People say the sub-cultures of the 90s extolled the heavy use of depressants, but after listening to much 80s music, I think the 80s had the biggest split personality of all. On one said were the party animals, on the other those who seemed to still have a hang-over from the frivilous 70s. It seems to me every New-wave or later Synth-pop, or even rock band, had that really dreary, drab, sombre sort of tone. Was being depressed a fashion in the 80s? It seems that way to me.

Well the Cure, Depeche Mode, Smiths, etc. seem kind of like the '80s equivalent of emo/goth.

The Cure and fellow Brits Tears for Fears, Yello, Depeche Mode.etc epitomized so-called 'new romantic' gloominess. Gloominess has always been a particularly British trait, not necessarily associated with 'emo.'

The Cure and fellow Brits Tears for Fears, Yello, Depeche Mode.etc epitomized so-called 'new romantic' gloominess. Gloominess has always been a particularly British trait, not necessarily associated with 'emo.'


True.  I think it's called darkwave, right?  Of course, New Wave isn't emo, in any way, as the term wasn't even coined until the '90s unless it was referring to some unknown Washington DC bands, but I think the new waver is kind of the '80s version of the emo or grunge kid.

True.  I think it's called darkwave, right?  Of course, New Wave isn't emo, in any way, as the term wasn't even coined until the '90s unless it was referring to some unknown Washington DC bands, but I think the new waver is kind of the '80s version of the emo or grunge kid.


Why did there seem to be such a polirisation between supper happy jumpy music like 'Mickey' by Toni Basel, or that 'Born to be Alive' song by Patrick Hernandez, and the 'dark-wave' as you refer to it, of the Smiths? I put it down to bizarro 80s split personality. There was something quite dark going on under all that glam in the 80s.

Why did there seem to be such a polirisation between supper happy jumpy music like 'Mickey' by Toni Basel, or that 'Born to be Alive' song by Patrick Hernandez, and the 'dark-wave' as you refer to it, of the Smiths? I put it down to bizarro 80s split personality. There was something quite dark going on under all that glam in the 80s.


Yeah, the '80s is like an ugly model in wads of make-up.  They were also a sexually confused decade.  Probably the queerest decade.

Yeah, the '80s is like an ugly model in wads of make-up.  They were also a sexually confused decade.  Probably the queerest decade.


Late 70s was pretty queer as well with disco...have you heard 'Disco Tex and the Sexolettes?' that guy was pretty full on...The punk worldview was also not, on the whole, as anti-gay as often perceived. In fact, many of those groups supported gay rights and other issues like that.

Late 70s was pretty queer as well with disco...have you heard 'Disco Tex and the Sexolettes?' that guy was pretty full on...The punk worldview was also not, on the whole, as anti-gay as often perceived. In fact, many of those groups supported gay rights and other issues like that.


True ... late '70s are quite queer also.  Ironically the '80s in general were very anti-gay.  Whereas the '90s were supposedly pro-gay, but you had tons of outspoken "fag-haters" then.

True ... late '70s are quite queer also.  Ironically the '80s in general were very anti-gay.  Whereas the '90s were supposedly pro-gay, but you had tons of outspoken "fag-haters" then.


I suppose homosexuality really came into the mainstream in the 90s...You were perhaps not as stigmatized as the 80s, which to me seemed a very socially conservative decade, with actually quite defined gender roles and stereotypes. Well-known gay public figures, particularly musicians, seemed to have sprung out of nowhere in the 90s, whereas they were confined to the androgynous 'Boy George'/Freddie Mercury sort of stereotype in the 80s.

I suppose homosexuality really came into the mainstream in the 90s...You were perhaps not as stigmatized as the 80s, which to me seemed a very socially conservative decade, with actually quite defined gender roles and stereotypes. Well-known gay public figures, particularly musicians, seemed to have sprung out of nowhere in the 90s, whereas they were confined to the androgynous 'Boy George'/Freddie Mercury sort of stereotype in the 80s.


It's funny, because the sexual revolution was still being fought in Western countries through up to about 1991ish.  By then Political Correctness happened.  I still think racism is a big problem though, and sexism is definitely present too.

It's funny, because the sexual revolution was still being fought in Western countries through up to about 1991ish.  By then Political Correctness happened.  I still think racism is a big problem though, and sexism is definitely present too.


