Remember when the 80s seemed so fresh, so new, so cutting edge? Video games (a yellow blob eating lines of white pixels), movies (Matthew Broderick conversing with a computer!), television (K.I.T.T. the talking car) and the music scene (icy synthesizers, a drum machine, and cold, robotic vocals). Somehow, what was once so futuristic has become ‘retro’ and ‘old skool’! So how can those of us who loved the unique experiences and technologies waiting around every corner in the 80s get that virginal feeling back again? Because there’s no denying that “Don’t You Want Me” by the Human League just doesn’t pack the electronic punch it once did now that you can hear it on lite radio about ten times a day.
I’ve managed to relive the spirit of the past in a handful of ways. Let’s start with the video games. Naturally, if you still have an old Atari or Colecovision collecting dust somewhere in your house, blow off the cobwebs, plug it into a TV (you know, one of the HDMI-less clunkers that accepts a videogame switchbox), and start playing. If those classic gaming systems were sold in a garage sale years ago when you’d decided you were too ‘adult’ for them, then you have another option. Most gaming systems from the past decade have numerous compilations of classic home system and arcade video games. There are awesome Atari, Intellivision and Activision console game collections, plus arcade compilations from video game companies like Namco, Sega, Konami, Data East, and Midway. You can also download many Nintendo Entertainment System games onto your Wii. There are even a variety of joystick controllers you can buy for some of the game systems to get a more genuine arcade experience. Your best bet is to tell your friends to forget the kids, forget work, forget all adult obligations, and to just come over for a night of classic gaming—Galaxian, Pac Man, Frogger, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Dig Dug, Ms. Pac Man, Defender, Mario Bros. Then crank up a good mix of 80s music, preferably on that old boom box you still have that most likely has a wire hanger jammed into the place where an antenna used to be, and remember the past.
Next, we have the movies. You could go for the obvious, like E.T., The Breakfast Club, Fast Times, Better Off Dead, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller, Flashdance, Footloose, or Back to the Future. These films definitely capture the music and fashion of the decade, but they can also tend to be as ineffective at bringing memories flooding back as some of those overplayed tracks you hear on the radio every weekend on “Saturday at the 80s.” You need to go for the real cheesy movies you saw on cable a million times that are so 80s in style that they actually look like they are mocking the 80s rather than being genuine artifacts. I’ve got a great collection of them, including movies such as Breakin’, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, Real Genius, The Last Dragon, Just One of the Guys, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, The Pirate Movie, The Last American Virgin and Looker. You also can’t go wrong with any slasher movies that aren’t Halloween, Friday the 13th, or A Nightmare on Elm Street. I’m talking about the kinds of slashers that feature actors who never made a second film, and elongated high school gym dance scenes focusing on some new wave/power pop band that never got signed to a label despite the blatant attempt at exposure. Some good 80s slasher titles include Graduation Day, Sleepaway Camp, The Prowler, Blood Song, The Initiation, and The Intruder. And just for an added dose of authenticity, most of these films, even on DVD, have that warm and fuzzy (aka: grainy) look that you thought only a VHS tape could offer.
And of course, there’s the television outlet. There are great television shows you should watch on DVD in a major marathon for hours and hours. Personally, the obvious, like The A-Team, Cheers, or The Cosby Show, don’t totally do it for me because they fail to focus on the true teen experience in the 80s. You need to get the lone season of the totally awesome Square Pegs and Fame Seasons 1 and 2 for the ultimate in capturing 80s fashions, trends, music, and hopes and fears of the Gen-X set. Also you might want to DVR the “Totally 80s” segments on VH-1 Classics, because watching cheesy 4 minute music clips seriously brings back the vibe of the 80s mind. Every time I watch them, I expect the rockin’ MTV guitar theme to start with the graphics of the man landing on the moon. Sadly, that beautiful clip was taken away from us forever in the mid-80s after the space shuttle exploded.
Finally, there’s the music. Listening to one of those compilations of the most obvious 80s songs that never went away doesn’t work much (Come on Eileen, Too Shy, She Blinded Me with Science, Who Can It Be now, Roseanna, etc.). But there is a way to revive your listening experience to totally bring you back while reawakening the emotions those songs evoked in you in the first place. As a huge music collector, I have the necessary resources at my disposal, which helps. I have a massive 80s folder on my iPod, and the playlist does indeed start with the hits. But here’s the trick. All the hits are placed in the order that they entered the Billboard charts. So, when you listen to the songs, you are hearing songs that all hit the airwaves at around the same time, which leads to some wicked drug-free trips down memory lane. You will literally be catapulted back to that particular summer, fall, winter or spring that you were hearing all these songs back to back on the radio and on MTV.
But the top hits of the 80s are just the beginning of my folder. What I’ve done is gone through all the albums I have from the 80s (which, I kid you not, consists of most albums released by most artists during that decade), and pulled songs that, even if they weren’t hits, just absolutely reek of 80s production, in all genres: mainstream pop, new wave, synthpop, arena rock, goth, hi-nrg dance, club, power pop, hip hop. And of course, there are a massive numbers of soundtracks that saturated the market back then, which really serve as the soundtrack to life in the 80s. Put it all together in a little piece of 21st century technology (iPod killed the CD star), and you basically have my personal greatest hits of the decade and beyond. After I finish listening to the charted ‘best’ of the 80s in chronological order, I let the rest of the 80s takeover, and relish what feels like an all new 80s experience—hearing songs that I’ve rarely ever or never listened to, but which are the epitome of 80s sounds. It’s like I’m back in the 80s, sitting in front of the radio waiting for the debut of some great new single. As a result, when I start listening to my 80s folder on my iPod, I find myself constantly reaching for it because I simply have to know who is singing the amazing track I’m hearing—and unlike DJs on the radio, my iPod tells me the song title and artist every time.
