The 1980s revival in Europe

Those of us who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s are probably familiar with some of the noteworthy tunes from those years, even if we cannot quite place a song name or artist to a particular song. In other cases, someone might describe the `80s as a ‘bygone era,’ but for anyone living or working in Europe right now, this is most definitely not the case.

Attend a dance club, and you will find yourself – as I was, just a few nights ago – standing still and baffled, reveling at that point in your mind between familiarity and recognition, before realizing that what a particular deejay is playing is a heavily-remixed version of a song that made its debut in the early 1980s. In this particular case, it was New Order’s ‘Blue Monday.’ Or, alternatively, go for an evening stroll down a street, and you will hear a familiar jingle emanating from one of the open-door cafes and bars you pass by.

The 1980s are alive and well in Europe, and it is like a blast from the past. In the same way, it is also as much a reflection of how much has happened since then, and a reassuring nod that new generations, many of who have no recollections of those times, can now appreciate some of the musical magic that defined a generation from twenty-plus years ago. I count myself as one of the lucky ones: I am old enough to remember record players, as well as actual vinyl wrapped in record sleeves; cassette tapes were considered a musical space shuttle, because it meant you could actually record your records onto them and then, inevitably, play the stuff in a car stereo.

My older sisters dressed in the fashion of those times, and had the characteristic hairstyles. I remember being totally enthusiastic for one boyfriend that would drive up in our driveway in a sporty Chevy Cavalier Z-24, with a souped-up muffler that could still be heard blocks away. I remember riding my bike with friends, and the high point would be to eat packs of jawbreakers until your mouth hurt from all the gum and crunching. Care Bears, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Brave Star, Ghostbusters, GI Joe, Golden Girls, Thunder Cats, Star Trek TNG, and a whole host of other memories trickle back. I admit my evident nostalgia.

I counted New Order, early-era Depeche Mode, Guns `n Roses, Pet Shop Boys, Dire Straits, The Police and The Cure, just off the top of my memory, as stuff that has been making the rounds here in Montenegro. Television, radio, and club scenes…even the Podgorica police station was playing these tunes!

It also makes for effective advertising: I recently counted my second online CD purchase – yes, I still buy physical CDs rather than opt for ‘downloads,’ since computers are fallible, and data loss is a sad reality – of music from the 80s, stuff and bands I knew about, but never pursued seriously until now. No better way to keep expanding my rather limited musical horizons than the present.

A lot of crazy things were happening in the 1980s: the Cold War was reaching its final decade, and the nuclear issue had become especially frightening, which often became fused with the cause of environmentalism. Communism in Europe slowly began to unravel, permanently changing the alignments that had defined the second-half of the last century. Free-market capitalism was stretching far and wide, often via the expansion of multinational corporations. The AIDS epidemic was in full-force by then, and young people were curbing the sexual excesses of the 1960s and 1970s. Gay rights activism made significant breakthroughs, only to be stigmatized by this epidemic as being an exclusively “gay disease.”

The then-called “third world” was experiencing calamities that began to be broadcast on international television. Other developments in such countries sometimes motivated American covert interventions, as in Central America. Economics and recession were on many working people’s minds. Conservatism appeared to be spreading, particularly in Britain, the United States, West Germany and Canada, which created a backlash in the artistic and cultural communities.

All of these factors, and many more, thematically and structurally influenced so much of the music of the 1980s. It was easy, after this decade passed, to laugh off the fashion and musical excesses of those days, but that there is a new revival happening now is amusing and fun.

But, this might also be the sign of troubling prospects that go beyond nostalgia: music, as with other cultural and artistic mediums, very often is an outlet of how segments of society reconcile the realities of everyday life and current events, particularly the negative and disquieting ones. That the 1980s are being revisited and, quite often, relived again may well be the telltale sign that some believe recent history is repeating itself, or that the more things change, the more they stay the same. If so, then why not learn from the generations before us that went through much the same thing -- and make a lot of fun out of it in the meantime?