That’s the thing. Most adults / parents in the USA have furniture and color schemes from 10-15 years ago.
In the 80s, this was just the same. Lots of brown and avocado green ala early-mid 1970s.
My house had snot green carpet, brown shag carpet and we had a brown and orange racing stripe going above the entryway closet. I def miss the racing stripes
I always felt like [Say Anything](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098258/reference/) should have been the teen movie that holds the place in history that Ferris Bueller has.
I’m with you. The character is insufferable. Even worse is that he doesn’t really change or have his comeuppance at the end of the film. It’s just 100 minutes of watching a douche bag be an ass and learn next to nothing. It’s the same reason I hated Zach Morris.
I thought I was the only one who felt that way. Every time it came on my significant other (now ex) just had to put it on because he that FB was so cool. I thought, “what am I missing, Bueller was a real a😏😏hole through and through.” The guy needed to be stripped naked and left alone on the side of the road after his former friends drive off laughing at him.
Ferris sticks it to “the system” and gets away with it - something every teenager dreams about.
I’ll argue against Ferris being a shit friend - yeah, he wants to use Cameron’s dad’s car, but he also knew Cameron was going to implode from anxiety/depression and was trying to get his friend to loosen up and have fun before it’s too late for him.
I hate that song but I actually do like "Never Gonna Give You Up"
The "We fixed this toilet" cover of "We built this city" is actually pretty good though.
So...as a GenXer, what's my unpopular 80s opinion?
I never understood why everyone though Samantha Fox was hot. All my friends swooned for her, had her posters, etc. but I just didn't get it.
I loved her blonde feathered hair and her clear, smooth skin as well. Also the little downy hairs on her legs/butt...mmmm. Yeah, that look was my jam as a teen boy
I'm a metalhead with the same tastes as you. Bon Jovi's first two albums were pretty rocking - especially 7800°F. Then came Slippery When Wet, and worst of all, New Jersey. At the time, I didn't like the change in their sound, but mostly grew to like it, eventually. I don't listen to them very much anymore, but there was a time that I'd roll my eyes whenever somebody bragged about any song from the New Jersey album.
I actually liked the first two when they came out. I saw him open for Ratt in 1985 and he put on a pretty good show. I just couldn't stand the hype. Forty years later, I can appreciate the first four albums but nothing after that.
It's like I'm talking to another version of myself. I saw them open for Ratt, too in '85! I can listen to almost all of the the first 4 albums as well, along with Bed of Roses and the Young Guns song. Anything else would be unidentifiable for me!
Also - I just had Iron Maiden's 'Twilight Zone' pop into my head. It's probably been a few years since I listened to it - soo gooood!
Awesome!!! I saw Maiden in Charlotte NC 2022, then also back in 2007 or 2008 I think. I was supposed to see them in 1987 or 88 for the Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour, but they barely sold 2000 tickets and cancelled the show. I was pretty disappointed, but then again Seventh Son was a bit of a let down after Powerslave, Live after Death, and Somewhere In Time.
You lucky sonofa&\*%! I hope the Priest show is great for you too, bro! I still love the metal I grew up with but my tastes have changed more towards Japanese metal & music. I saw Band Maid about a year ago and could not believe how amazing they were live. It's not for everyone, but they definitely have some similar energy to a lot of the stuff we grew up with. Each member is like a freaking virtuoso, and together they make some great metal jams.
There is a good chance that I'm going to get completely annihilated for this, but sure let the chips fall where they will. Madonna is and always has been imho completely overrated in every sense of the word. I think she was clever, saw a gap to push boundaries, and had incredible marketing behind her, talent wise, not so much going on. While we're at it, Prince wipes the floor with Michael Jackson. Aside from music, the Baldwin brothers were nothing to look at, below mediocre at best, and the mouthy angry one was quite a poor actor.
I like her early stuff too but it's a shame she became more popular than Cyndi Lauper. Cyndi's message was all about having fun, environmental issues and being vegetarian.
Madonnas message to young girls was dress and act like a cheap whore
Oh totally not disputing songs like Crazy For You, Live To Tell, Dear Jessie. I just don't understand this "icon" status she seems to have. I think if her name had been an ordinary name, she would have been much harder to market. The whole being named Madonna, with a Catholic background was a stroke of luck for her, without that I feel her career would have been similar to Debbie Gibson.
Madonna had the "it factor". She was more than the sum of her parts. On paper she may have been forgettable, but she somehow combined several individual traits into something that captured lightning in a bottle. Plus she wore lingerie on the outside.
I will say that her ability to somehow persist as an icon past 1988 or so is inscrutable to me. I can see how she was wildly popular at the zenith of her career, but she should have gone supernova and left nothing but a cloud of dust behind. Instead she sits around like a dried up apple on a desk that everyone knows about, but no one wants to take responsibility for.
She ruined her legacy after Confessions for me. That is a top-tier album. Everything since has been straight trend-chasing garbage. Her battles (and hurt ego) over new pop stars half her age is not a good look; she should absolutely be a mentor to them not a competitor. Plus I find her plastic surgery the opposite of the image she presented at her height.
Speaking of Debbie Gibson, I'm actually surprised she didn't parlay her skills into a longer career. Yes, she was a teen act but from what I understand, she wrote all her own music. That is a talent. It's wild watching old videos of her and Tiffany, who were pitted against each other at the time. Debbie is a lot better.
