Tuesday 13 September 2011

As an aside...

The Safety Dance has made me think a bit.  What's your favourite 'bad' song from the 80s?  'Bad' is probably the wrong word, but I think you understand.  Basically, you listen to it and you go, 'fuck that's 80s', and you like it, but you're cringing slightly at the same time.

I like hair metal and I thing it is semi-timeless, so I can't really find it bad - the fashion aside.  New wave is pretty much 'it' as far as 80s sound goes.

Icehouse were this Australian new wave group that were completely there for the 80s and nowhere for the 90s.  This song is not bad in isolation, but there is a very noticeable layer of 80s cheese running through it.  Even the song title - Electric Blue, that's the 80s-est colour ever invented.  It's the synths, it's the saxophone, it's the electronic drum kit, it's Oates from Hall & Oates cowriting it, it's the maxi-mullet on the lead singer.

I grew up in the 90s, but I remember parts of the 80s and I have to say that Australia was the backwards cousin of the 1st world.  80s modernity wrapped around stale 70s-ness.  Sorry, I'm just being cryptic.

4 comments:

  1. Rock Me Amadeus!
    (though I loved non "80's" music from the 1980's like Talking Heads, Devo, Violent Femmes, REM and They Might Be Giants) out of all songs from the 1980's my favorite is Everything Right is Wrong Again by They Might Be Giants.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Justified and Ancient by THE KLF

    ReplyDelete
  3. Can't think of any off the top of my head, sorry. :P

    ReplyDelete