A BRIEF HISTORY OF 80'S TIME.

This space is for anyone who wants to know a little bit of the most important facts that happened in this decade

The Dream is Over.  The 80's started with a bang.  Literally.  Mt. St. Helens exploded and Lennon gets killed.  Reagan assumed power and the economic roller coaster just got started.  Living in the 80's was radical, especially if you were a teenager.  The Disco days were over and materialism was settling in.  State-of-the-art technology was becoming a household item and the world was rejecting failing systems and finally waking up from its Communism delusion. 

How do we approach and dissect life in the 80's?  Well..  to make it easier to appreciate, the 80's culture will be discussed in its main subjects:  Life, Music, TV, Fashion,  Politics & Economics, and Other Facts.

LIFE IN THE 80S.

To summarize, the 80's were both the money and women's decade.  Shopping malls, which started to pop up in the 70s, were being built as fast as today's Starbucks.  Gen-Xers got bit by the splurge bug and had to purchase whatever it had a recognized brand and display it on themselves, their houses, and the roads.  Greed was good and yuppies were feeding off Wall Street and credit card companies. Shop 'til you Drop was the official motto.  However, when the bubble burst and recession started, most of them had lost everything they've worked for and were immersed in credit debt.

Racially speaking, the 80's made the news with the Rodney King's beating, the subsequent acquittal of his attackers, and the riots at L.A.  Furthermore, these were the years where Affirmative Action was being put to the test and it failed as many viewed it as reverse racial discrimination.

Another phenomenon that started in that  decade was gentrification.  This process involved yuppies and seniors moving back into the cities, buying condos or paying higher rents; thus driving poor people away from their neighborhoods.

The Women's liberation movement started in the previous decades, but it was totally put in practice in this one.  Women ruled the music world and were carving a name for themselves in business and politics as well.  Wives had left the apron at home, the children with their nanny, and now were dressed for success.  Common terms to name male concepts were changed.  The mailman was now the mail carrier, firefighters became firepersons, and mankind was changed to humankind.  80's Women had more independence, hard cash, and didn't need the husband figure by their side like their predecessors.  These were the years when the  'traditional' American family suffered a major blow and the divorce rate fell through the roof.

Kids were in total Pacman heaven.  They spent after school time by themselves, but they were compensated with toys and other things parents bought them without hesitation.  Videogames kept them busy for hours. Cartoons, such as Transformers, Dinosaucers, Smurfs, Thundercats, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles filled their imagination and in the afternoons moms carpooled them to team sports activities.

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MUSIC IN THE 80'S.

80's music was as wide in range as the colors in Boy George's dreams. These were the years of the best selling albums, synthesizers, new age, pop rock, rap, punk, and charity music.

Technology played the biggest part in the 80's music industry.  Synthesizers and computer-generated sounds dominated the sound waves.  The old ways of creating music was being discarded and bands were too busy experimenting with their keyboards and left the guitars in their garages.

Furthermore, people at home were also going high tech.  The spending trend typical of the days revolutioned the way they listened to music.  Folk were now buying expensive home theater systems, walkmans, boom boxes, and started to upgrade their old vinyl LPs albums with Compact Disks.

 Women in 80's Music.

Without a doubt, the 80's music belongs to the women.  They stopped being merely background eye candy and stepped to the main spot.  Singers like Madonna, Cher,vixen,doro Pat Benatar, Cindy Lauper, The Go-Gos, Blondie and Tina Turner were dominating the charts.  They blatantly used the power or music videos to promote their music and fashion with successful results.

Pop rock was the mainstream music format. Girls wanted to dress like Madonna, sing like Cindy, and window shop with Tiffany.  Guys were slam dancing, doing the moonwalk, and remembering the glory days.  Bands like Culture Club, Wham, Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, and Men At Work invaded the USA charts from overseas while locals such as Prince, Michael Jackson, and Bruce Springsteen became superstars.

Hip Hop.