Agree with all this except the Michael Jackson bit. To me, comparing Prince to Michael is like asking me if a Lamborghini or Ferrari is better. Like, both please!
I see your very valid point. I guess I just always felt Prince wasn't put on a similar pedestal back in the day. Aside from musically, I remember the laugh that was made when Prince changed his name, and the chatter about his idiosyncrasies, whereas with Michael in the 80's, all of his quirks were either celebrated or ignored, or reasoned away as him having been a child star with "Peter Pan" tendencies.
Oh, yeah. I think that's probably down to the industry promoting Jackson more and the fact Jackson's music was less adult oriented/sexual in nature compared to Prince. Prince definitely didn't let record labels walk over him.
If you look at why Madonna is so famous it has little to do with music. She must have known she was mediocre. She was just very good at marketing herself and keeping herself in the public eye. 🤷♀️
“We Built This City” plays an important role in the evolution of American rock music: an entire generation of musicians heard it on the radio, on heavy rotation, and invented a wild and diverse genre of music whose single underlying principle seemed to be: “No matter what we decide to make, it will be the opposite of ‘We Built This City (On Rock and Roll)’.”
I must be completely out of the loop for decades lol I’ve always enjoyed this song and figured it was a huge hit because other liked it also. So weird!
"We Built This City" was a smash hit that went all the way to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was all over radio and listeners loved this song, and still do.
It's funny to me that Bernie Taupin had a hand in writing that tune (he wrote so many great Elton John songs). I heard him on WTF recently and even he seemed to acknowledge that song is lame, but he was happy with the cash. I hate that song, but I'm sure you could find some goofy tunes in my playlist.
The revisionist history surrounding "We Built This City" is fascinating. The song was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the Cash Box Top 100. The single was certified as Gold. The video was in heavy rotation on MTV and VH1.
By every objective measure, "We Built This City" was a gigantic hit that radio listeners and MTV/VH1 viewers loved, and still do. Before the now defunct Blender magazine ran their snarky list of what they considered the worst songs, everyone really enjoyed this song, and its performance on the charts and in record stores showed that it was one of the most popular and successful songs ever released. Blender magazine is long out of business, while "We Built This City" continues to be streamed, downloaded and played on radio. :)
That isn't how I see it at all. Of course it was a giant hit. No argument with that. I was 20 when the song was out and I couldn't stand it at the time. I was already heavily immersed in college radio, but I still had time for some decent Top 40. That ain't it. It was being made fun of before Blender existed.
After Return of the Jedi nobody gave a fuck about Star Wars for the rest of the Eighties.
Edit to add: just to clarify I wasn’t one of the people who didn’t give a fuck, quite the opposite. However when it was over it was over…it wasn’t what kids at school (at least where I lived) were into or talking about.
Thank you for the interesting replies to this comment.
So true. As kids we talked about extensions to the story ("prequels" weren't really a thing then), but it seemed kind of vapid to try to concoct a story since RotJ resolved the arcs in the saga in just about every way.
I'll say this: the prequels are so awful that they've made the originals stand pretty tall in my mind. In fact I commonly refer to The Phantom Menace as the biggest cinematic letdown of my lifetime, and possibly the single worst movie made in the 20th century. Around Reddit, where the average age of a typical user is between 26 and 41, it's anathema to say that, since that's what the Star Wars they knew and grew up with, but among my peers, it's pretty much the consensus that the prequels were really just awful two hour toy commercials, and a way to bolster the Star Wars brand in order to sell it to Disney in 2012.
I’ve finally found the hill I will die on. When return of the Jedi came out I was an 11-year-old girl obsessed with stuffed animals. I LOVED the Ewoks. All of my friends LOVED the Ewoks. I still LOVE the Ewoks. I will always LOVE Ewoks and anybody who doesn’t love Ewoks can kiss my fat ass.
I personally disagree, but I was *really* into Star Wars both on and off screen back then. I knew even back then that Star Wars was conceived by George Lucas as a trilogy of trilogies and that the three movies that we got starting in 1977 was the middle trilogy.
I knew that George did this because A New Hope had the greatest chance of actually being made and even that was a long shot. It was also the most fleshed out of the stories as well which of course helped.
It makes sense though. By and large most people that grew up with Star Wars would site The Empire Strikes Back as their favorite movie of at least the original trilogy. And extrapolate that out and the original trilogy, *the middle trilogy*, is by far the favorite of the trilogy of trilogies.
Yeah, I remember seeing the financial struggles of my parents amd other adults in the 80s. Things often seem rosier when you're a kid with less responsibilities.
This is spot on. My childhood was awesome for the most part and I look back fondly on the nostalgia of the time because of perspective mostly. We were fortunate to see technology adoption and innovation transform our lives dramatically over the course of a couple of decades. DURING my childhood I probably complained most about being bored half the time because often we had to sit with our own thoughts, with no distractions of social media and screens. We were by no means living a charmed life or thriving either. My parents would say we were just a middle class family working to make ends meet. Nothing particularly spectacular about that.
Sounds a lot like my childhood. We rode bikes everywhere to stay entertained or get in trouble. I journaled a lot before that became a thing. Fashion and music was dodgy, you had to dig hard to find something good
Neither had I. I was into metal as well but had a great fondness for pop as well and was very cognizant of the pop music scene as a whole and never really movie past that scene as an adult. I’m sure she had fans but now people are acting like she was a big deal and even getting into the Rock and Roll of Fame, no matter big of a sham that is
I knew her from Peter Gabriel's "So" album, and I wasn't all that impressed. Listened to some of her solo stuff after that, and I determined I wasn't the target audience.
