Back To A 1980s Christmas - Part 1...

This 1986 men's cardigan sums up a lot about why I love 1980s fashion. We men were free to wear nice colours without people making assumptions about our sexuality. Being a straight peacock, I was in my element. The cardie is, of course, suitable for Christmas wear too. I'll be wearing it this year, actually.

"I have a picture. Pinned to my wall. An image of you and of me and we're laughing with love at it all..."

Those were the days. When shoulder pads came in dinner plate sizes - complete with velcro, when jelly shoes were a wow, when Rubik's ruled, when Christmas was Christmas...

Well, it was too comercialised, of course. But then, I was born in 1965 and it's been said that Christmas is too comercialised for as long as I can remember.

But at least most shops were closed on Boxing Day.

And there was no greedy rumpus on Black Friday. In fact, we'd never even heard of Black Friday. 

Here is the start of a little series of posts that will bring the 1980s Christmas back to life...

Enjoy...

Of course, in the 1980s, not all political parties were the same and the old Labour Party was vehemently anti-Tory, not merely the same thing (but less honest and sometimes worse) under a different name. In those days it was politics, not "The X-Factor" or ipods that occupied a lot of our thoughts. Here's a 1984 Labour Party Christmas card, with a privatised Santa selling toys on the street - complete with Rubik's Cube, of course...

Here's that strange, stuttering computer-animated bloke Max Headroom. He'd joined forces with the Art of Noise (remember "Paranoimia"?) and had brief chart success. Here's an unusual jigsaw promo from Chrysalis records. Relax. You're quite safe here...

Now, this was an excellent stocking filler. Ever since the arrival of the Sony Walkman in 1980, cassettes had been growing in popularity (although the compact disc arrived a little later in the 1980s, they were pretty expensive) and so the WH Smith cleaning cassette was a must for many of us. Keep those tape heads clean, and you might avoid having your tapes eaten by your machine.

Here's a lovely WH Smith personal stereo - complete with a radio. So you could listen to Steve Wright In The Afternoon or Our Tune on the move, then slot in the Thompson Twins. Swingorilliant!

Ah, 1981! Lovely radio cassettes, a digital clock radio, and a "phonesitter". Eh? Kind of answer phone thingy. Not cheap. And not at all common. But the 1980s saw the answer phone becoming more and more prevelant.

We end this first 2015 visit to the 1980s Christmas with a last bit of sauce (probably cranberry) from the dear-departed Labour Party. The spirit of protest was strong... the two humans seem to have got their placards jumbled, but the turkey knows what it's doing...

80s Facts - Cassettes And CDs...

 A mid-1980s TDK audio cassette. Keep a pencil handy.

Those were the days! In the early 1980s, audio cassettes, launched in the 1960s, finally outsold vinyl records and were clearly the preferred technology. This was, in part, due to the rising popularity of the Sony Walkman, launched in England as the Sony Stowaway in 1980. Apparently, pop group Bow Wow Wow were the stars of the first commercially released cassette single in the world ever, which was also released in 1980. Appropriately, the subject matter of the song was cassettes - C30, C60, C90 Go!

Doesn't seem that exciting now? It didn't at the time either, so don't worry.

Of course, cassettes were great fun - recording the Top 40 off Radio 1 on your dad's hi-fi or your radio cassette, hearing the music warble, go muffled and then cut out as the machine ate your tape, re-spooling tapes with the aid of a pen or pencil - we now look back at it all with gooey-eyed nostalgia. 

The 1980s were undoubtedly the heyday of the audio cassette, but the shoulder padded era also launched the compact disc - 1983 saw its debut in England. 

Now That's What I Call Music 4 in 1984 was the first Now to appear on CD and contained a selection of songs featured on the vinyl and cassette versions.

Like most new technology, the discs and equipment to play them on were initially expensive and so the rise of the CD was slow. But by the late 1980s they were outselling vinyl, although audio cassettes, now helped enormously by the cassette singles suddenly flooding the record shops in the last couple of years of the decade (they were launched as a serious alternative to vinyl singles in America in 1987), were still the top seller until the early 1990s.

Curiously, many retro-loving youths of today, brought up with sophisticated iPods, CDs, etc, have a soft spot for the dear old cassette.

Nice, innit? Just keep that pencil handy...