The 1980s means…
This person, miner strikes, AIDs, Yuppies, aerobics, Band Aid, economic boom and economic bust.
I’m made of iron
Scary leaflet that was put through everyone’s door
We were wearing leg warmers, button-fly Levis, t-shirts with sleeves rolled up, fingerless gloves, bangles, shoulder pads and big earrings.
Where is the Green Goddess?
Do my shoulders look big in this?
New things in our lives include the Compact Disc which was supposed to be indestructible (my first one being The Best of R.E.M.), the personal computer, the mobile phone (or car phone) and the video recorder (truly a revolutionary invention giving us the ability to watch films at home whenever we wanted to – after a visit to Blockbuster Video – and record missed episodes of Coronation Street, record over precious recordings of other family members with Coronation Street).
Indestructible?
Where does the floppy disk go?
Is it a brick?
For the first time we could record Brookside and watch it later
Keeping us entertained in the evenings were Cilla Black on Blind Date (essential Saturday night viewing), Countdown (the thinking man’s quiz show), Dallas (so who did shoot JR?) and Top of the Pops. Also on TV in that decade: Miami Vice, Blockbusters, Blackadder, Birds of a Feather, Just Good Friends, Howard’s Way, Casualty, That’s Life, The Young Ones, Spitting Image, Not The Nine O’Clock News, Pebble Mill at One, Krypton Factor, St Elsewhere, 30-Something, The Cosby Show, Different Strokes, Bread… I could go on and on.
Look who you turned down?
I’ll have a consonant please Bob (oops wrong show)
Who shot the one with the weird eyebrows?
Thursday nights, just before Tomorrow’s World
On our heads we heads we had…
How much hair spray?
We were listening to the likes of Wham!, post punk, new wave, electronic, two-tone and reggie and Stock, Aiken and Waterman (Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Sonja, The London Boys. The 1980s was a fabulous decade for music, much of which is still played today. My favourites of this decade include: The Cure, Smiths, Joy Division and The Housemartens.
The specials were special
Will love tear us apart or what?
The song that to me epitomises the 1980s is ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ by Band Aid:
It’s Christmas time
There’s no need to be afraid
At Christmas time
We let in light and we banish shade
And in our world of plenty
We can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world
At Christmas time
But say a prayer
Pray for the other ones
At Christmas time, it’s hard
But when you’re having fun
There’s a world outside your window
And it’s a world of dreaded fear
Where the only water flowing
Is a bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there
Are the clanging chimes of doom
We’ll, tonight, thank God, it’s them
Instead of you
And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time
The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life
Where nothing ever grows, no rain or rivers flow
Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?
Here’s to you
Raise your glass for everyone
Here’s to them
Underneath that burning sun
Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?
Feed the world
Feed the world
Feed the world
Let them know it’s Christmas time and
Feed the world
Let them know it’s Christmas time and
Feed the world
Let them know it’s Christmas time and
Art in the 1980s consisted of…
Noe-expressionism: Georg Baselitz
I’m feeling creative today…
New Realism or Appropriation: Gretchen Bender
Video art is big
Graffiti: Harald Naegeli
The decade of doodling
Neo-pop: Jeff Koons (famous for making things more grotesque and taking ordinary objects out of context)
That’s rather a large dog
Film in the 1980s was quite light-hearted, rebellious, and futuristic. Films I remember include: Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, St Elmoe’s Fire, Back to the Future, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Aliens, E.T., Ghostbusters, Dirty Dancing, and Beaches.
She should have gone for Duckie
The 1980s also saw the birth of the ‘rom com’ with When Harry Met Sally in 1989 (which I feel nervous about classifying as a rom com as it is a really rather good film).
We read some great books in the 1980s including Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale, Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose, and Gabriel García Márquez Love In The Time of Cholera.
I read this in 1993 but it was a book of the 1980s
Colours of the 1980s? Pastel pink, pastel yellow, pastel blue.
Food in the 1980s was faster than food from the 1970s. I had my first ever McDonald’s in the 1980s. We ate much more processed food, in front of the TV. It was the decade of convenience.
Three minutes in the microwave and tea time!
Interior design: I remember the 1980s as the era of borders around rooms and stenciling. I also think of pink, flowers, satin bedspreads (satin pyjamas – see below), roses, fru-fru, fills, and fitted wardrobes in white.
Is this room frilly enough?
References:
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