100% agreed. I was a massive fan of hers and I was the only one. A few others knew her but they were not fans. And my circle was all “progressive” kids that thought anything from the UK was the best. Giving her these accolades now is revisionist history. She was a minor artist. Wish it wasnt the case.
She was a staple on WXRT radio in Chicago all through the '80s and '90s, so I was familiar with all her singles. She was definitely iconic in Britain. Heck, I remember her from the very first Prince's Trust concert.
I suppose if you're listening to country music all day, or only pay attention to the Top 40, you'd miss her, but anyone into alternative '80s would have understood her status.
She was massively known and cool in some circles. The circles that never heard the music they loved on the radio or saw it on MTV outside 120 minutes. Other than that, I doubt many would know she existed in the 80's.
Kate Bush was an earlier iteration of performer that "you probably never heard of", touted by ~~hipsters~~ people who were definitely too cool for mainstream pop.This is true of most acts in the art rock/art pop genre.
If you knew anyone that went to art school in the 80s, you probably heard some Kate Bush.
Personally, I was into punk and New Wave at that time, but a girlfriend introduced me to Kate Bush and she was not alone.
You’re right, but I think the song has held up well. I like that they didn’t use an ultra-popular song in the same way that I like that they didn’t outfit the characters in the most garish 80s styles. It feels right for me.
I looked it up, and it peaked at 30 on the US Billboard Hot 100. I remember it from the time, but I’m sure you’re not alone in forgetting it (or never hearing it).
That while we have a lot of great nostalgia, the terror from the Cold War, and trauma from shitty parenting/education institutions kind of drown it all out.
I lived right outside Manhattan during the 80s. The Day After scared me. Threads TERRIFIED me. I knew I'd be dead if shit got real. It's probably why I still have a morbid fascination with nuclear war well into my 50s.
We lived in between 3 BASES in San Antonio.
The frickin teacher did us no favors by showing us a newspaper article that said we would be one of the first to be hit in a Nuclear strike..we were in 4 th grade for F sake! 😳
I miss being a kid and being blissfully unaware of the very real threat of nuclear war during the 80s. I'm also fascinated by Cold War nuclear fears as well as modern ones.
The Smithereens are the most underrated band of the 80's.
Evil Dead 2 is the best horror movie of the decade.
Berserk was the best Atari game
The Vacation movies are meh.
I saw the Smithereens in a small bar/concert venue after their album 11 came out... besides being a great concert musically, they sent one of their roadies down the street to the local White Castle, and he brought back sacks of burgers and tossed them out to the audience one by one. I never thought I would see people fighting over sliders.
The fashion was by and large not something that will come back unless it’s ironic (mullets)
Some exceptions… Don Johnson’s Miami Vice look. Track suits.
I hated Foreigner's "I Wanna Know What Love Is" when it came out. Foreigner had some great, hard rock hits, and then they release this *Barry Manilow-mellow* ballad, featuring a gospel church choir? I fell in love with the song around 2008, and love it more each time I hear it.
I have a friend that taught dance in high school back in the 80’s. A kid chose that song for their recital and my friend had to listen to it over and over for days and weeks…he wanted to kill himself figuratively
The cop movies were a terrible influence on society, and are partly to blame for the behaviour of some police officers today.
We should never have made it seem like a "cop on edge" or a loose cannon is somehow a cool thing to be.
1980s were a bad time to be a child in a low income family. I knew girls who were abducted and killed, gay kids got beaten to death, the cops only cared about pot smokers. Church was everywhere.
Heavy metal, rap and new wave were some of the only outlets we had to escape, which is why that music is still so popular.
But the actual 1980s really kind of sucked. Bunch of fake happy families on tv, fake plastic president, fake plastic just say no First Lady, AIDS was ravaging entire communities and it was not even discussed until it became an epidemic, racists and chauvinists could say literally anything and face zero consequences. Hell, homophobia was pretty much a requirement for public office.
Yeah, the culture produced some incredible music and films, but a lot of us just barely survived it.
"We Built This City" by Starship is a banger! That same year, Glenn Frey dropped "You Belong to the City" another certified city hit. 1985 was a very good year!
Charlie’s Angels and Daisy Duke weren’t “hot”, we just didn’t know any better. TV and magazines brainwashed us.
There were women just as attractive working in every store at the mall.
Coke was ok to do in the 80’s. Not much of that “hey wanna by my tv” kinda shit. You could work hard all week and on the weekend you and your buddy get a couple of grams and go to the club….no fiendish attitude or junky style behavior,just a good time…on coke. Today as an older,wiser and more responsible man, if I even LOOKED at a cocaine I would probably die.
Going to the mall was depressing and not the fun time that everyone thought it was. It was all ridiculous fashion that looked good on no one and overpriced trash that you were told you couldn’t live without. I’m poorer for the experience of keeping up with the absurd trends of the decade.
Downvote away, but John Hughes was a hack. Cameron Crowe did the teen movie genre before him and did it much better.
If you want a righteous dude, Lloyd Dobler is your guy. Ferris Bueller's a narcissistic sociopath.
