Continuing our backwards countdown of some of our ultimate favourite 1980s pop tracks. Incredibly hard to select - so much must be left out!
Anyway, to 1987 and Suzanne Vega's sad and stirring song about child abuse - Luka.
He lived upstairs from you.
They only hit until you cry - after that you don't ask why.
A wonderful and moving song. Sadly as relevant today as it was back then.
1987 - Boops - he thinks he's got class, they think he's an ass...
You gotta get here to go...
Boops, my man, listen to the mighty Sly and Robbie.
This was - and is - incredible.
This Corrosion - The Sisters of Mercy from 1987. Rock/dance with a goth atmosphere and a background cast of what appeared to me at the time as New Romantics gone mouldy...
On days like this, in times like these, I feel an animal deep inside...
The Pet Shop Boys tend to be underappreciated - and they were certainly self deprecating - but they did a great deal to advance dance music in the 1980s. In 1986, my neon socks were blown off by this great thrashing, clanging beast of a song, which drew me immediately on to the dance floor every time it was played. This was the era of the remix, and this is the one that was closest to the UK single release - and it's from Top of the Pops.
Opportunities - Lets Make Lots Of Money has become a bit of a 1980s anthem. Can't think why...
The Timex Social Club - Rumors - from 1986. I loved this song so much I bought the twelve inch version - and it was even better! Listen to this and then seek it out. Fabulous.
The incredible New Order. Substance 1987 is rarely far from my ears. Brilliant song. Brilliant video
I used to think that the day would never come when my life would depend on the morning sun...
We'll delve back into 1987 and 1986 again soon, as we became a H-H-H-H-House Nation... Jack it up out there!
New Order, of course, formed after Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division, committed suicide in 1980. In 1983, I had never even heard of New Order. I had heard of Joy Division when they'd had some chart success with Love Will Tear Us Apart in 1980, but the follow-on band had slipped underneath my radar. I was dead common, you see. Chart music was everything to me and if a band hadn't charted, I didn't know 'em. Then, along came Blue Monday in 1983.
Now, at that point my favourite kind of music was synth pop, and Blue Monday had synths. It also had a jangling guitar. It also had a staccato beat. And it had a lack of structure I had never encountered before. The song simply didn't conform to the rules I was used to, and I rejected it:
"That's really weird, that is!" I squawked. But within a week this now legendary long player was on my record player non-stop. It was groundbreaking. It was brilliant. It was staggeringly original, it began to move us away from synth pop and towards the dance music era of the late 1980s and early 1990s - that's what I now say.
1987...
schizoid year which saw the '80s destroying the yuppie dream it had
created with the stock market crash - and a huge gale wreaking death and
destruction across the south of England. The dance scene was getting
well and truly underway. This track, from New Order's SUBSTANCE 1987
compilation album, is an absolute peach. Just listen to Bernard Summner:
"I stood there beside myself Thinking hard about the weather Then came by a friend of mine
Suggested we go out together Then I knew it from the start This friend of mine would fall apart Pretending not to see his guilt I said 'let's go out and have some fun'..."
The '80s Actual blog is designed to be an antidote to all those television shows and on-line articles of recent years which examine pop culture - and frequently get it hopelessly wrong!
If you sat watching the BBC's "I Love The 1970s" and exclaimed over items being shown "I could swear that was 1968!" or "Wasn't that 1981?" chances are you were right.
If you look at certain '70s fan sites and think a lot of the material written about is actually from the '80s, you are almost certainly correct.
If on-line encyclopedia articles which state that pop culture of 1983 is really 1977, or similar, have you wishing for reality, then '80s Actual is for you.
There is a huge drive in the media and on-line to negate the 1980s, to attribute that decade's innovations and fond memories to other decades, and basically to present it as a completely vapid ten years, not worthy of examination.
I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's just comforting to have a decade people can scapegoat and declare "HORRIBLE"?
This blog is based on actual memories, media footage (thank you, YouTube!) and snippets of newspaper and magazine articles from the 1980s. If you read it here, I think you can rest assured it's accurate, though I can take no responsibility for the newspaper reports from the decade!
The '80s Actual blog examines the decade's news stories - from the emergence of Lady Diana Spencer into the public eye in 1980, to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Was it simply "The Greed Decade" as many like to claim? I think not - the '80s saw the emergence of yuppies, but also Red Wedge, the Greenham Common Peace Women, and increasing concern for the environment. It may be convenient to scapegoat the '80s as the cause of all known ills, but the reality of the decade was far different - absolute bedlam, as Right fought Left, idealism fought corporate ambition. The election ofRonald Reagan as American President in 1980, and his second victory in 1984, had a far more decisive effect on the international political landscape than the three successive general election victories of UK Prime MinisterMargaretThatcher in 1979, 1983 and 1987.
Musically, the 1980s saw the beginnings of House Music, the exciting and still evolving world of synths taking centre stage, the evolvement of Rap music into the fully-fledged Hip Hop scene, Band Aid and Live Aid, great Indie, startling Acid House, and Raves...
And there was so much more! The decade truly had something for everyone - and provided a welcome escape for a while from the long-running and boring saga of flared trousers as fashion, begun back in the 1960s!
It was a brilliant decade for telly - bringing us such wonders as A Very Peculiar Practice, Inspector Morse, Spitting Image, Hot Metal, The BeiderbeckeTrilogy and Edge of Darkness.
The 1980s also saw the creation ofThe Simpsons, Twin Peaks, and other wonderful (often groundbreaking) American TV showslike Kate & Allie, Cheers, The Golden Girls, Married... With Children, The Cosby Show, Roseanne, and Hill Street Blues.
The '80s gave us some wonderful UK TV ads. Remember Ted Moult advertising double glazing at the Tan Hall Inn with "Fit The Best - Everest"? Remember the Weetabix gang? Remember theScotch video tape skeleton ("Re-record, not fade away"?). Remember the romantic yuppie couple in the coffee ads? And what about "Lotta Bottle"?
In fact, the '80s totally transformed our telly viewing, bringing us Channel 4 and Sky TV.
There are also also '80s Actual sister blogs taking us back to the '70s and '60s - The Real 1970s and Spacehopper.
The view of the 1980s presented here is from an English perspective - much of the original '80s material used is from England, but I hope this blog will prove useful and enjoyable to people in the other nations of the UK and much further afield.
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