No-one can deny that the mind is at its most comfortable when it wallows in the past. As you grow older, the path behind you grows longer, and you realise that there is a whole lot of “stuff” you have, willingly or unwillingly, left behind.
What was it like being a teenager in the late 80s and early 90s? Was the world any different from the one we find ourselves in now? The late 80s were characterised by loud phosphorescent hues. You could not go anywhere without getting half-blinded by neon yellow or orange shirts and trousers. There was also a need for ribbons, laces, armbands, bracelets, leg-warmers, canvas shoes and the like – all in clanging, Hey-World-Here-I-Am colours. There was lots of hairspray and hair gel, to keep that funky hair in place (you were fashionable as long as your hair wasn’t straight). There was electronic, synthesiser-driven music – lots and lots of it. Everyone I knew – including my father – wanted to be a member of Duran Duran or Pet Shop Boys. All the boys wore baggy suits as championed by Spandau Ballet and Johnny Hates Jazz; the girls dyed their hair a canary yellow and sported clownish make-up a-la Cyndi Lauper. Madonna, Whitney Houston, Prince and Michael Jackson owned MTV. The yuppie lifestyle, so vividly and alluringly portrayed in Wall Street (Michael Douglas won an Oscar for this) and Working Girl, was what every young man and woman desired. James Cameron’s Aliens brought us the first space heroine (Sigourney Weaver); Ghostbusters (Who ya gonna call?) made us believe ghosts could be “cute”; Dirty Dancing taught us guys, too, could let it go on the dancefloor. E.T. and Alf became our favourite pets. The TV series Moonlighting was a sensation, and every Joe wanted to be Bruce Willis so that they could sidle up to Cybil Shepherd and touch her hair. Some of us fell for the irresistible L.A. Law, and the even more irresistible farce of The Golden Girls. Then there were those maudlin love duets – Endless Love (Lionel Richie & Diana Ross), Separate Lives (Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin), Up Where We Belong (Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes), Don’t Know Much (Aaron Neville & Linda Ronstadt) – that became the soundtrack of our less romantic lives. The British production team SAW ensured an onslaught of throwaway but oh-so infectious pop (Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Bananarama). Pepsi, not Coke, was the drink. McDonald’s was everyone’s favourite hang-out. Reagan and Thatcher were on TV every hour of the day. Challenger came apart before our very eye. The Berlin Wall tumbled like a ton of bricks that it was. Salman Rushdie got the fatwa for The Satanic Verses (one of his better works). CDs outsold vinyl. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were box-office gold. We Are the World ruled the radio for what seemed like a century. The Dalai Lama won the Nobel Prize. AIDS was Man’s new enemy.
The cooler-than-cool harmonising trio, Wilson Phillips, made chart history with their single Hold On (Ryan Reynolds claimed this as his most favourite song). The uplifting refrain “Don’t you know things can change/Things will go with your way/If you hold on for one more day” ushered a whole generation into the 90s.
In popular culture, a schism was beginning to appear. Gone was the bubblegum pop of the 80s. R&B (characterised by the sound of Babyface) flooded the radio with well-crafted love songs from Boyz II Men (End of the Road), Toni Braxton (Breathe Again, Un-Break My Heart) and Mariah Carey (Vision of Love - when she could still sing a decent tune). House (the music) made its entrance, throbbing its way across dancefloors around the world. DJs could become superstars if they remixed the right artists (David Morales legendarily reworked Mariah Carey’s Dreamlover for the clubs and paved the way for contemporary dance). Romance was in the air, as evidenced in the romantic films Sleepless in Seattle and Reality Bites. Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio became household names. Sandra Bullock and Meg Ryan appeared in almost every summer blockbuster. Whitney Houston (now without the hair extensions) teamed up with Kevin Costner for The Bodyguard and gave herself the hit song. Celine Dion broke the English-speaking world. Will Smith (The Fresh Prince of Bel Air) and Fran Drescher (The Nanny) stole our hearts with their irreverent performances. Things also acquired a darker edge with the arrival of Grunge (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins). Suddenly it was no longer fashionable to be squeaky-clean. The teen look was now a tattered, oversized T-shirt, low-hanging jeans, soiled Converse, a stubbled chin, and straggly hair (preferably bleached to match grunge hero Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide in 94). The capitalism that had made the 80s took a back seat to cynicism. It was a time for questions. It was a time for doubt. Teenagers began to look inward. Why were the promises not fulfilled? they wanted to know. Where have all the cowboys gone? asked Paula Cole. Princess Diana and Prince Charles split (the world rocked). Princess Diana died (the world mourned). Rodney King started the LA riots. Ricki Lake and Jerry Springer were TV celebrities (why?). Oprah became an immortal. The World Wide Web was born. Take That and the Spice Girls came, conquered and quit. Rwanda etched itself into our collective memory. OJ Simpson became world-famous (for the wrong reasons). The Ebola Virus was all the rage. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated at a peace rally (irony, irony). Hong Kong got her independence. Bill Clinton & Monica Lewinsky (need I say more?). Columbine! Titanic sailed into box-office and Oscar history. Friends, Seinfeld, Beverly Hills 90210 and Baywatch got us hooked. Viagra came to the rescue of the human race. Keanu Reeves proved he could (sort of) act in The Matrix. JFK Jr.’s plane crashed and a whole dynasty ended. The Backstreet Boys ruled!!!!!!!!!