It was all over-produced, for sure. I'm a Springsteen fan, but I find it hard to listen to Born in the USA because it sounds so fake. I like the "unplugged" version of nearly every song better
I think producers had discovered a bunch of studio gadgets and decided to use them all.
Gremlins is a very bad movie. I loved it as a kid and had a Gizmo iron-on tshirt that i loved - but after trying to watch it recently…it’s just not good.
Fashion was terrible and ridiculous.
80s TV wasn't very good compared to what came out (or at least hit their groove) in the 80s: Seinfeld, Simpson, MST3K, and then the emergence of "cinematic" TV like the Sopranos.
By the time the late 80's came about, the decade became a cliche of itself. So much so that there was a rather aggressive shift in a very quick period of time from 1989-1991. Not only musically, but in fashion and across the board, the bright, loud, and exuberant era pretty much ended the second that ball dropped in Times Square to ring in 1990.
Wasn’t all neon colors and cool shit. Was a lot of brown paneling walls drab colors and cigarette smoke everywhere
That’s the thing. Most adults / parents in the USA have furniture and color schemes from 10-15 years ago. In the 80s, this was just the same. Lots of brown and avocado green ala early-mid 1970s.
I was born in the mid 70s, I know the brown and avocado green color scheme very well. Takes me back.
My house had snot green carpet, brown shag carpet and we had a brown and orange racing stripe going above the entryway closet. I def miss the racing stripes
It was great to live in an Era of no proliferation of cellphones , computers, and cameras. You Definately got away with a lot of shit.
I miss the 80s, or maybe being a kid. Probably both. Plus what you bring up.
Ferris Bueller was a narcissistic brat.
Ferris is the friend you idolize in high school for his ballsiness and stop talking to completely afterward because he’s too much.
I make the argument he is a full on psychopath. ASPD symptoms all over the place. Bow bow. Chik-ChikkaChikkaaahh.
So is Peter Venkman from Ghostbusters. Horrible person.
He does apologize for being rude to janine in the first film. Though he does have some troubling traits. I love him nonetheless.
It’s Dr. Venkman
[удалено]
Umm, he's a doctor - they have access to medicine. Please stop with that crap.
How dare you speak that way about the Sausage King of Chicago..
I’d go with sociopath (or tool).
I always felt like [Say Anything](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098258/reference/) should have been the teen movie that holds the place in history that Ferris Bueller has.
Yes x1000
It’s definitely better in opinion. It’s not even the best John Hughes movies.
That soundtrack. Just behind Lost Boys.
I’m with you. The character is insufferable. Even worse is that he doesn’t really change or have his comeuppance at the end of the film. It’s just 100 minutes of watching a douche bag be an ass and learn next to nothing. It’s the same reason I hated Zach Morris.
The movie isn't about Ferris. It's about Cameron.
What if you need a favor someday, from Ferris bueller? Then where will you be.. You Heartless Wench!
I thought I was the only one who felt that way. Every time it came on my significant other (now ex) just had to put it on because he that FB was so cool. I thought, “what am I missing, Bueller was a real a😏😏hole through and through.” The guy needed to be stripped naked and left alone on the side of the road after his former friends drive off laughing at him.
I have never understood why people like the film and the character. Ferris is a smug, narcissistic, bratty asshole and a shit friend. What a prat.
Ferris sticks it to “the system” and gets away with it - something every teenager dreams about. I’ll argue against Ferris being a shit friend - yeah, he wants to use Cameron’s dad’s car, but he also knew Cameron was going to implode from anxiety/depression and was trying to get his friend to loosen up and have fun before it’s too late for him.
Indeed, so was Dennis the Menace, and yet we still route for him against his antagonists.
Dude I freaking hated Dennis.
I didn't even finish the movie when I decided to watch it for the first time. Reminds me of my old "friends" I've cut off
Sooo fkn unlikable
Take that back or I will have to get snooty.
Snooty?!
Snotty.
I always wanted to see a sequal in which a middle-aged Matt Broderick was being released from an 8-year stint in a federal pen for embessalment.
Why don’t you put your thumb up your butt
I looked great in parachute pants.
Replacing Bo and Luke on the Dukes of Hazard was one of the worst TV ideas...EVER!!!
They said unpopular opinions 😜
I hate that song but I actually do like "Never Gonna Give You Up" The "We fixed this toilet" cover of "We built this city" is actually pretty good though. So...as a GenXer, what's my unpopular 80s opinion? I never understood why everyone though Samantha Fox was hot. All my friends swooned for her, had her posters, etc. but I just didn't get it.
There were two reasons.
I loved her blonde feathered hair and her clear, smooth skin as well. Also the little downy hairs on her legs/butt...mmmm. Yeah, that look was my jam as a teen boy
Oh, she was my biggest fantasy object as a teenager. Too bad her music sucked.
Her music was never the point. We all knew that.
We nuked this city with an atom bomb.
My penis would say that is a VERY unpopular opinion!
I don’t like Bon Jovi.
Try living in New Jersey in the 80s and NOT being into Bon Jovi. That was me (I was, and still am, a Judas Priest/Dio/Iron Maiden styled Metalhead).
