To think the 70s/80s/90s were better?

Child in the 60s, teen in the 70s and twenty something in the 80s. 70s music was fab, joyful and fun. On the other hand attitudes to women were terrible, much worse than now.

The 80s was a very tough time for those who weren't well off. There was a lot of stigma and prejudice against lone parents still. I do think the 90s felt a lot happier and more optimistic though. Maybe it's because I was at college and just starting my adult life then. 1995 was for me the perfect combination of progress and "old fashioned" friendships and values. It's all about perspective though isn't it? I wonder if today's teens will one day be all nostalgic about covid and Brexit?

Better times for me then than now for sure. However, I grew up abroad and things were great there.

I was born in the early/mid 70s.
The poverty was horrendous. There are some photos (probably I saw them in the guardian) of people living in what are essentially slums in Manchester and Birmingham, and they look like something from 1945.
We came in from school to candles (power cuts), no television (strikes), never-ending winter (snow and ice on the ground for months, pavements weren't cleared, I remember constantly falling, and no-one could afford grippy boots), sharing the bath/bath water with siblings, and it wasn't even up to your waist, frost patterns on the single glazed windows.
[shiver]
Pasta and rice had to be bought at a Health Food shop.
Clothes, shoes, toys, furnishings etc were very expensive.
Things changed a lot in the 80s.

Jimmy Saville Era alas

I love the 70's era - I was an infant then but looking back on music, films and photos of my parents it's definitely the era I would have liked to be a young adult.

Yanbu life was much less stressful.

1991 has some great songs. Ds has been playing some of them non stop

Some of the earlier TOTPs have had episodes removed due to dodgy presenters/acts.

You cannot cancel the past because of attitudes (not including criminals in this of course). I’m sure we’re not all blameless and will be guilty of something or other in the future. And, it is helpful to see programmes from the past. There is a reason for the pendulum swing now. Making out the past had no racism/sexism/disablism is counter productive - even leading to the notion that those who had lived experience were making a fuss about nothing.

Yep I was born in the 60s and can remember just disappearing off for the days with my friends from about age of 10 and my Mum not being even remotely bothered . Student in Brighton in the 80s and then traveling to Oz late 80s . Cannot remember if I had a mobile…don’t think so ! Life was so less complicated and I don’t think I came across the internet until late 90s . Definitely think the world is so bloody complicated now …the fear of offending , now actually stops me from opening up and getting to know new people .

I was born late 40s and was a teenager in the 60s. It was the most fabulous time of my life, I wouldn't swap it for anything.

For those watching old episodes of TOTP, I assume there are a number of episodes that can't be shown or have been edited due to presenters/artists that can no longer be shown due to their criminal records.

There will also be a number of TV shows from the 70s that couldn't be shown nowadays due to their racist/homophobic attitudes, and a number of 80s shows haven't aged well.

Things were not all rosy in the 70/80s, much behaviour/attitudes then would be frowned upon now (hopefully)

@DottyHarmer We’re watching TOTP 1991, as well! Watched all the 1990 ones last year and it’s really interesting how dramatic the shift in music seems to have been over those 12 months. 1990 was still very 80’s, no? 1991 is great fun, but some of the stuff is dire. 😂The KLF were on the last one and DP and I went down this weird wiki rabbit hole, brushing up on their weirdness (burning a million quid, the anti-Turner prize, etc). It was certainly all very of its time!

I was born in the 70s. I think it depends what's happened in your life. I wouldn't want my kids to grow up in the 70s and 80s, they have a much better childhood, opportunities and education than I did and I was by no means deprived of anything parentally or in any other way. I never understand the rose tinted glasses, when you look back at attitudes in the past I can never understand why people hanker after them. I've never been a person to look back wistfully though, what's past is gone and it's always time to move on and live in the present. The only thing Id prefer my kids didn't have to deal with, that I avoided, was social media but we have lots of discussions about this. In that respect I agree things were more free back then.

My dcs are really envious of Top of the Pops. We have watched all the re-runs - we are now on 1991. Ds can’t believe that TOTP was an event . You’d talk about it at school the next day. An appearance on TOTP could make a record or group. And the charts were varied . You got things you hated, things you loved, and the odd right out of nowhere novelty song too. That doesn’t happen any more. Everyone stays in their lane, like the US music scene. You’re not exposed to all kinds of stuff and can avoid, say, country music. People of my age all know The Coward of the County or Lucille!!

I liked the Bay City Rollers! Hated LA soft rock and prog rock.

I think some 80’s music has stood the test of time. Not mainstream stuff though. My dd likes The Smiths.

Also, everyone thinks the decades they were born in and around are the best, so it's kinda biased viewpoint,

I don't - born in the 60s, teenager in the 1970s - it was fucking awful, the decade style forgot. LA lot of popular music was just wank - the Fucking Bay City Rollers - a lot of 50s throwback twats like Alvin fucking Stardust and Showaddywaddddy Mud etc - just fucking useless.

Most 80s music hasn't stood the test of time either IMHO.

arrrgghhh.

Being a teenager in the 80s was brilliant. Discos in village halls, great (terrible!) fashions, great music. There is even a song, “Christmas was better in the 80s” - and it really was.

Though thinking about climate change, there was actually a lot of environmental anxiety out there, particularly around over-population (many over-heated predictions of inevitable mass famine by 1999 or whatever). I don't think we loaded those worries onto kids in quite the same way though, which is interesting? Or maybe the lack of doom scrolling / 24 news meant we could step back from it and live our day to day lives more easily?

In the 1980’s the parents of my gay friend offered to pay for psychiatric treatment to deal with it.

I think a lot of it is rose-tinted glasses. Sorry! I'm an Irish child of the 80s and we had terrible unemployment and violence in the North and some very conservative attitudes (ie no divorce till 95, so women could be legally tied to abusive men). Also MH issues were very poorly understood - I can think of relatives who might have had very different lives if they'd been properly diagnosed and supported. And while we didn't have climate change worry to the same degree, everyone lived with the potential threat of nuclear war or a terrible nuclear accident (Chernobyl could have easily been much worse) so there was a sense of existential threat if you chose to focus on it.