle aged); swells (single women earning lots of loot)... and it went on and on.

Perhaps you were a foodie - obsessively into food trends?

The Eighties/New Man thing was still going strong.

1987 was posh, even the crisps had gone upmarket by this time - "Cheese and onion?" "No, ta, cheese and chive for me." It was so posh that Donna Summer would have been having Dinner With Gershwin and watching Rembrandt sketch if they'd still been about. But it was also brash. The shoulder pads were at maximum stretch. The hair was too big, the puffball skirts too yucky. But we didn't realise.

NMT, the world's first international cellular mobile telephone network, had opened in Scandinavia in 1981. In 1987, the Nokia Cityman, the world's first NMT hand portable, was launched. More here.

Still on the subject of phones, Maureen Lipman made her debut as Jewish grandma Beattie Bellman in the famous BT "ology" ad series. For further details click here!

Musically, we were hearing an exciting new sound which was bursting out of America: House. After Farley "Jackmaster" Funk reaching No 10 in the UK singles chart in late 1986, Steve "Silk" Hurley took it to the top when Jack Your Body made Number 1 in January 1987.

Remember H... H... H... House Nation, which invaded the airwaves in September?

House was a new genre of electronic music which originated in Chicago, USA, in the early 1980s. And here in 1987 we were well and truly reaping the benefits.

M/A/R/R/S took us screeching towards the Dance era with Pump Up The Volume, we were Star Trekkin' with The Firm, Kirsty and the Pogues gave us the wonderful Fairytale of New York for Christmas, and the Pet Shop Boys told us It's A Sin.

Neighbours, cancelled by Australian Channel 7, had been picked up by their Channel 10, and we began to see the Channel 10 episodes here in 1987. This was the year we first clapped eyes on busybody Mrs Mangel. Played by the English-born actress Vivean Gray, Mrs Mangel was the type of sticky beak character essential to all good soaps. Mrs M palled up with Eileen Clarke (played by another English-born actress, Myra de Groot) and the two gave the soap some of its finest and funniest moments.

The role of Neighbours' skate boarding teen Scott Robinson was recast - a young actor called Jason Donovan stepped into the role, and soon he needed a love interest. The character Charlene Mitchell was introduced, played by another young unknown, Kylie Minogue. 1987 saw Scott and Charlene marry in Australia, however we lagged behind and would have to wait until 1988. Neighbours' popularity swelled enormously here in 1987, and Scott and Charlene's courtship kept ever-increasing numbers of us glued to the screens. "Read All About It" here.

Soap, soap n' more soap was the order of the day. But after Pammy's dream in Dallas the previous year, could we really take any more weirdness?

In Dynasty spin-off The Colbys, Fallon was whisked away at the end of the series in a flying saucer. More here.

It was a great year for Michael Douglas. On at the flicks was the morality tale Wall Street ("greed is good"), and the chilling Fatal Attraction. The bunny was on the boil. Conveniently, I managed to spill my popcorn at several tense moments during the film, and so was spared the worst scenes.

Glenn Close put in an absolutely stunning performance as the very first bunny boiler... remember that bathroom scene, where she lies beneath the water, apparently dead, with that slightly puzzled, slightly hurt expression on her face? Then - ARRRGGGHHH!! - up she rises and, oh dear, there goes the popcorn again...

Actually, I didn't go to the pictures very often because I preferred to dance. I loved the local Nite Spot; I loved the black and chrome decor and all the full length mirrors; I loved the pink and blue neons; I loved togging myself up in my white chinos; or one of my black suits with the multi-coloured cotton flecks; or my shiny grey suit; or my bright pink linen jacket; or my smart blue jacket - which went so well with my banana yellow skin-tight trousers.

I often wore one of my stockbroker shirts or a nice cerise vest...

I was completely and utterly hooked on big shoulder pads. I was developing a very slight beer belly, and the pads detracted from this brilliantly.

All my clothes were cheap-and-cheerful- from the likes of C&A - there was some lovely... well, I suppose it might now be called "flash trash" around.

In the news, Manchester police chief James Anderton announced that God may be using him as a prophet.

There were several terrible tragedies in 1987 - the capsizing of the car-ferry Herald of Free Enterprise and the Hungerford killings to name but two.

In October, my attention was diverted north of the border as it seemed that Nessie was, at last, to be revealed. But she wasn't.