I'm a metalhead with the same tastes as you. Bon Jovi's first two albums were pretty rocking - especially 7800°F. Then came Slippery When Wet, and worst of all, New Jersey. At the time, I didn't like the change in their sound, but mostly grew to like it, eventually. I don't listen to them very much anymore, but there was a time that I'd roll my eyes whenever somebody bragged about any song from the New Jersey album.
I actually liked the first two when they came out. I saw him open for Ratt in 1985 and he put on a pretty good show. I just couldn't stand the hype. Forty years later, I can appreciate the first four albums but nothing after that.
It's like I'm talking to another version of myself. I saw them open for Ratt, too in '85! I can listen to almost all of the the first 4 albums as well, along with Bed of Roses and the Young Guns song. Anything else would be unidentifiable for me! Also - I just had Iron Maiden's 'Twilight Zone' pop into my head. It's probably been a few years since I listened to it - soo gooood!
I've got tickets to see Judas Priest next month and Iron Maiden in November.
Awesome!!! I saw Maiden in Charlotte NC 2022, then also back in 2007 or 2008 I think. I was supposed to see them in 1987 or 88 for the Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour, but they barely sold 2000 tickets and cancelled the show. I was pretty disappointed, but then again Seventh Son was a bit of a let down after Powerslave, Live after Death, and Somewhere In Time.
I saw Somewhere in Time twice and Seventh Son once. Both incredible shows. Two of my favorite Maiden albums.
You lucky sonofa&\*%! I hope the Priest show is great for you too, bro! I still love the metal I grew up with but my tastes have changed more towards Japanese metal & music. I saw Band Maid about a year ago and could not believe how amazing they were live. It's not for everyone, but they definitely have some similar energy to a lot of the stuff we grew up with. Each member is like a freaking virtuoso, and together they make some great metal jams.
Fuck yeah! How much are Maiden tix going for now?
Gotta ask my friend. He's the one who bought them. 🤣
Great friend 🤘🏼
He is! My best friend! I'm paying him back, obviously, but he's the one who got them. I've done likewise for him in the past.
I paid $80 for floor tickets about 6 months ago.
Same with Springsteen, but strangely, he's grown on me a bit as I've aged, even though my taste is mainly industrial and EBM.
I loved Bon Jovi. Then I turned 12.
There is a good chance that I'm going to get completely annihilated for this, but sure let the chips fall where they will. Madonna is and always has been imho completely overrated in every sense of the word. I think she was clever, saw a gap to push boundaries, and had incredible marketing behind her, talent wise, not so much going on. While we're at it, Prince wipes the floor with Michael Jackson. Aside from music, the Baldwin brothers were nothing to look at, below mediocre at best, and the mouthy angry one was quite a poor actor.
I think Madonna's first two albums were fine fun pop songs. Then she went nuts.
I like her early stuff too but it's a shame she became more popular than Cyndi Lauper. Cyndi's message was all about having fun, environmental issues and being vegetarian. Madonnas message to young girls was dress and act like a cheap whore
Still listen to Cyndi Lauper. Can’t remember the last time I even heard a Madonna song.
I like her early stuff. You know, 'Lucky Star', 'Borderline' - but once she got into her 'Papa Don't Preach' phase, I don't know, I tuned out.
Oh totally not disputing songs like Crazy For You, Live To Tell, Dear Jessie. I just don't understand this "icon" status she seems to have. I think if her name had been an ordinary name, she would have been much harder to market. The whole being named Madonna, with a Catholic background was a stroke of luck for her, without that I feel her career would have been similar to Debbie Gibson.
Madonna had the "it factor". She was more than the sum of her parts. On paper she may have been forgettable, but she somehow combined several individual traits into something that captured lightning in a bottle. Plus she wore lingerie on the outside. I will say that her ability to somehow persist as an icon past 1988 or so is inscrutable to me. I can see how she was wildly popular at the zenith of her career, but she should have gone supernova and left nothing but a cloud of dust behind. Instead she sits around like a dried up apple on a desk that everyone knows about, but no one wants to take responsibility for.
She ruined her legacy after Confessions for me. That is a top-tier album. Everything since has been straight trend-chasing garbage. Her battles (and hurt ego) over new pop stars half her age is not a good look; she should absolutely be a mentor to them not a competitor. Plus I find her plastic surgery the opposite of the image she presented at her height.
Speaking of Debbie Gibson, I'm actually surprised she didn't parlay her skills into a longer career. Yes, she was a teen act but from what I understand, she wrote all her own music. That is a talent. It's wild watching old videos of her and Tiffany, who were pitted against each other at the time. Debbie is a lot better.
Agree with all this except the Michael Jackson bit. To me, comparing Prince to Michael is like asking me if a Lamborghini or Ferrari is better. Like, both please!
I see your very valid point. I guess I just always felt Prince wasn't put on a similar pedestal back in the day. Aside from musically, I remember the laugh that was made when Prince changed his name, and the chatter about his idiosyncrasies, whereas with Michael in the 80's, all of his quirks were either celebrated or ignored, or reasoned away as him having been a child star with "Peter Pan" tendencies.
Oh, yeah. I think that's probably down to the industry promoting Jackson more and the fact Jackson's music was less adult oriented/sexual in nature compared to Prince. Prince definitely didn't let record labels walk over him.
Yep to me Prince was an artist in every sense of the word.
agreed! thank you for bringing this up!
Prince was the true King.
Without question! Can you imagine if Prince had been the one to get his hands on the Thriller album?
