To wish I had been old enough to enjoy the 80s?

[CJ2010]

Just listening to some brilliant 80s songs on my iPod and was just thinking that I would have loved to have been in my teens/ twenties to have been able to enjoy the music, fashion, movies etc. I think the music especially, was brilliant, such a great mix of everything to suit all tastes. I was born in the eighties, so I can sort of remember the 90s, which were also fab, but the last decade I think, has been crap, music wise. AIBU?

I totally agree! I hadn't even reached my teens until the naughties 2000 exactly actually I think and I have to say that most of the music in particular from 2000 til now has been rubbish! Real music came waaaay before our time!

I remember, really wanting a Soda Stream but I never got one! I had a Mr Frosty though!

Oh dear God. YABU! '80s were terrible in pretty much everything - horrid bushy hairstyles with way too much gel, seriously ugly fashion in clothing notably with shoulder pads, and silly music.

The 80s were wonderful. Talking Heads...

I think Gary Numan has said he has aspergers?

Yep I loved pretty much everything! OTT glamour and all. And my teens play Beatles to the 1980s plus Dire Straits all the time so I never complain. I suppose it helps that they grew up listening to it!
DD does dabble in recent stuff now but DS is very conservative (he now drives to Squeeze Ultravox and Joe Jackson and they fight over my Back to the 80's triple DVD set...

Was the excitement/ anticipation greater for Charles & Diana's wedding than it was for William & Kate's?

I'm an eighties throwback. It's quite tragic really.

Musically there was some real magic; the bands that rose from punk beginings basically. There was also plenty of complete shite. Same could be said for the 70s really. There was was some blinding music in the 90s (Pixies, Nirvana) so I don't agree that it was a right off musically at all.

Politically and economically the 80s were pretty dire, but at lest we gave a fuck about it.

I like that we butchered old clothes and shopped in flea markets; new clothes were indeed v.dear. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.

They used to play Move Closer by Phyllis Nelson at the end of the discos and then they'd let off the smoke machine. Eeeh kids don't know what they are missing these days. That was always our signal to hotfoot it off the dance floor cringing.

Also i think i was in the last lot to get full grants - we took it all for granted. I remember watching a demo where they walked past with a coffin with No more Grants or something on it.
Also went to Exeter uni to a May Ball and it was like another world. Lots of boys in red braces and posh girls drinking Pimms. They left the bottles by the tennis courts. I was a Newkie Brown girl, i thought Pimms was very exotic!
And i remember hearing The Communards rehearsing because they were playing later and it reminds me of that whenever i hear Don't Leave me this way

I just had a flashback to the words of a song:

"Remember the good old 1980's
When life was so uncomplicated"

Odd thing is that I heard them as a child in the 70's (Pink Floyd maybe)
and I remember being blown away by the fact that people would one day look back wistfully about a decade that had not yet happened.

I never thought about it again until just now....wierd

Obviously the 80s were by far the best decade ever!

abitwobblynow - yes, Gary Numan has Aspergers, sadly misunderstood sometimes. I saw a brilliant documentary about him a while ago, loved his music (funnily enough so does DS2 who has Aspergers )

I remember students in the 80s getting full grants and being able to claim housing benefit and dole in the holidays and there was lots of cash-in-hand work to be had. They still moaned about being broke though

Can't believe people talking about being cool up thread because they loved Depeche Mode in the 80's!

I've spent my entire life being called uncool because of my love for Depeche!

So can I now say that I must be cooler than anyone because Depeche Mode used to play my school Youth Club and I once got tooted by Dave Gahan as he was driving past me in his Porsche!

Used to see all the Depeche boys doing really normal stuff around town and we used to act all cool as if it was really normal to be queuing at the bank or railway station behind someone you had seen on Top of the Pops the night before!

The 80's were great!

Depeche Mode early 80's = cool
Depeche Mode late 80's when they were in The charts = not cool
They're probably cool again now.

I live in hope that one day they will be considered cool!