I think if people refuse to acknowledge or accept the issue, and the fact it IS happening, it will always persist. Not that one can really get rid of either racism or sexism. I think they're actually the bed-rock of so-called 'free society', as bad as that sounds.

I think if people refuse to acknowledge or accept the issue, and the fact it IS happening, it will always persist. Not that one can really get rid of either racism or sexism. I think they're actually the bed-rock of so-called 'free society', as bad as that sounds.


Afraid so.

You see the thing is humans are animals.  Some animals leave you alone, others bite.  Humans are the same; we're not more "moralistic" than other animals; we're just really clever pieces of carbon and water.

Afraid so.

You see the thing is humans are animals.  Some animals leave you alone, others bite.  Humans are the same; we're not more "moralistic" than other animals; we're just really clever pieces of carbon and water.


Yes, I sometimes feel people only do good to satisfy their guilty complexes; they only do it because their conscience tells them to, and if they felt no guilt at all/were not prosecuted by law, they wouldn't give a rats about anyone but themselves if they got something out of it.

Getting back to the topic...yeah, I think being somewhat depressed/"gloomy" was fashionable in the '80s, a la not just the Smiths, the Eurythmics, Joy Division, etc., but hardcore punk and R.E.M. Another '80s influence on the '00s...the '80s and '00s lack the testosterone/estrogen-fueled all-on anger of the '90s (see Courtney Love or Alice in Chains for a pretty pure example of hormonally fueled anger of either gender.)

As for the '80s being gay...I think the late '70s-mid '80s were a VERY gay time period. It was the peak of gay culture before AIDS really destroyed it in the late '80s and early '90s, and gay culture was very developed then as a separate entity from straight culture, albeit with huge influence on "straight" culture. I think gay culture peaked 1974-1986...AIDS destroyed the boomer homosexual community that led the revolutionary vanguard of that generation, and it still hasn't REALLY recovered. Alot of fashions then, like disco, British new wave/new romanticism, Barbra Streisand, Elton John, and even performers like Madonna, Prince, MJ, were pretty darn gay. There had been gay figures before that (Peggy Lee, Judy Garland, various opera and Broadway performers), but this was extraordinary. AIDS soon killed it.

I don't strictly pigeonhole New Wave as gay, although they did expound a sort of liberal atittude. The best example I can think of that phenomena was early B-52s/Eurythmics sort of music. The late 70s was perhaps the time when gay culture most melded with the mainstream, where the disco scene brought a brief period of hedonistic freedom. Reminds me of Freddie Mercury's freaky parties in the 80s in Munich and London...

I don't strictly pigeonhole New Wave as gay, although they did expound a sort of liberal atittude. The best example I can think of that phenomena was early B-52s/Eurythmics sort of music. The late 70s was perhaps the time when gay culture most melded with the mainstream, where the disco scene brought a brief period of hedonistic freedom. Reminds me of Freddie Mercury's freaky parties in the 80s in Munich and London...


The B-52s are my favorite gay male-composed group, probably. I adore them. I don't think a group that gay would be as successful today...people in the late '70s and early-mid '80s were very in tune with "queerness."

People say the sub-cultures of the 90s extolled the heavy use of depressants, but after listening to much 80s music, I think the 80s had the biggest split personality of all. On one said were the party animals, on the other those who seemed to still have a hang-over from the frivilous 70s. It seems to me every New-wave or later Synth-pop, or even rock band, had that really dreary, drab, sombre sort of tone. Was being depressed a fashion in the 80s? It seems that way to me.


Certainly wouldn't disagree with your observations...the 80's did seem to be the decade of the moody, unruly teenager whose parents just didn't understand.  As for it being a fashion....possibly!

i attribute the depression kick in the 80s to the rise of the suburbs. there's a great book called, i think, "teenage wasteland," about teenagers in the suburbs -- it's just a very dead-end environment for hormone riddled kids without cars trying to live in an environment that assumes you have a car. the suburbs are a trap for kids in a lot of ways.

not to mention the whole greed-is-good thing in the 80s, which puts people in a no-win situation -- it's almost inevitable if you subscribe to the ethos that mindless accumulation is prima facie good you'll end up disillusioned, and if you disagree with that attitude you end up feeling alienated, because back in those days it was really pervasive. (not that things are very different now, we're currently in the fourth "me" decade in a row, far as i can tell.) i was a teenager in the 80s and i can tell you it was VERY depressing, although there were very good things about it too. i liked how fancy electric guitar playing was in.