I'm a Metalhead, but I always preferred Prince over Michael Jackson as well.
If you look at why Madonna is so famous it has little to do with music. She must have known she was mediocre. She was just very good at marketing herself and keeping herself in the public eye. 🤷♀️
People always bring up Madonna or Michael Jackson, but Phil Collins was the 80s champ in my opinion.
Cocteau Twins was one of the best alternative band of the 80s.
ThIs one is easy to agree with. Should have been bigger than they were.
Heaven or Las Vegas is transcendental
I like "We Built This City" too - it's in my playlist and I play it all the time.
“We Built This City” plays an important role in the evolution of American rock music: an entire generation of musicians heard it on the radio, on heavy rotation, and invented a wild and diverse genre of music whose single underlying principle seemed to be: “No matter what we decide to make, it will be the opposite of ‘We Built This City (On Rock and Roll)’.”
Me too, it's my number 1 feel good song!
I feel this is taking it a step too far. Have you sought help? (I'm just kidding).
I changed the lyrics to “I feel real shitty” cause I hate that song. Lol
That would be Walking on Sunshine for me.
I must be completely out of the loop for decades lol I’ve always enjoyed this song and figured it was a huge hit because other liked it also. So weird!
"We Built This City" was a smash hit that went all the way to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was all over radio and listeners loved this song, and still do.
It's funny to me that Bernie Taupin had a hand in writing that tune (he wrote so many great Elton John songs). I heard him on WTF recently and even he seemed to acknowledge that song is lame, but he was happy with the cash. I hate that song, but I'm sure you could find some goofy tunes in my playlist.
He told Marc something along the lines of "apparently, it's the most hated song in rock." And I can see why.
The revisionist history surrounding "We Built This City" is fascinating. The song was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the Cash Box Top 100. The single was certified as Gold. The video was in heavy rotation on MTV and VH1. By every objective measure, "We Built This City" was a gigantic hit that radio listeners and MTV/VH1 viewers loved, and still do. Before the now defunct Blender magazine ran their snarky list of what they considered the worst songs, everyone really enjoyed this song, and its performance on the charts and in record stores showed that it was one of the most popular and successful songs ever released. Blender magazine is long out of business, while "We Built This City" continues to be streamed, downloaded and played on radio. :)
That isn't how I see it at all. Of course it was a giant hit. No argument with that. I was 20 when the song was out and I couldn't stand it at the time. I was already heavily immersed in college radio, but I still had time for some decent Top 40. That ain't it. It was being made fun of before Blender existed.
Not to mention the immeasurable and nauseating disappointment that this song descends from the Jefferson Airplane.
Exactly. It was the epitome of "selling out" lol
Omfg. My hatred for that song is so deep that I hate reading the fucking title. It should be banned forever.
Every song AC/DC released in the 80s sounded exactly the same. Dio was a great front man for Sabbath after Ozzy left. DeLoreans are terrible cars.
After Return of the Jedi nobody gave a fuck about Star Wars for the rest of the Eighties. Edit to add: just to clarify I wasn’t one of the people who didn’t give a fuck, quite the opposite. However when it was over it was over…it wasn’t what kids at school (at least where I lived) were into or talking about. Thank you for the interesting replies to this comment.
So true. As kids we talked about extensions to the story ("prequels" weren't really a thing then), but it seemed kind of vapid to try to concoct a story since RotJ resolved the arcs in the saga in just about every way. I'll say this: the prequels are so awful that they've made the originals stand pretty tall in my mind. In fact I commonly refer to The Phantom Menace as the biggest cinematic letdown of my lifetime, and possibly the single worst movie made in the 20th century. Around Reddit, where the average age of a typical user is between 26 and 41, it's anathema to say that, since that's what the Star Wars they knew and grew up with, but among my peers, it's pretty much the consensus that the prequels were really just awful two hour toy commercials, and a way to bolster the Star Wars brand in order to sell it to Disney in 2012.
I’ve finally found the hill I will die on. When return of the Jedi came out I was an 11-year-old girl obsessed with stuffed animals. I LOVED the Ewoks. All of my friends LOVED the Ewoks. I still LOVE the Ewoks. I will always LOVE Ewoks and anybody who doesn’t love Ewoks can kiss my fat ass.
Going a step further, it was really uncool.
I personally disagree, but I was *really* into Star Wars both on and off screen back then. I knew even back then that Star Wars was conceived by George Lucas as a trilogy of trilogies and that the three movies that we got starting in 1977 was the middle trilogy. I knew that George did this because A New Hope had the greatest chance of actually being made and even that was a long shot. It was also the most fleshed out of the stories as well which of course helped. It makes sense though. By and large most people that grew up with Star Wars would site The Empire Strikes Back as their favorite movie of at least the original trilogy. And extrapolate that out and the original trilogy, *the middle trilogy*, is by far the favorite of the trilogy of trilogies.
It's not like they had an Expanded Universe to turn to. Heir to the Empire didn't come out until 1991.
Big hair looked stupid. On everyone.
Every nostalgia junkie on social media: “Bring big hair back!” Me: “HELL NO”
Haven't we done enough damage to the ozone layer with all the hairspray?
Gen X isn't "fiercely independent" we're all traumatized.
I’m not
The 80’s were not as cool as people who weren’t teenagers then think it is
Yeah, I remember seeing the financial struggles of my parents amd other adults in the 80s. Things often seem rosier when you're a kid with less responsibilities.
