To find the persistent 80s really frightening

[scaryclown]

Its frightening me how stuck our world is in the 80s.. its 40 years ago!. . ie its like in the 80s all commercial radio, tv , shops all being 1940s war songs.. but in the 80s it was mostly 80s music too! ...

AIBU to think that loads of the country are like psycholohically stuck in a scary mental time-fix??? even the christmas songs are the same!!!

Are you joking. Teenagers are so bland and conforming now on both sides of the political spectrum ( as a leftie I might say lefties are even worse than the teen Milo fans). So dull and lacking in oomph.

Anyway, it might piss you off, which is fine if you feel that way, but 'frightening'? Really?

i am 51 and when we were in the 80's there were lots of 60's theme night clubs ..x

The thing that gets me is the "80s music" which bears no resemblance to my mental soundtrack of the 80s (Cure, Smiths, Sugar Cubes, Billy Bragg, New Model Army et al). To me the 80s says grey concrete, skint unemployed 20something older friends, homophobia, etc etc. In fact I was just saying to dd you can tell things have improved in that these days they warn them in school against proper drugs, back then it was all about the evils of gluesniffing

To me the 80s was pixie boots, fedora hats and waiting outside hotels for pop bands.

Followed by night after night of dancing on tables in nightclubs.

The Futureheads - Christmas was better in the 80s

OP, you say "Its frightening me how stuck our world is in the 80s" and that we're "stuck in a scary mental time-fix". I could understand if you used words like 'bored' or 'old-fashioned' - but 'frightening' and 'scary'? Really?

And as one who was 17 in 1980; can I just say that the 80's were fantastic and the reason the music is still played is because it is better than the manufactured shit that is the majority of new music. The fashions were better too, going out with your mates did not look like a bunch of clones walking down a street, it was possible to adopt different style and to make up your own too.

The 70s were much, much better.

I'm intrigued as to what shops you're going in that play 1940's music.

And why that means we're stuck in the '80's.

Any who, I have a theory that you notice things from your 'era' more. When I was growing up in the late nineties my mum was forever pointing out things from the seventies.

And I disagree about teens being dull now. They are far more non-conformist than I ever thought of being, even when I thought they were being non-conformist. My dn's Christmas list included a Dead Kennedys reissue, MAC foundation and a book on the Ottoman Empire. In my experience teens nowadays are much more comfortable in their own skins than I ever was at that age.

I actually think there has been less 80's music this year than the previous few years (if DH's music royalties have been anything to go by). I would say over the year he's made about 2k less than last year.

Maybe particular artists 80's have had more songs played this year because they have died. 2016 has been a bad year for 80's musicians dying.

Plus current music really is dire, all X factor crappy covers, over emphasised London accent rap, Eurovision esq songs and the like.

Clearly you live in an alternate reality to the one I am living in because I don't recognise a single thing about your OP.

OP, it's because we're old and we go to old people places and do old people things and consume old people media. Young people will be going to places and listening to things which are only contemporary. Radio 1, for example and TopShop and Hollister etc, etc will not be playing 80s music but you don't go there because you're old.

And yes, in the 80s people who were our age consumed nostalgia for an era a similar length of time before. Hence Shaking Stevens, Mari Wilson, Alvin Stardust, teddy boy retro clothing.

People our age (you say you remember the 80s so are presumably about the same age as me) have always been nostalgic for their youth and it's what's marketed at us so it's what we see.

In the 80s me and my friends dressed in Mary Quant and listened to psychedelia

I expect 40 year olds back then thought we were crackers whilst we trawled the charity shops looking for clothes and LPs.

Plus ça change innit?

I remember having a conversation with my Dad about how many nostalgia-related programmes there were on telly, and shows on the radio, not to mention all the classic films. This conversation would have been c.1976 and was about shows like This Is Your Life, and Shirley Temple movies on TV during the school holidays. I'm not aware of any particular emphasis on the 80s, though it's true I might not recognise them - my teenage years came to an end at the start of the decade, and I'm much more familiar with the 70s! But I think ever since recorded nostalgia has been possible, it's been a thing.

And in the 90s there was all banging on about the 60s... plus ca change plus la meme chose.

You know what really annoys me though?
Come Father's day they will be advertising re releases of The Clash and Motorhead etc but on Mother's Day they will telling our kids that Mummy wants a CD by Duran Duran.

Thats fine for those of you who liked Duran Duran but not for me.

I was born in 1981, I take great umbrage with the suggestion the 80's were 40 years ago - I'm bloody old enough as it is!

You can keep Duran Duran, tho momma just got Bastille for Christmas

Nostalgia was alive & kicking in the 80s too. Reet Petite (1957) was number one in '86, When I Fall in Love Nat King Cole (1956) released by his daughter '87. There was Jive Bunny. Great Balls of Fire was in Top Gun. Johnny be Good in Back to the Future. Plenty of nostalgic films too - Dirty Dancing and although it was 70s I watched Grease on loop with my friends.

it's not persistent 80s because then puffball dresses would still be here.

It's just some fashions and music coming back round. When I was a teen I got seriously bored with all my friends obsessing over the Beatles.

You kind of have a point. Our local teenagers have gone back to checkered shirts over t-shirts and their bands play 80s music. Which is clearly the best.

And nobody did cheesy Christmas songs like the 80s. Except maybe the 50s.

But modern music is crap (spoken from the height of my 40s ) and fashion always goes back a few decades in cycles.

oh Lweji, modern music isn't crap! In fact quite a bit has shades of the, er, 80s...

Frightening? Really?

OP - the world is going to shit right now, if the 80s nostalgia 'frightens' you, then you need to get a grip

Well I love 80s music because it's bloody great. Fab Indie bands, hip hop real rock bands, and some cheesy pop, but also amazing artists like Prince dominating the charts (and yes Sadik The Cure, The Smiths, New Model Army). And the best part was there were actual real musicians playing real proper music, not crappy, manufactured, TV talent show shite.

Christmas music, however, is fucking awful, whichever decade it comes from.

Also give you Madonna in not a 80s costume.

And a typical 80s sitcom.