What Simon Says: '80s Stars Who Negate The '80s... And '70s Fantasists...

 Clare writes:

I recently saw an interview with Simon Toulson-Clarke, singer of Red Box, a two-hit wonder band of the mid-1980's. He claimed that the 1980's music scene was nearly all "70's influences" and that the music wasn't up to much - although Red Box were, in his opinion, innovative and good. I grew up in the 80's and bought the two Red Box hit singles and love 80's music and feel a bit distressed that one of my 80's singing heroes should slag my youth era and tastes in music. I think 80's music was thoroughly innovative and wonderful. Listen to music from 1980 and 1989 and you will see how far music progressed. What do you think?

I do see why you're distressed by this, but I think it has a funny side. The 1980s have long been reviled by the "great and the good" as a decade of unbridled greed. It follows that everything else within that decade must be reviled or negated too - from pop music to fashion, the 1980s, being the era of Reagan and Thatcher, have a very tough time. History is gleefully rewritten to accommodate the view that the 1980s are simply not worth examining - and, if anything is worth examining in that dreadful decade, it's because of "influences" from other decades - particularly the 1970s, which were rewritten as totally wonderful about fifteen years ago.

Also, if you formed a pop band in 1981 and you are one of the "great and good", it is desirable to say that you formed that band in "about 1979" (and certainly not in the 1980s!) - happens all the time - although the trend has faded more than somewhat in the last few years.

When I began this blog in 2005 it was because I was amused at the tendency of pop culture pundits (including the BBC - which continues to indulge itself in '70s fantasy presented as fact even in 2012) to move likeable pop culture of the 1980s into the 1970s or 1990s. A huge fad of the early 1980s suddenly became "1979", another early '80s fad slipped back to 1976, a popular TV ad of 1985 became 1990... it was nonsense and absolutely hilarious because it revealed how insecure and self-deceiving many media and web pundits were. We were fascinating, influential and groovy before the 1980s, we're much better than the 1980s afterwards. Nothing to like in the 1980s!

When somebody like Ed Miliband (born December 1969) states that he remembers the 1970s well or the BBC shows a Dominic Sandbrook (born 1975) series revising the 1970s into something glorious, one can only assume that some people were a little too influenced by the 1970s hype of the 1990s and early 2000s as youngsters.

Sad.

I haven't heard the interview with Mr Toulson-Clarke, so I can only comment generally, but yes - the 1980s did have '70s influences - and influences from further back (just as the '70s were positively awash with influences from the 1960s and further back). It's only natural - decades are short periods of time, and if they were allowed no influences - particularly from the immediate past - then things would be very odd indeed as time is a constant stream and decades a human construct. Imagine, in the 1970s' case, if people could not have gone on wearing flared trousers after New Year's Eve 1969! Goodness - although these were very much a 1960s bequest and selling like hot cakes in fashion stores late in that decade, the '70s would have lost a major fashion trend, wouldn't they?

And the '70s would also have lost Chopper bikes (on sale in UK stores in 1969), the space hopper (on sale and a craze from spring 1968 onwards), rock and pop stars like Led Zeppelin, Slade and David Bowie, dreadful '60s-inspired wallpaper, plus the stylophone, hippie chic, and synthesisers (which would have been ruinous for the 1980s when synth pop entered its heyday!). 

And, just think, the '70s, which enjoyed a huge 1950s revival, would not have been able to revive that decade at all, nor the1960s ska and Mods and Rockers' scenes!

I believe that 1970s music and pop culture was far more swamped by 1960s influences than the 1980s was by 1970s influences simply because the 1970s had so many revivals - the 1950s, Mods and Rockers, Rockabilly, ska - and more -  and never fully succeeded in shaking the 1960s out of its hair (although Punk took a darned good stab at it!).

There is a lot of piffle written about Margaret Thatcher who, of course, won her first General Election in 1979. It's as though her tenure as Prime Minister throughout the 1980s was then absolutely assured and that the electorate had decided on a major and permanent change of direction at that point. From my perspective, from observing the events of 1979 at the time, I think that people were simply sick of the Winter Of Discontent, spiralling inflation and unemployment, and that's how she first got in. The BBC news bulletin at the end of Sheila Tracy's Truckers' Hour from May 1981 featured here mentions the results of a poll from a reputable source which found that if a General Election had been called at that point the Tories would have lost. 

Ah, a poll you scoff. Yes, good point, but Thatcher became highly unpopular with many people in the early 1980s and it was the Falklands War of 1982 which helped her tremendously to win a second term with a landslide majority. She even called an early election in 1983 to take advantage of that fact! And the election of Ronald Reagan as American President in November 1980 was  probably far more influential on the shape of the 1980s than anything Thatcher did simply because America is so much larger than the UK. And yes, loathe though many revisionists are to admit it, Reagan was elected in 1980 and inaugurated in 1981, not in the 1970s!

Let's look at 1950s influences on the 1960s and beyond: What if National Service hadn't ended in 1958, the Rock 'n' Roll era hadn't begun and the Pill hadn't been invented? What would the 1960s have been like then? Also, CND was formed in the late 1950s - ushering in the era of student protest. And what if Margaret Thatcher hadn't entered politics during that decade? No election wins in 1979, 1983 and 1987 then, eh?!!

Wow!

Let's look at the influence the 1980s had on the 1990s. What if the World Wide Web hadn't been invented in 1989? What if the Game Boy hadn't been invented in the 1980s, or Microsoft Windows? What if the ZX Spectrum and the Apple Mac hadn't come along? What if the first handheld mobile phone hadn't been unveiled in 1983? What if work on the current GSM mobile system hadn't begun in 1982? What if the Grunge scene hadn't started in America? Or the Stone Roses had not released their seminal 1989 album? What if...

To sum up: to pretend that the 1980s were simply a lot of '70s influences and were somehow stagnant or alone amongst the decades for having influences from the past is pure piffle and bunk. To pretend that the 1970s were not HUGELY influenced by the 1950s and 1960s is similar piffle and bunk.  Anybody with a thought in their head can see that it is pure nonsense.

It's like some kind of illness "bigging" up certain decades. '80s Actual simply looks at what went on within that ten year span, referencing the past and the future where necessary. 

And we maintain that it was a turbulent, vibrant, fascinating and influential decade. 

And that's fact.