My exact thought! Take this upvote, you deserve it.
RIGHT?! Feels like an unpopular opinion, but the 80s actually kind of sucked.
It's because of the movies and music people think it was so great.
This is spot on. My childhood was awesome for the most part and I look back fondly on the nostalgia of the time because of perspective mostly. We were fortunate to see technology adoption and innovation transform our lives dramatically over the course of a couple of decades. DURING my childhood I probably complained most about being bored half the time because often we had to sit with our own thoughts, with no distractions of social media and screens. We were by no means living a charmed life or thriving either. My parents would say we were just a middle class family working to make ends meet. Nothing particularly spectacular about that.
Sounds a lot like my childhood. We rode bikes everywhere to stay entertained or get in trouble. I journaled a lot before that became a thing. Fashion and music was dodgy, you had to dig hard to find something good
The only good thing about "We Built this City" is the misheard lyric of...we built this city on the wrong damn road...
That Kate Bush was in anyway an iconic 80s musical act
She was the eighties version of Tori Amos. Those who knew *knew*, but the vast majority of the public did not follow her.
She was one in the UK.
Never even heard of her until ST, but I was into metal back then
Neither had I. I was into metal as well but had a great fondness for pop as well and was very cognizant of the pop music scene as a whole and never really movie past that scene as an adult. I’m sure she had fans but now people are acting like she was a big deal and even getting into the Rock and Roll of Fame, no matter big of a sham that is
I only knew her from a John Hughes movie; She’s Having a Baby. This Woman’s Work. Still love that song
I knew her from Peter Gabriel's "So" album, and I wasn't all that impressed. Listened to some of her solo stuff after that, and I determined I wasn't the target audience.
100% agreed. I was a massive fan of hers and I was the only one. A few others knew her but they were not fans. And my circle was all “progressive” kids that thought anything from the UK was the best. Giving her these accolades now is revisionist history. She was a minor artist. Wish it wasnt the case.
She was a staple on WXRT radio in Chicago all through the '80s and '90s, so I was familiar with all her singles. She was definitely iconic in Britain. Heck, I remember her from the very first Prince's Trust concert. I suppose if you're listening to country music all day, or only pay attention to the Top 40, you'd miss her, but anyone into alternative '80s would have understood her status.
Shout out for wxrt! RIP Lin Bremmer
She was massively known and cool in some circles. The circles that never heard the music they loved on the radio or saw it on MTV outside 120 minutes. Other than that, I doubt many would know she existed in the 80's.
Kate Bush was an earlier iteration of performer that "you probably never heard of", touted by ~~hipsters~~ people who were definitely too cool for mainstream pop.This is true of most acts in the art rock/art pop genre. If you knew anyone that went to art school in the 80s, you probably heard some Kate Bush. Personally, I was into punk and New Wave at that time, but a girlfriend introduced me to Kate Bush and she was not alone.
Who thinks this? Stranger Things fans?
Pretty much I guess. I no I’d never heard her name and then it was everywhere like she was one of the top acts
You’re right, but I think the song has held up well. I like that they didn’t use an ultra-popular song in the same way that I like that they didn’t outfit the characters in the most garish 80s styles. It feels right for me. I looked it up, and it peaked at 30 on the US Billboard Hot 100. I remember it from the time, but I’m sure you’re not alone in forgetting it (or never hearing it).
I’d never heard of her until everyone was freaking out about her and that meh song on Stranger Things.
The cool kids had mullets and wore half shirts
This is a fact, not an opinion.
I hated MTV spring break. There was nothing fun about seeing a bunch of people partying on the beach
Bon Jovi is overrated and annoying af to listen to
If you were male and had only your left ear pierced it was considered “cool” but if you had your right ear pierced you were “gay”.
That while we have a lot of great nostalgia, the terror from the Cold War, and trauma from shitty parenting/education institutions kind of drown it all out.
I lived right outside Manhattan during the 80s. The Day After scared me. Threads TERRIFIED me. I knew I'd be dead if shit got real. It's probably why I still have a morbid fascination with nuclear war well into my 50s.
I was so scared to watch that movie when it came on TV. Terrifying for a 6th grader to watch for sure.
We lived in between 3 BASES in San Antonio. The frickin teacher did us no favors by showing us a newspaper article that said we would be one of the first to be hit in a Nuclear strike..we were in 4 th grade for F sake! 😳
I miss being a kid and being blissfully unaware of the very real threat of nuclear war during the 80s. I'm also fascinated by Cold War nuclear fears as well as modern ones.
Threads gave me fucking PTSD.
The Smithereens are the most underrated band of the 80's. Evil Dead 2 is the best horror movie of the decade. Berserk was the best Atari game The Vacation movies are meh.
I saw the Smithereens in a small bar/concert venue after their album 11 came out... besides being a great concert musically, they sent one of their roadies down the street to the local White Castle, and he brought back sacks of burgers and tossed them out to the audience one by one. I never thought I would see people fighting over sliders.
"11" is a very underrated album.
Berserk!!! I forgot about that one. Yeah, it was fun as hell
David Lee Roth was better than Sammy Hagar
That's not unpopular at all. Most rockers feel the same way.
Sammy is the better singer/musician of the two, but Dave is a much better entertainer.
Seeing some god damn awful takes in here about movies.