come to think of it, that was maybe the only good thing about the 80s. that and leg warmers.

i attribute the depression kick in the 80s to the rise of the suburbs. there's a great book called, i think, "teenage wasteland," about teenagers in the suburbs -- it's just a very dead-end environment for hormone riddled kids without cars trying to live in an environment that assumes you have a car. the suburbs are a trap for kids in a lot of ways.

not to mention the whole greed-is-good thing in the 80s, which puts people in a no-win situation -- it's almost inevitable if you subscribe to the ethos that mindless accumulation is prima facie good you'll end up disillusioned, and if you disagree with that attitude you end up feeling alienated, because back in those days it was really pervasive. (not that things are very different now, we're currently in the fourth "me" decade in a row, far as i can tell.) i was a teenager in the 80s and i can tell you it was VERY depressing, although there were very good things about it too. i liked how fancy electric guitar playing was in.

come to think of it, that was maybe the only good thing about the 80s. that and leg warmers.


I can see how people really hated growing up in the 80's for sure, probably as much as those who still rave about it (like me!). 

Interesting post from a different perspective.  :)

I can see how people really hated growing up in the 80's for sure, probably as much as those who still rave about it (like me!). 

Interesting post from a different perspective.  :)
oh, i didn't really hate it. i'm probably coming on a bit strong. there were a lot of great things about the 80s -- PCs, i loved the whole arcade fad! -- i tend not to rave about the 80s, because i'm too busy raving about the 70s (which was also a decade with HUGE, HUGE problems, but i adore the artistry of 70s pop culture) -- nevertheless, of the people i meet online, the 80s fans tend to be among my favorites. maybe just because they relate to a time i grew up in, so i can't really help but be in synch with them.

plus i loved the 1986-87 escort gt's. my dad worked for ford so i had a couple of escort gt's as rental cars in high school. they were the coolest! sorta girly, i guess, but nobody told me that till later.

http://www.lowriderimpala.com/carsiveowned/escort.JPG

http://www.ez-term-auto-sales.com/images/1971.jpg

^so sad, one of mine was just like that but it was all brand new! with a great tape deck! and now look at it!

anyway, um, i digress. when i had a car like that, i was really depressed and stuff.

Yeah, alot of people who grew up in the '80s seem to have utterly despised it at the time and many still do, with the super-cliquish '80s high school and such. This is why so many outcast-types in the '80s gravitated towards "alt" culture in the late '80s-mid '90s period. It was a depressing, very unmotivated time to be an adolescent.

Yeah, alot of people who grew up in the '80s seem to have utterly despised it at the time and many still do, with the super-cliquish '80s high school and such. This is why so many outcast-types in the '80s gravitated towards "alt" culture in the late '80s-mid '90s period. It was a depressing, very unmotivated time to be an adolescent.
i woulda done better iin the early 70s or the 90s, i think, i was sorta a scruffy teenager and the late 70s/80s were all about being primped up.

i woulda done better iin the early 70s or the 90s, i think, i was sorta a scruffy teenager and the late 70s/80s were all about being primped up.


It shares in common that with the '00s...I would've been a way better '90s teenager, since I'm sort of scruffy. Everything in the '00s is about being all primped up and metrosexual.

Yeah, alot of people who grew up in the '80s seem to have utterly despised it at the time and many still do, with the super-cliquish '80s high school and such. This is why so many outcast-types in the '80s gravitated towards "alt" culture in the late '80s-mid '90s period. It was a depressing, very unmotivated time to be an adolescent.


Tell me about it...there was a huge fallout in the late 80s, a collective disillusionment with all they had known growing up.

I think life in the 'burbs today is just as suffocating, just as frustrating in the 80s, except now at least you have the internet/myspace/msn whatever if you're a real loner without a car, whereas in the 80s or 90s you would have nothing. So in that sense I'm glad I was a teen in the 00s, cos without msn or text messaging I would be even more of an outcast than I am...er was.

In Britain there was a lot to be depressed about in the early 80s!  Unemployment, race riots, nuclear war.  Why bother lving if that was what the world was about?

In Britain there was a lot to be depressed about in the early 80s!  Unemployment, race riots, nuclear war.  Why bother lving if that was what the world was about?