Dave Gahan was named the second best front man of all time In a recent Xfm poll ( he beat Freddie Mercury which even as a devoted DM fan I thought was wrong!) So some people must like them.

I still love them and they sold out the O2 a couple of years back - although I did notice a lot of confused people outside afterwards complaining that they didn't know any of the songs and moaning that they didn't even play Just can't get enough! I think they thought it was one of those 80's revival nights.

They never play that one. It's not who they are anymore.

Angels - see I'd be a bit pissed off if they didn't play the oldies.

There's the oldies and the oldies though!

Fans like me who have followed their every move, bought every album and seen every tour want them to do Never let me down again , Enjoy the silence ,Everything Counts and Personal Jesus and will also know all the lyrics to the latest album too.

Going to a Depeche Mode gig is like going to a massive religious rally or something. It must seen strange to people who only remember them as a naff 80's synth pop band from Basildon!

We are a sad bunch i'm afraid.

I turned 13 in 1980, so experienced my teens and early 20's in the 80s. What an amazing time!

13 - Was into Madness and SKA, I can remember going to a friends birthday party in a black & white striped sweater dress with matching earings that I made myself (bead shop).

Lived in London suburbs, so was allowed - 'uptown' with friends and used to go to Covent Garden shopping - Flip was great for second hand american clothes and there was an amazing shop that just sold button badges. Camden market was still pretty cool then and not just a tourist trap.
Used to listen to John Peel and got into bands like Aztec Camera, The Farmers Boys and Tracey Thorne and Ben Watt (Everything But the Girl). Loved the Human League, Japan, Spandau Ballet, Heaven 17, Soft Cell. My first proper gig was Soft Cell at the Hammersmith Palais, where I met a lovely boy from Crawley who wore make up and lace gloves.
Using the telephone was expensive, so we used to write to each other (how things change eh!).

My first love was a Rockabilly who was 3 years older than me and he used to go to the Mud Club (I was too young - sob!)
Went to art collage for a year in the City and thought I was the white Sade (ight pony tail, Red Lips, Black Eyeliner and mahoosive hooped earings). Saw one of Sades first TV appearance live on a show called 'loose talk' which was filmed in Deptford.
Then I got a job - 1986 at Browns on South Molton St - which was selling all the key designers of the day: Gaultier, Mugler, Alaia, Romeo Gigle, Comme des Garcons, and got a discount. I can still remember the day Madonna went shopping down there and got mobbed (we watched from the shop roof).
Used to go out to the Wag club and Cafe De Paris with much cooler people than I from the shop - remember seeing Mickey Rouke there once.
Ooooooh so many memories - Dressing up was so much fun, you could be a different character every day and if you were into 'second hand' - not called vintage then, all the charity shops were full of '40s and 50's gear. I used to make clothes or if I was lucky go to Miss Selfridge or Chelsea Girl too.
Looking back I had so much freedom and fun (on not a lot of money).
Sure packed a lot into that decade!

Wow - onehitwondet you had the 80's experience I wish I'd had!

I've just read Gary Kemp's bio and it talks all about that scene in London in the early 80's.

This is the one thing that makes me wish I was born just a couple of years earlier ( I'm 3 years younger than you so was too young to do all that cool stuff.)

I was a massive Soft Cell fan too.

Rainbow Brite....I used to love that cartoon.

ahh! The 80s Scooter rallies and northern soul. Those were the good old days.

Oh onehitwonder you're the glamourous older (not much older - don't get shirty!) sister I never had!

I bet you were on the Spy pages of Just Seventeen

And oh my did I :heart: Mickey Rourke in a manner not appropriate for a girl of 15!

cuteboots am about the Northern Soul Scene. I remember reading about it and being utterly baffled by the flares [provincial southerner emoticon] but the music ? You lucky, lucky woman you

Being at Live Aid equates with the birth of my son in terms of amazing days. As an 18 year old from a not very sophisticated town, with an even less sophisticated world view I thought I would burst with excitement.

Have located depeche mode CD and played it in car during school run. Feel like I was sixteen again singing along to " see you" I was very but dc very