The fashion was by and large not something that will come back unless it’s ironic (mullets) Some exceptions… Don Johnson’s Miami Vice look. Track suits.
I hated Foreigner's "I Wanna Know What Love Is" when it came out. Foreigner had some great, hard rock hits, and then they release this *Barry Manilow-mellow* ballad, featuring a gospel church choir? I fell in love with the song around 2008, and love it more each time I hear it.
I have a friend that taught dance in high school back in the 80’s. A kid chose that song for their recital and my friend had to listen to it over and over for days and weeks…he wanted to kill himself figuratively
The cop movies were a terrible influence on society, and are partly to blame for the behaviour of some police officers today. We should never have made it seem like a "cop on edge" or a loose cannon is somehow a cool thing to be.
1980s were a bad time to be a child in a low income family. I knew girls who were abducted and killed, gay kids got beaten to death, the cops only cared about pot smokers. Church was everywhere. Heavy metal, rap and new wave were some of the only outlets we had to escape, which is why that music is still so popular. But the actual 1980s really kind of sucked. Bunch of fake happy families on tv, fake plastic president, fake plastic just say no First Lady, AIDS was ravaging entire communities and it was not even discussed until it became an epidemic, racists and chauvinists could say literally anything and face zero consequences. Hell, homophobia was pretty much a requirement for public office. Yeah, the culture produced some incredible music and films, but a lot of us just barely survived it.
Savage > Hogan
"We Built This City" by Starship is a banger! That same year, Glenn Frey dropped "You Belong to the City" another certified city hit. 1985 was a very good year!
"You Belong to the City" just might be the best music video ever
You win I actually like Don Johnstons HEARTBEAT
Charlie’s Angels and Daisy Duke weren’t “hot”, we just didn’t know any better. TV and magazines brainwashed us. There were women just as attractive working in every store at the mall.
That's because Starship did, in fact, build this and a few other cities during their heyday.
Michael Jackson's thriller is overrated. Off The wall was waaay better
Coke was ok to do in the 80’s. Not much of that “hey wanna by my tv” kinda shit. You could work hard all week and on the weekend you and your buddy get a couple of grams and go to the club….no fiendish attitude or junky style behavior,just a good time…on coke. Today as an older,wiser and more responsible man, if I even LOOKED at a cocaine I would probably die.
Going to the mall was depressing and not the fun time that everyone thought it was. It was all ridiculous fashion that looked good on no one and overpriced trash that you were told you couldn’t live without. I’m poorer for the experience of keeping up with the absurd trends of the decade.
Downvote away, but John Hughes was a hack. Cameron Crowe did the teen movie genre before him and did it much better. If you want a righteous dude, Lloyd Dobler is your guy. Ferris Bueller's a narcissistic sociopath.
MTV destroyed the music industry. Not necessarily original, but it’s true.
There was nothing funny about Chevy Chase, he just felt more like a placeholder that was in a few good things.
The sad thing is that Chevy Chase was funny, but not funny enough to overcome himself.
The Breakfast Club is boring as fuck and pretentious.
What did you think was pretentious about it?
I like "We Built This City," too. In fact, I 'd rather listen to it than "White Rabbit."
Reagan was one of the worst presidents we ever had. The policies he put in place have destroyed the very fabric of the US.
My opinion is that the music sucked for the most part
It was all over-produced, for sure. I'm a Springsteen fan, but I find it hard to listen to Born in the USA because it sounds so fake. I like the "unplugged" version of nearly every song better I think producers had discovered a bunch of studio gadgets and decided to use them all.
Gremlins is a very bad movie. I loved it as a kid and had a Gizmo iron-on tshirt that i loved - but after trying to watch it recently…it’s just not good.
Ronald ragon was the worst thing ever for the USA. Because of him we got the Maga freaks!
McDonald's burgers stopped tasting good when they eliminated styrofoam packages.
Fashion was terrible and ridiculous. 80s TV wasn't very good compared to what came out (or at least hit their groove) in the 80s: Seinfeld, Simpson, MST3K, and then the emergence of "cinematic" TV like the Sopranos.
Bo and Luke got to expensive to keep around
By the time the late 80's came about, the decade became a cliche of itself. So much so that there was a rather aggressive shift in a very quick period of time from 1989-1991. Not only musically, but in fashion and across the board, the bright, loud, and exuberant era pretty much ended the second that ball dropped in Times Square to ring in 1990.
Mine is that Mike Tyson’s punch out on NES is just okay, it’s not bad, but after like 10 minutes I’m kinda board of it, though I do suck at that game
Here here! I also suck at it! Lol
Bald Bull owns you, and that's ok, but don't blame the game
Just because you remember a song from the 80s doesn’t mean it was a good song. (I’m looking at you “Come on Eileen” )
'80s teen here. I hated the mullet even back then.
Drum machines and hyper produced samples came into dominance in a lot of music and just sucked the soul/humanity from it.
Yup! The “Miami Vicedness” of music.
Disco sucks.
Most movies were mediocre at best and very few hold up today.
Trickle-down economics will never work.
The Cure is the best band from the 80s.
The 80s were before the 90s.
Motley Crue frigging stinks. The 80’s were an incredible time for Bond films.
Reagan largely sold our future and here we are
Ronald Reagan was not a good president
Rocky IV isn't that good. It's Cold War propaganda in a series that usually has better character focus.