But then came Frankie Goes To Hollywood...and suddenly nuclear conflict became trendy via 12' war remixes and sloganised t-shirts!

But then came Frankie Goes To Hollywood...and suddenly nuclear conflict became trendy via 12' war remixes and sloganised t-shirts!


And that's the problem with the '80s, and by extension the '00s. Everything serious and important in the first 2/3 of the '80s was reduced to a slogan or a music video.

And that's the problem with the '80s, and by extension the '00s. Everything serious and important in the first 2/3 of the '80s was reduced to a slogan or a music video.


That's debatable. But let's not get into that.

That's debatable. But let's not get into that.


Well, that's sort of an exaggeration. But the '80s were fairly soulless by nature, something you've often said.

Actually I think the '90s were pretty souless.  They were the "Decade of Nothing".  But then again one can argue that that WAS the soul of the '90s.

I don't know. I don't remember people popping Prozac and other anti-depressants like candy in the 1980s as they did in the 90s and still do today.

Perhaps this is because the '90s were the first decade where I was really out and seeing the adult world, or perhaps it was because during the 80s I lived in a place that made Andy Griffith's Mayberry look like a progressive and happenin' metropolis by comparison. Or it could be because people weren't *doing* it. Hard to tell, but that's the way I remember.

Actually I think the '90s were pretty souless.  They were the "Decade of Nothing".  But then again one can argue that that WAS the soul of the '90s.


The '90s were never truly soulless. They were alot more "raw" and genuine than the '00s or '80s. I think that the soul of the '90s was caring alot about trying to define one, and figuring out how it was there among the concerns of modern life (see: grunge, singer-songwriters, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, innumerable sitcoms.) They for the most part were pretty sincere and down-to-earth. I love the '80s, but even I admit they have no soul.

The '90s were never truly soulless. They were alot more "raw" and genuine than the '00s or '80s. I think that the soul of the '90s was caring alot about trying to define one, and figuring out how it was there among the concerns of modern life (see: grunge, singer-songwriters, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, innumerable sitcoms.) They for the most part were pretty sincere and down-to-earth. I love the '80s, but even I admit they have no soul.


The 90s were definitely more 'soulful' than the 80s, which seemed like the most 'Humanistic', 'Modernist/Materialist' period since the 50s and early 60s, when there was a backlash on anything to do with 'feelings'. 80s culture seemed to revel in this 'soulessness' for some reason. If there's one word to describe the 80s it would be that they are a synthetic decade.

I agree there. The '60s, '70s, and '90s are all misjointed and complex.  The '80s were kind of the same throughout.

The 80s were generic alright. I guess everything was locked down in some sort of stagnancy, though I am not too sure what caused this.

The 80s were generic alright. I guess everything was locked down in some sort of stagnancy, though I am not too sure what caused this.


Unlike the '90s, which were more changeful than most CENTURIES.

Unlike the '90s, which were more changeful than most CENTURIES.


The difference between 1900 and 2000 is like 3000 B.C. to 1000 B.C.!

I think all you need to look at are the movies of the 80's to get depressed:
Breakfast Club
Say Anything
16 Candles
Some Kind of Wonderful

and of course the king of the crushing reality of life beyond school: St. Elmo's Fire and the drug depression of Less than Zero

Yeah, '80s teen movies are pretty depressed/depressing. I always got the sense from talking to true '80s teens that most of them sort of felt an "empty", disenchanted feeling throughout high school over what they were then, and a lack of purpose in their suburban world. This caused the massive changeover in the late '80s and early '90s to people involved with the world of grunge and alternative rock, and the stereotypical "Gen X" types emerging.

Yeah, '80s teen movies are pretty depressed/depressing. I always got the sense from talking to true '80s teens that most of them sort of felt an "empty", disenchanted feeling throughout high school over what they were then, and a lack of purpose in their suburban world. This caused the massive changeover in the late '80s and early '90s to people involved with the world of grunge and alternative rock, and the stereotypical "Gen X" types emerging.


It's probably significant 'downers' - drugs like heroin.etc were most popular during this period, while ecstasy, designer drugs became more popular as the clubbing scene picked up in the mid-90s.

It's probably significant 'downers' - drugs like heroin.etc were most popular during this period, while ecstasy, designer drugs became more popular as the clubbing scene picked up in the mid-90s.


I think of the peak of heroin as being about 1989-1994...with heroin chic and the grungers largely being heroin users.