80’s Music is Terrible
Everyone who knows me knows that I loathe 80’s music. A lot of my closest friends are big 80’s music fans, so this causes static occasionally.
My theory is that everyone knows that 80’s music is awful, but many people embrace its awfulness out of nostalgia for melodramatic sentimentality and angst.
For example, Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield”. It’s a terrible song that people cherish. Love is clearly not a battlefield. The lyrics (which she didn’t write), the music (which she also didn’t compose), are all terrible. From the shitty synth beat to the melodramatic lyrics with forced rhymes, it’s a perfect representative example of a crappy 80’s song. Yes, it’s catchy. Yes, it’s different and perhaps an improvement on crappy late 70’s songs. In limited duration, it’s amusing. But it’s still awful.
In fact, that’s why the 90’s started: because the 80’s were so bad. Everyone knows this. It’s why entertainers stopped making crappy 80’s songs, and everyone in America gave up on embarrassing 80’s fashion. America gasped in shame at the trainwreck of a decade it had created, and started all over again using grunge.
Please. Stop throwing 80’s parties. Stop singing along to heartfelt childhood mixes with faux-defiance. Reminiscing is one thing, clinging to a tragic mistake is another.
