A February 1984 copy of Smash Hits, containing Madonna's first interview with that magazine, which took place in Manchester. Madonna first charted here in January, with Holiday.
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INTRODUCTION
The '80s Actual blog is designed to be an antidote to all those television shows and on-line articles of recent years which examine pop culture - and frequently get it hopelessly wrong!
If you sat watching the BBC's "I Love The 1970s" and exclaimed over items being shown "I could swear that was 1968!" or "Wasn't that 1981?" chances are you were right.
If you look at certain '70s fan sites and think a lot of the material written about is actually from the '80s, you are almost certainly correct.
If on-line encyclopedia articles which state that pop culture of 1983 is really 1977, or similar, have you wishing for reality, then '80s Actual is for you.
There is a huge drive in the media and on-line to negate the 1980s, to attribute that decade's innovations and fond memories to other decades, and basically to present it as a completely vapid ten years, not worthy of examination.
I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's just comforting to have a decade people can scapegoat and declare "HORRIBLE"?
This blog is based on actual memories, media footage (thank you, YouTube!) and snippets of newspaper and magazine articles from the 1980s. If you read it here, I think you can rest assured it's accurate, though I can take no responsibility for the newspaper reports from the decade!
The '80s Actual blog examines the decade's news stories - from the emergence of Lady Diana Spencer into the public eye in 1980, to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
There are also also '80s Actual sister blogs taking us back to the '70s and '60s - The Real 1970s and Spacehopper.
The view of the 1980s presented here is from an English perspective - much of the original '80s material used is from England, but I hope this blog will prove useful and enjoyable to people in the other nations of the UK and much further afield.
If you sat watching the BBC's "I Love The 1970s" and exclaimed over items being shown "I could swear that was 1968!" or "Wasn't that 1981?" chances are you were right.
If you look at certain '70s fan sites and think a lot of the material written about is actually from the '80s, you are almost certainly correct.
If on-line encyclopedia articles which state that pop culture of 1983 is really 1977, or similar, have you wishing for reality, then '80s Actual is for you.
There is a huge drive in the media and on-line to negate the 1980s, to attribute that decade's innovations and fond memories to other decades, and basically to present it as a completely vapid ten years, not worthy of examination.
I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's just comforting to have a decade people can scapegoat and declare "HORRIBLE"?
This blog is based on actual memories, media footage (thank you, YouTube!) and snippets of newspaper and magazine articles from the 1980s. If you read it here, I think you can rest assured it's accurate, though I can take no responsibility for the newspaper reports from the decade!
The '80s Actual blog examines the decade's news stories - from the emergence of Lady Diana Spencer into the public eye in 1980, to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Was it simply "The Greed Decade" as many like to claim? I think not - the '80s saw the emergence of yuppies, but also Red Wedge, the Greenham Common Peace Women, and increasing concern for the environment. It may be convenient to scapegoat the '80s as the cause of all known ills, but the reality of the decade was far different - absolute bedlam, as Right fought Left, idealism fought corporate ambition. The election of Ronald Reagan as American President in 1980, and his second victory in 1984, had a far more decisive effect on the international political landscape than the three successive general election victories of UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979, 1983 and 1987.
Fashion came fast and furious - deelyboppers, ra ra skirts with lycra leggings, Swatch watches, pixie boots, jelly shoes, shoulder pads, blonde highlights, hair gel, hair mousse, men in pink, goths, shell suits, New Romantics, donkey jackets, leg warmers...
Musically, the 1980s saw the beginnings of House Music, the exciting and still evolving world of synths taking centre stage, the evolvement of Rap music into the fully-fledged Hip Hop scene, Band Aid and Live Aid, great Indie, startling Acid House, and Raves...
At the amusement arcades, Space Invaders ran rampant and we first met Pac-Man...
And there was so much more! The decade truly had something for everyone - and provided a welcome escape for a while from the long-running and boring saga of flared trousers as fashion, begun back in the 1960s!
It was a brilliant decade for telly - bringing us such wonders as A Very Peculiar Practice, Inspector Morse, Spitting Image, Hot Metal, The BeiderbeckeTrilogy and Edge of Darkness.
The 1980s also saw the creation of The Simpsons, Twin Peaks, and other wonderful (often groundbreaking) American TV shows like Kate & Allie, Cheers, The Golden Girls, Married... With Children, The Cosby Show, Roseanne, and Hill Street Blues.
The '80s gave us some wonderful UK TV ads. Remember Ted Moult advertising double glazing at the Tan Hall Inn with "Fit The Best - Everest"? Remember the Weetabix gang? Remember the Scotch video tape skeleton ("Re-record, not fade away"?). Remember the romantic yuppie couple in the coffee ads? And what about "Lotta Bottle"?
In fact, the '80s totally transformed our telly viewing, bringing us Channel 4 and Sky TV.
The '80s were a fascinating time for science and technology! Video recorders became widespread, the Sony Walkman arrived, the first hand-held mobile phones hit the streets (expensive analogue bricks!), the ZX Spectrum, Game Boy and the World Wide Web (Thanks, Sir Tim Berners-Lee!) were invented, the first computer mouse eeked its way into our homes and Sir Alec Jeffreys accidentally discovered DNA fingerprinting. It's all here!
There are also also '80s Actual sister blogs taking us back to the '70s and '60s - The Real 1970s and Spacehopper.
