Like, Omigod! The '80s Pop Culture Box (Totally)
First, Diamond Dave, let me explain that I was speaking of kicking your ass in the decidedly non-literal, online sense. I hope you understand that would never strike you. First, you'd probably hurt me. Second, I love you, man. Indeed, despite never having met in person, your kiss is on my list of the best things in life.
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StumbleUponBut Dave, you ignorant slut, please don't come at me with this '80s as our collective Innocent Age crap. Sorry, but I can't go for that (no can do). Try that line on all the crazy people Ronald Reagan horrifyingly dumped on our streets back in your kinder, gentler '80s. By the way, if you're looking for these folks, Dave, they're still on a nearby corner pissing themselves or somewhere dead and buried. You know, I was watching Wall Street last night on Bravo (subliminal plug: watch Musicians on Bravo), and it turns out that Gordon Gekko was wrong: Greed is not good, or at least it's not good for everyone. The '80s were no brief shining moment in our history—in fact, the shiniest thing about the '80s was probably that scary fabric on those frightening Members Only jackets. In fact, perhaps we should call the '80s the Members Only Decade and just forget about it.
Perhaps that's why I'm taking some crap here and in The Fray for defending Hall and Oates—because of their '80s commercial heyday, they remind us all of a Members Only past that we'd rather forget. I stand up for the dynamic duo here because I happen to believe a song like "She's Gone" is a full-on masterpiece—the shifting sands of hipness be damned. And I do so despite the fact that the first people to ever blow me off for an interview were Hall and Oates when I was a college newspaper reporter. Instead, I had to interview their opening act Aldo Nova—then a shitty lite metal moron pushing his dopey new product. Amazingly, Aldo Nova is now writing ballads for Celine Dion—so maybe that's what ultimately became of the music of the '80s. It's grown up and become Celine Dion.
Dave, the ugly truth is that the end of the innocence likely came along before Don Henley sang so beautifully about it. Maybe it died in between Woodstocks, maybe long before that. The thing that strikes me as I turn through these '80s back pages is that there's something a little depressing about visiting the past too often. The songs that truly matter—the songs that are worth revisiting beyond mere nostalgia—are the ones that speak to us in some more enduring way. Most pop is a passing fancy: For example, Wang Chung's "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" perhaps offers us a window into some imaginary coked-out party world populated by '80s idiots. But as a song and a statement, it sucked then. In retrospect, it sucks even more. But then, just when you're ready to write off an entire decade, you hear a song on Like Omigod like Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over." A song like that doesn't die, doesn't become camp. A song like that can make you feel something every time that you hear it, whatever decade that might be.
It's been lovely sharing the '80s with you—but now it's time for breakfast. As a wise man once said, I'm hungry like a wolf.
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Notes From the Fray Editor:
Whose kisses are on whose lists? Who has been fighting the good fight for Hüsker Dü? The Fray has battled over inclusion and exclusion, the ickiness of nostalgia and the roll of Reaganism in our culture. Wild notes that he has been attacked for his outspoken Hall & Oates support (one wonders if this includes the cover of "Jingle Bell Rock.") In Notes I, Big Al provides some useful analysis. Notes II is a remarkable exchange on the imperatives of the market and the elective affinities of rap.
Notes From the Fray I:
Oddly enough, this band would have been better before the age of video. I still recall the dark-haired short one (Hall, Oates? [Oates—ed.]) with the bug-eyes moving his head back and forth like a pigeon on one of those insipid videos. And their domes remind me of how truly horrible 80s hair was. Some vidoes from that era were hilarious, campy, innovative (in a low-tech way). H&O videos were simply and essentially horrible.
-- Big Al
(To reply, click here.)
Notes From the Fray II:
"Walk This Way" signified the end of creative music. This song demonstrated that you could take a recognized song add some new effects and sell a few million copies. It signaled that creativity was unimportant. Look at rap today Puff Daddy won out over Public Enemy. Now music is all formula Like JLo and Britney.
-- biff
(To reply, click here.)
Stop the madness! The idea that "Walk This Way" killed pop music is almost as silly as the idea that pop music is now dead, just because JLo dominates the airwaves. I think Plotz is on to something here: The Run DMC/Aerosmith collaboration not only brought hip-hop to mainstream (read: white) attention, it also brought forth a new direction for listeners to follow. More than either of those two, it proved that the cliques that listeners were lumping themselves into were useless, because the song proved that genres could successfully merge and that pop couldn't be as neatly lumped into camps as we'd been led to believe. (Prince was doing the same sort of thing, but he wasn't rapping.)
Puff Daddy may have won out over Public Enemy, but could PE's rock-riff-fueled sonic assaults have been created without "Walk This Way" coming before? Maybe, but I'm doubtful.
-- aluminum man
(To reply, click here.)
I have nothing against Run Dmc its just that one song. I don't think they particularly liked doing it it was just a deal with the devil that they had to make. What that song did was show record companies that they can make money with garbage and that people will buy records no matter what is put out so there is no point developing real artists when pre fab sells better.
-- biff
(To reply, click here.)
"Could PE's rock-riff-fueled sonic assaults have been created without "Walk This Way" coming before?"
No, and Chuck D. knows it:
Beat is for Sonny Bono, beat is for Yoko Ono
Run-DMC first said a deejay could be a band
Stand on its feet, get you out your seat
Beat is for Eric B. and LL, as well, hell
Wax is for Anthrax, still it can rock bells
Ever forever, universal, it will sell
-- DonkeyBoy
(To reply, click here.)
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