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?

For me the best 80s (musical) memories are:

John Peel playing all the indie and alternative stuff: Billy Bragg, John Hegley and the Popticians, The Smiths, The Cocteau Twins....and all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff from around the world.

New wave, dressing up in ripped and painted clothes and wishing I had been around to be a 'proper' punk in the 70s!

Going to my first gig - The Damned - in the front row, protected by my hunky boyfriend!

Making mix tapes, recording stuff off the radio and writing out the lyrics.

Really quick post as am at work but:

Chelsea Girl
Snob
Echo and the Bunnymen
legwarmers
Dexys midnight Runners
ZX 81s - the first ever home PCs: you had to plug them into a tape recorder for about an hour and then it would let you play 2 games before it ran out of memory.

I left school in 85 so it may have just been O level and CSE then, it is so long ago I cant remember... I know I got a really crap exam result though, as I spent far too much time flirting with the boys in the class... lol!

80s were my twenties. I was dead poor but had loads of fun. Music was great. Saw Bowie, Thompson Twins, Queen, spent loads of evenings in pubs watching videos - it was new and cool to have screens in pubs.

Faves were Bruce Dancing In The Dark, U2 (Joshua Tree - everybody had it!), Madonna - great songs to sing and dance to.

Missed the US bit of Live Aid because my dad suffered a stroke coming out of the pub that night .

Ds (13) is into 80s electric pop and plays cds in the kitchen when he does the dishes - Pet Shop Boys, Tears For Fears, Communards, Flock of Seagulls, Human League, Numan etc. I am very proud .

aah...the 80s, my entire teen years (old gimmer)

Yes to clustering round the radio on a Tuesday at 12.45 to hear the week's top 5 and what would be No. 1. Yes to tapes recorded straight off the radio (still have some, somewhere).

I didn't like "Duranies" back then but don't mind their music too much now (though someone from my school was on Jim'll Fix It singing with Duran Duran!) I did love Ultravox though. And Prefab Sprout. And the Waterboys. And I have fallen in love with Heaven 17 all over again....

Late 80s SAW stuff was awful though.

I was a young child in the 80s but i remember the great music, films and clothes!
I still remember my dungarees with fruit plastered all over them-they were my fav.
The labyrinth, Big, Drop dead fred great films.
Everyone wore colourful bright clothes the 80s were brill

Yes. I dug up my "Now that's what I call music 5 or 6" tape a while ago. It was really, really rubbish. Of course looking back, you can choose to listen to the good stuff, but there was just as much rubbish music as there is now.

crappiest 80s songs? yes there were a few too....

I've Never been to Me (Charlene?)
Save your Love (Rene and Renata)
All the SAW stuff (Rick Astley et al)
Novelty stuff like Capstick Comes Home, Shaddap you Face and Orville. Aagh!

Gosh, I'm more gimmer-ish than most; my 30s in the 80s.

Did know Jimmy Somerville, though. Before he was famous, and after. A thoroughly nice man.

the 80s were brilliant, but nothing like most 80s retro stuff around now. "Starter for 10" is a good realistic 80s movie if you want to re-live it a bit!

fav things about the 80s:

personalising clothes
my babysitter having a boyfriend who was into heavy metal (so shocking back then! now it's dad music :-D )
people talking about "delinquents" (see above)
huddling around smash hits in the shop learning the words to bananrama songs
"bangles and bop" - anyone else?
no CGI, great movies
mums having perm disasters
top ponytails (you can't NOT be happy when you have a bit high top pony tail, especially if it's crimped!)

that's how DS was made (except it was 2 times not 3, and not in middle of cycle cause that's not when I OV)

so yes you could be

WRONG THREAD!

Music was great, fashion and politics, really grim.

No social media. We used to send each other postcards and use a phonecard to talk to each other! 'helloMrsfriendsMumitshelpyourselfisfriendthereplease'

And if you liked a song, you could either hope the record shop had it in and you had the £2 a single cost in those days, or wait for it to come on the radio, and record it.

I was a teenager for most of the 80s (born 1966). Some of the music was great. We still had grants to go to University, but a lousy time to graduate (1989 - middle of a recession). Politcal unrest is what sticks out for me - our lecturers were on strike when we did our finals and it is not easy trying to revise when you have no idea if there will even be an exam :(

I was certainly a lively time - love or hate what was going on then, you certainly couldn't ignore it.

Scary to be able to look back so far, and also to hear adults say I wasn't born then !

I was born in '69 and my teens were brilliant. Wham and then Take That were the posters that adorned my bedroom walls. I was colour blocking back then, it is nothing new to me. I used Shaders and Toners on my hair until I could get my parents to agree to it being professinally coloured (and permed). I got married in '89 and had a huge dress with hoops and three petticoats (still happily married too).

Further upthread someone said that Rita, Sue and Bob too was set in Rochdale. It wasn't. It was set in Leeds, Yorkshire. My uncle talks about the crew filming at the top of his cul-de-sac in Baildon which is W.Yorks.

I was born in 79 so the 80's are a bit of a mystery to me but highlights included

My mum and her friend doing 'keep fit' to an LP (it had a very lithe black lady on the sleeve with a sweat band on her perfectly made up face and wearing a pink and silver leotard :o )

My babysitter and her friends practising the moves to True Blue by Madonna

Watching the summer pageant meander by and seeing a girl sat on top of a moving car wearing what appeared to be a fairy outfit

Watching the local lads body popping on our communal lawn on a piece of lino.

Going to the red phone box with my mum so that she could receive a call from my uncle. Sometimes we'd have to stay in there keeping guard until he rang from another phone box.

The insurance man (?) collecting regular payments of £3 a week from my parents.

My dad opening up the electric meter and jamming a piece of card in.

My mum putting 50p pieces into a tv.

Finding a porn mag in some bushes with my brothers. The red underwear. The hirsuteness of it all :o

Wellyphant.

Having my wet hair combed and plaited in front of Supergran on a Sunday evening.

Beadles about/Blind date/Knightrider/Dempsey and Makepeace

Watching very spooky kids tv series called The Gemini Factor/Chocky? and not one person remembering them.

Mars Bars costing 20p and Marathons 21p.

Hazelnut Ski Yoghurt. (Best yog flavour ever)

The wrestling on a saturday afternoon.

Betamax video tapes.

Playing in the footwell of a moving car with my siblings.

Polyester tartan skirts with a plain white vest attached (anyone remember those?)
Leather look fabric or worse wet leather look fabric. My mum and her nipples were a fan.

I am (fleetingly) in a Duran Duran video

[gimmer emoticon]

mums doing Callanetics!

Sometimes my sister is in the background of The Wanted's video for Glad You Came. I do wonder if she'll remember that with pride or shame in 20 years :o

Yes Callanetics! Hi-fucking-larious to watch as a nipper. They used to round it off with a brew, fag and cream cake. I ain't lying.

I thought I was so cool in my Chose Life t shirt. So did the other 28 girls in theirs no doubt.

It was a brilliant time, we had a ball and if my daughters have half as much fun as we did then I'll be happy.

Oh yes. Fags. Going to school stinking to high heaven of booze and fags. (Lived above a pub for part of the 80's.

Lookatall You must be vair young!

Context is all. I was briefly very pleased with myself, then mortified, and now it seems to be becoming OK again (or maybe my skin is just getting a bit thicker )

On the subject of exercise, has anyone mentioned the Green Goddess in her shiny green leotard? I got me one of those

I used to feel sad as a child at having missed out on the 60s...but then the 90s became my 60s. Brilliant.