The view of the 1980s presented here is from an English perspective - much of the original '80s material used is from England, but I hope this blog will prove useful and enjoyable to people in the other nations of the UK and much further afield.
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'80s Actual - Remembering...
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Blog Archive
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2005
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May
(78)
- Butlin It Once And You'll Do It Again...
- Captain Beaky: "Hissing Sid Is Innocent!"
- Thanks, Joan...
- On The Eighth Day...
- John Lennon Killed...
- There's No One Quite Like Grandma...
- 1981 - Synths, Cubes, Cats, Space Shuttle, Only Fo...
- "And now I'm all alone in bedsit land, my only hom...
- "Government Leaving The Youth On The Shelf..."
- A newspaper advertisement for a new branch of Tan...
- Shaddap Your Face!
- Castrol GTX - Liquid Engineering - and Flora - The...
- "The Oldest Swinger In Town..."
- 1982 - Falklands, Gotta Lotta Bottle, ZX Spectrum,...
- Doris From Fame And Sheila Chandra From Monsoon - ...
- I Eat Cannibals...
- "Don't Push Me 'Cos I'm Close To The Edge..."
- Even A Slight Remark Makes Nonsense And Turns To S...
- Vince & Alf...
- Prince William...
- Henry's Cat and Metal Mickey...
- 1983: The World's First Mobile Phone; Compact Disc...
- Terrahawks
- What a feeling...
- Care Bears
- My Little Pony
- The Eurythmics, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart - S...
- The Cadbury's Chocolate Block Mug...
- 1984 - Band Aid, Trivial Pursuit, Computer Mouse, ...
- Madonna In Smash Hits...
- Auf Wiedersehen Pet
- Edgar, Ghostbusters and Gremlins...
- Sade first graced the charts in March 1984. Her w...
- The Price Is Right: "COME ON DOWN!"
- Snazzy Curtains, A Stylish Radio and a Trendy Beds...
- My Favourite Telly Ad of 1984...
- MAGGIE! MAGGIE! MAGGIE! OUT! OUT! OUT!
- Pineapple Knits & The Smiths...
- Here's Russ Abbot of Madhouse and Atmosphere fame,...
- Commercial Break...
- All for freedom and for pleasure, nothing ever la...
- Fashion '85...
- Home To Roost
- "You Spin Me Right Round, Baby, Right Round, Like ...
- The First Cut Won't Hurt At All, The Second Only M...
- The Milkman Of Human Kindness...
- Ooh, Miss Cathcart! Toys 1985...
- 1986 - Big Bang, Walk Like An Egyptian, "Today" Ne...
- "Hold A Chicken In The Air, Stick A Deckchair Up Y...
- The Land of Confusion
- The Blow Monkeys and a Defence of 1980s Pop...
- Rock Me Amadeus
- The Lady In Red Is Dancing With Me...
- Might As Well Face It You're Addicted To Love...
- "You've Got To Have A J-O-B If You Wanna Be With M...
- 1987 - Nokia Cityman, "You Got An Ology?", House M...
- Puffball Skirts...
- Royal It's A Knockout & A Great Album...
- The 1987 Nokia Cityman - Yup, Yup, Yup...
- 1987: Some Television Comedy Treats...
- AIDS - Don't Die Of Ignorance...
- Swatch Phones and Others...
- The Slightest Touch and Down To Earth... Pop Heave...
- "You Don't Know What You Might Have Set Upon Yours...
- "Don't Wait Up For Us Tonight..."
- The Colbys: Fallon Meets The Aliens...
- Fatal Attraction...
- 1988 - Environmentally Friendly, Red Nose Day, Cla...
- Boys, Boys, Boys... And A Yuppie Gorilla...
- Wicked!
- Rowan Atkinson and Nokia Cityman Star in TV Ad
- Gilbert's Fridge
- "John Kettley Is A Weatherman And So Is Michael Fi...
- 1989 - The Berlin Wall, Sky TV, World Wide Web Inv...
- Lil Louis' "French Kiss...", Technotronic's Pump U...
- 1989: Game Boy...
- Home And Away...
- Voodoo Ray...
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▼
May
(78)
'80s Actual - Remembering...
The fads...
'80s Actual - Remembering...
The news...
'80s Actual - Remembering...
TV greats...
Links
- 20th Century Ads - From 1900 to 1999, the Century in newspaper and magazine ads
- Coronation Street - Back On The Street - The Street As It Was From The 1960s To The 1980s...
- Dan's Raleigh Burner Resource - Dan's the man for Raleigh Burner info, chat and pics
- Hey You - Number 73 - tribute to the famous 1980s kids' TV series
- It's Only Fiction - But...
- Man Hating Abounds
- Passe Partout Tape Picture Framing
- Random Radio Jottings
- Sons and Daughters Website - all you want to know about the 1980s Aussie saga
- SpaceHopper - 1960s fads, fun and news revisited - including the space hopper!
- The Arbury, Cambridge, Blog
- The Beckindale Bugle - Emmerdale Farm In The 1980s
- The Real 1970s - taking the lid off the decade which was sandwiched between the 60s and the 80s
Followers
Remember, "More Is More"...
Click on "Older Posts" label above for LOTS more '80s Actual...
Click on "Older Posts" label above for LOTS more '80s Actual...
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