The Eighties in 2012

I was watching a fairly bad eighties-based movie called 'Take Me Home Tonight' starring Topher 'I-Play-The-Same-Character-I-Played-In-That-Seventies-Show-In-Every-Film' Grace. It was about a guy named Matt who was stuck in a John Hughes moment of trying to find himself and decide what he wanted to do with his life.

The film didn't live up to it's Generation-X roots. But the music did!

YAZOO

Yaz (or Yazoo as they were known in the UK) featured the dynamic voice of Alison Moyet. Think Adele eight-years before she was even born! For as much as synthesizers are considered by many to be the beginning of the end of good music, the keyboard work at the start of 'Situation' is distinct and timeless.

Yazoo got together and toured in 2008 and 2010. Then Moyet wrote a new album. But in February 2012, Moyet tweeted that “I appear to have forfeited my recording deal because I won’t do reality TV. No-one needs to make an album that badly. Tea anyone?" 


Tough situation.

MISSING PERSONS

To me, Missing Persons was one of those bands that epitomized the so-called 'new wave' sound of the eighties. Depending on my mood that is both a good and bad thing.

One thing I didn't know about Missing Persons is that this band might not have existed if not for Frank Zappa. Dale Bozzio, the singer with the quirky voice, and drummer Terry Bozzie met while working with The Mothers of Invention leader.

It's also sort of interesting that the song "Walking in LA" is really sort of about NOT walking in LA. The impression I get is that Los Angeles is not a pedestrian-town. From a 'lame jogger' and a 'freeway strangler' to 'shopping cart pushers' and not-movie stars. After all, you don't want to become another missing person.

THE GREG KIHN BAND

I always thought of Greg Kihn as the wanna-be rock star that didn't quite have 'it' -- whatever 'it' is. I liked his voice. It was pleasant enough. But it had no edge. There was not a lot of 'Jeopardy' in his performance. Even his look was, for lack of a better description, a little 'soft' around the edges. But he made radio-friendly hits along with fun videos that helped him stand-out in the eighties. (It probably didn't hurt that Weird Al did a parody of this song too!)

PETE TOWNSHEND

Here's another guy that you might question that he was a rock star if you saw him walking down the street in your neighbourhood.

After Pete Townshend's original guitar-smashing days with The Who, he wrote and performed some passable songs for the eighties. "Let My Love Open the Door" was the biggest of those solo hits though I was also a big fan of "Face the Face" five years later -- something that he worked on with his daughter.

Plus here's another ditty starting with strong keyboards. Interesting coming from a man who landed in the top-ten of Rolling Stone's all-time great rock'n'roll guitar players.

OPUS

When you look up Opus the band in Wikipedia you find then after Opus the Penguin but before Opus the comic strip.

Opus is an Austrian band that was already together for almost 13-years before taking "Life is Life" to #1 in many parts of the world including Canada. And they are still together and performing today. But outside of Austria, Germany and Switzerland, the song places them in the category of 'One Hit Wonders.'

The song itself is infectious fluff -- and I loved it. It didn't matter what the words were. Everyone could (and would) sing along. My favourite actual real lyric: "Every minute of the future is a memory of the past." Well sure it is.

Finally, there's the hand-claps. I have a friend who would probably hate this song outright for its empowering message and Glee-like qualities -- but cuts Opus some slack because it included hand-claps. That's life.

WORLD PARTY

World Party's "Ship of Fools" is one of my favourite songs of all time. When I was in college doing the morning show on the campus radio station, I would play this over and over (along with Cutting Crew's "I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight" -- I guess there's no accounting for taste!)

From the slow opening guitar and Karl Wallinger's slightly unconventional voice to the lyrics that Wallinger cried into the mic: "Oh save me, save me from tomorrow... I don't want to sail with this ship of fools, no no... I want to run and hide... Right now." College was an angst-full time. And I suppose those words meant something to me -- both literally and figuratively. And there are days when I can relate to them still... "Right now!"



ATOMIC TOM AND THE CAST OF 'TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT'

Finally there's the band Atomic Tom out of New York and their cover of Human League's "Don't You Want Me."

This video (and their version of the song) were the only other good things to come out of this movie. As a matter of fact, if THIS had been the movie, I might have paid money to see it in a theatre. It's a brain-spill of eighties pop culture treasures.

Highlights:

Toper's imitation of Marty McFly is frighteningly excellent.

Anna Faris' Fatal-Attraction-Glenn-Close-with-the-mop-of-hair-and-the-rabbit-in-the-pot image is almost as scary as the real thing.

And seeing Michael Biehn (who plays Topher's Dad in the film) standing behind Dan Fogler who has tin foil on his face pretending to be The Terminator.

It's easy to get stuck in the eighties again. That was a time when all I had to do was to wake up (eventually), listen to music, watch new Brat Pack movies, and try to get the new high-score on Robotron at the arcade.

In the immortal words of Karl Wallinger, "Save me from tomorrow."