Two spanking new trends in music became well accepted in the 80s: New Age and Hip Hop or Rap.  New Age became well liked by the stressed out yuppies.  They loved its relaxed and soothing feeling.  George Winston and Enya's material was the New Wave music most sought after.  Those who couldn't' find it, packed the elevators and listened to muzak instead. 

Hip hop started in the 70's, but rose up to mainstream in the 80's. This new style of making music that would dominate the 90's and the new millennium had its humble origins in ghettos and prisons.  Poor wannabe artists living in the ghettos of New York or locked away in jail couldn't afford any instruments, so they turned to rhymes 'rapped' to the beat of pre-existing music.  Most of the early Hip Hop tunes were hostile and aimed towards society.  However, that quickly changed when artists found out they could make cold hard cash and a good reputation with tamed and upbeat lyrics. Suddenly, this African American music style was in fashion.  Run DMC, MC Hammer, Salt & Peppa, Public Enemy, and  De La Soul, among others where the most famous Hip Hop artists of the decade.

Hard Rock or Heavy Metal.

Another popular music trend that rocked the 80's was Hard Rock or Heavy Metal.  This loud movement was a rock sub-culture with origins in the old roots of the 70's hard rock.  The guitar riff was the weapon of choice while dark or violent lyrics were screamed by high-pitched male lead singers. It was a counter attack to mainstream pop and the yuppie culture.  Denim, leather, spandex, long hair, and makeup were the elements of the punk style, a fashion associated with Heavy Metal.

Glam, sleazy, progressive, trash and speed became variants of Hard Rock.  Bands like AC/CD, Iron Maiden, Van Halen,  Motley Crue, Megadeth, Guns 'n Roses, Deff Leppard, KISS, Anthrax, Quiet Riot, Scorpions, Metallica, Ozzy,Bon jovi,Europe,Aerosmith, and RATT became the torch bearers of Hard Rock.

One particular aspect of the Hard Rock movement was the power ballad.  Full with guitars, slow tempo, and sad lyrics, the power (or sometimes called monster) ballad was loud, to the point, and hard felt.  Nonetheless, most of them were an obvious attempt for the band to reach a top 40 hit, or a sign that a heavy metal band's popularity needed to increase.

If you need a visual representation of the Hard Rock music, check out the Spinal Tap movie.  It summarizes all what Heavy Metal in the early 80's was.

We are the Rich.. We are the Famous.

Finally, using music for political activism was in, so making music for charity was the craze during the middle 80's. Songs like We are the World and Do they Know it's Christmas were bringing in monies to help the needy. Concerts like Farm Aid, and Live Aid were promoted to raise money for poor African nations and USA farmers.

Essential Albums  from the 80's.

Popular One Hits Wonders of the 80's

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80'S MOVIES.

The 80's were the years of blockbuster films.  The box office scored its biggest ticket sales up to that point, many of them directed by George Lucas, Steve Spielberg, and James Cameron.   Crammed with special effects and aimed at teens and young adults, these movies rocked the silver screen with adventure and science fiction themes.

Some of the top grossing movies of the decade were E.T., The Indiana Jones Trilogy, Back to the Future, The Terminator, Batman, Ghostbusters, Dirty Dancing, Top Gun, Purple Rain, Flashdance, Rain Man, Beverly Hills Cop, Rambo II, Platoon, Aliens and many more.

Teen Flicks.

We'll separate two main drifts in movies from that decade: Teen Slasher, and Teen-aimed movies.  Teen slasher flick usually had 5 teens who were killed one by one by the undead villain in a secluded area so there was no way to escape their fate or kill their nemesis. The Teen slasher genre was dominated by Wes Craven and his creation, Freddy Krueger.  Nonetheless, there were more unforgettable horror entities such as Jason, Chucky,  and Michael Myers who truly scared the bejezus out of us.

