I THINK MY BRAIN IS FULL

It’s true. The 1980s were rubbish. I was there, I saw it with my own eyes.

There is far too much fond nostalgia for a decade that, basically, sucked. Too many people hold the ’80s in high regard and it’s starting to make me feel sick. The clothes, the hair, the music. There is no need for a revival, thanks very much. Yet, the ’80s revival has been in full effect for nearly 18 years now. Why? What was so good about them?

Nothing.

Men with moustaches in skin tight denim. Women with hair that obscured the view of 747 pilots. Faux-machismo coupled with pastel shade suits. Aerobic work-outs that spilled into high-street fashion stores. What was wrong with you people? I just don’t understand. Don’t get me wrong, at the time, I loved many things that the ’80s brought - The A Team, Transformers etc. But that time has gone and getting dewy eyed every time someone mentions an era that allowed people to respect David Hasslehoff without the merest hint of irony must come to an end. I really mean it.

Nowadays, people think it is cool and ironic to dress like one of the kids from Fame. It’s not. You look like a terrible mess. Leg warmers have never been a good idea, lets be honest. Coupling them with neon green leggings is even worse. I swear, sometimes, I find it hard to find enough hateful words in my full brain to truly describe the impact that the 1980s had on life. Historically speaking, it was bad times. Follow me now, in my internet based time machine that looks nothing like a Delorean, and learn:

• Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were the two most powerful people in the world.
• A-ha, Def Leppard and Kate Bush were knowingly allowed to make music.
• Molly Ringwald was revered as a great beauty and given the opportunity to make films.
• WWF wrestling became one of the largest entertainment sports the world has ever seen.
• Yuppies were allowed to freely walk the Earth.

Bad times. Very, very bad times. The 1980s was a decade that taught people that excess equaled success. The world was introduced to Crack. Hulk Hogan was the biggest star in sport and could probably have sat at Reagan’s right hand, if he’d just asked. People were clearly confused by the heady mixture of hair spray, high-grade Cocaine and ridiculously cheap petrol. Religious fundamentalism, of all denominations, was growing and fear came with it. Terrorism and the Cold War embodied the political nightmare that the human race was enduring and conservatism was in full force.

Musically speaking, the 1980s were probably the lowest point for commercial success. Hair-rock and Heavy Metal were enjoying a much undeserved fanaticism and people actually enjoyed going to see bands like Poison, Iron Maiden and Bon Jovi. Bad music, made by objectionable people wearing spandex and stretch denim, snorting drugs from the breasts of emaciated catwalk models. At the same time, a watered down “soulful” breed of rocker began wailing over saxophones while clenching their fists and looking earnest. New Romanticism arrived and men became women, without having to be gay.

The musical revolution of Rap music was plundered by record execs, given a little leather Africa medallion and reduced to a gaudy, rock-infused mess, interspersed with men in dungarees dancing in synchronicity. Hardcore punk was born, providing the disaffected youth of the world a single, shining beacon of good music and fashion ignorance that, in time, saved the world by eventually giving birth to what some spastic referred to as ‘grunge’. Disco music was pronounced dead and the world wept.

Much of what is remembered overly-fondly was to be found on television. Yet again proving that excess and success were seen as one and the same, TV was filled with explosions and car crashes, a resurgence of the 1950s ‘red menace’ and men struggled with the weight of their own masculinity. Women became morons, as they served only as jiggling props in a schedule dominated by gun toting, muscle car driving super men. Soap operas became replacements for real life. Cartoons got louder, brighter and more violent. Every show seemed to be geared towards an audience of idiots and had some cynical marketing attached to it that generated yet more revenue to those that already held all the money. And people lapped it up like kittens.

So, while you pull on your gold lamé tracksuit and settle down in front of your now very much disappointing Atari 2600, remember that you’re paying tribute to a decade of bad music, bad TV and bad times. Just because you’re 18, in the prime of your youth, and winking knowingly at the irony of your crime, doesn’t mean it’s OK. There’s no reason to bring back the styles and sounds of the time, as they were god awful then, and they’re god awful now. We should benefit from hindsight and should really know better by now.