Teen-aimed or Brat-Packer movies, mostly directed by John Hughes, were the personification of 80' s teen characters that one could find at any high school at that time.  Their leads usually appeared in them together, so they were called the Brat Pack.  The members of the Brat Pack were Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson, and Andrew McCarthy.  All of them starred in movies such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo's Fire, and Weird Science.

And The Oscar Went To:

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80's TV

The TV suffered major renovations in the 80s.  A new TV station, FOX, started to compete with the three other big fish: CBS, NBC, and ABC.  Also, the TV was not confined to the broadcast waves anymore.  We had Cable, baby! 

Cable revolutioned the way people watched TV, and MTV changed the face of music.  From now on, paying customers had the opportunity to shot at QVC, or catch a movie on HBO.

Moreover, The 80's was the decade that started talk shows sitcoms. Oprah, Geraldo, Arsenio, Phil, Sally, and Larry King dominated the airwaves as TV watchers were taking a peek into other people's lives.

Other good programs of that era were Dynasty, The Cosby Show, Dallas, Cheers, Miami Vice, LA LAW, Thirysomething, The Simpsons, and In Living Color.  Sadly, it was also the beginning of the WWF craze that exist up 'til now.

Changing topics a little, the Theater world was on a musical roll.  Cats, A Chorus Line, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, and Miss Saigon were breaking Broadway records.

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80's Fashion

OK, we accept it- The 80's hair fashion single-handedly blew a hole in the ozone layer.  The world of high fashion reached its top level in that decade.  Anybody who could afford it, and many more who could not, were buying expensive designer clothes by Calvin Klein, Armani, Versace, Valentino, Gianfranco Ferré, Fendi, Missoni, Moschino, Dolce & Gabbana, Fiorucci, Thierry Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier, and the rest of the haute couture gang.  However, it did not stop there.  Suddenly, the fashion blanket was not only on clothes and accessories, but it also covered sheets, glasses, chairs, and whatever the designers could claim they had something to do with it.

Working women were happy in their power suits with darker fabrics and football shoulder pads during the day, but they sparkled in gowns à la Krystle or Alexis during the evenings.

Teenage girls were on top of the fashion trends. Nevertheless, most of their outfits didn't come from the runaways, but from the streets and clubs.  Girls were looking up to their favorite singers like Madonna and Cindy Lauper and started to wear  their looks.  Below is a quick review of the different styles of clothes people wore those years. 

	The Preppy look.  Wore by yuppies in order to reflect their social status. It mainly consisted of khakis, narrow stripped shirts, penny loafers, sweaters tied around the neck, and Members Only jackets.
	The Gym & Fitness look.  Popular with the girls who discovered Jane Fonda and Co. It had snug fitting clothes made from spandex.  Leotards, leg warmers, and tennis shoes were topped with a head band.
	The Mall Rat Look. Every teen's dream was to look like tiffany.  Soft pastels and loose fabrics complimented with a thousand zippers and teased hair with bangs.
	The Punk look.  This style was the heavy metal fashion.  Black clothes, leather studded everything, ripped jeans and bandanas were the norm while dyed Mohawks completed this look
	The Grunge look.  It was the choice of city teens: the Flashdance look.  Ragged T-shirts, acid washed jeans, thrift store shirts, and rubber bracelets topped with lots of hairspray and neon earrings.

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OTHER 80'S FACTS.

Things that shocked the 80's.The Exxon Valdez oil spill

	The Chernobyl Reactor explosion in former Russia.
	The Union Carbide insecticide plant accident in Bhopal, India where approx. 5000 people died.
	The famine in Africa
	President Reagan and the Pope's murder attempts.
	The Challenger explosion.
	The AIDS epidemic that mostly killed gays in the beginning, but which had a child's face when Ryan White became infected.

Retail Prices of  some items in the 80's

Popular Books in the 80's

Coincidentally, the 80's also ended with another bang. Literally.  In October 1989 an earthquake hit the San Francisco bay area causing millions of dollars in damages as well as 62 dead, mostly from a collapsed freeway.