Am I glad to have grown up during these two “Wild, Wild West” decades and not the fear-riven post-9/11 one!
What was it like being a teenager in the late 80s and early 90s? Was the world any different from the one we find ourselves in now? The late 80s were characterised by loud phosphorescent hues. You could not go anywhere without getting half-blinded by neon yellow or orange shirts and trousers. There was also a need for ribbons, laces, armbands, bracelets, leg-warmers, canvas shoes and the like – all in clanging, Hey-World-Here-I-Am colours. There was lots of hairspray and hair gel, to keep that funky hair in place (you were fashionable as long as your hair wasn’t straight). There was electronic, synthesiser-driven music – lots and lots of it. Everyone I knew – including my father – wanted to be a member of Duran Duran or Pet Shop Boys. All the boys wore baggy suits as championed by Spandau Ballet and Johnny Hates Jazz; the girls dyed their hair a canary yellow and sported clownish make-up a-la Cyndi Lauper. Madonna, Whitney Houston, Prince and Michael Jackson owned MTV. The yuppie lifestyle, so vividly and alluringly portrayed in Wall Street (Michael Douglas won an Oscar for this) and Working Girl, was what every young man and woman desired. James Cameron’s Aliens brought us the first space heroine (Sigourney Weaver); Ghostbusters (Who ya gonna call?) made us believe ghosts could be “cute”; Dirty Dancing taught us guys, too, could let it go on the dancefloor. E.T. and Alf became our favourite pets. The TV series Moonlighting was a sensation, and every Joe wanted to be Bruce Willis so that they could sidle up to Cybil Shepherd and touch her hair. Some of us fell for the irresistible L.A. Law, and the even more irresistible farce of The Golden Girls. Then there were those maudlin love duets – Endless Love (Lionel Richie & Diana Ross), Separate Lives (Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin), Up Where We Belong (Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes), Don’t Know Much (Aaron Neville & Linda Ronstadt) – that became the soundtrack of our less romantic lives. The British production team SAW ensured an onslaught of throwaway but oh-so infectious pop (Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Bananarama). Pepsi, not Coke, was the drink. McDonald’s was everyone’s favourite hang-out. Reagan and Thatcher were on TV every hour of the day. Challenger came apart before our very eye. The Berlin Wall tumbled like a ton of bricks that it was. Salman Rushdie got the fatwa for The Satanic Verses (one of his better works). CDs outsold vinyl. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were box-office gold. We Are the World ruled the radio for what seemed like a century. The Dalai Lama won the Nobel Prize. AIDS was Man’s new enemy.
The cooler-than-cool harmonising trio, Wilson Phillips, made chart history with their single Hold On (Ryan Reynolds claimed this as his most favourite song). The uplifting refrain “Don’t you know things can change/Things will go with your way/If you hold on for one more day” ushered a whole generation into the 90s.
In popular culture, a schism was beginning to appear. Gone was the bubblegum pop of the 80s. R&B (characterised by the sound of Babyface) flooded the radio with well-crafted love songs from Boyz II Men (End of the Road), Toni Braxton (Breathe Again, Un-Break My Heart) and Mariah Carey (Vision of Love - when she could still sing a decent tune). House (the music) made its entrance, throbbing its way across dancefloors around the world. DJs could become superstars if they remixed the right artists (David Morales legendarily reworked Mariah Carey’s Dreamlover for the clubs and paved the way for contemporary dance). Romance was in the air, as evidenced in the romantic films Sleepless in Seattle and Reality Bites. Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio became household names. Sandra Bullock and Meg Ryan appeared in almost every summer blockbuster. Whitney Houston (now without the hair extensions) teamed up with Kevin Costner for The Bodyguard and gave herself the hit song. Celine Dion broke the English-speaking world. Will Smith (The Fresh Prince of Bel Air) and Fran Drescher (The Nanny) stole our hearts with their irreverent performances. Things also acquired a darker edge with the arrival of Grunge (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins). Suddenly it was no longer fashionable to be squeaky-clean. The teen look was now a tattered, oversized T-shirt, low-hanging jeans, soiled Converse, a stubbled chin, and straggly hair (preferably bleached to match grunge hero Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide in 94). The capitalism that had made the 80s took a back seat to cynicism. It was a time for questions. It was a time for doubt. Teenagers began to look inward. Why were the promises not fulfilled? they wanted to know. Where have all the cowboys gone? asked Paula Cole. Princess Diana and Prince Charles split (the world rocked). Princess Diana died (the world mourned). Rodney King started the LA riots. Ricki Lake and Jerry Springer were TV celebrities (why?). Oprah became an immortal. The World Wide Web was born. Take That and the Spice Girls came, conquered and quit. Rwanda etched itself into our collective memory. OJ Simpson became world-famous (for the wrong reasons). The Ebola Virus was all the rage. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated at a peace rally (irony, irony). Hong Kong got her independence. Bill Clinton & Monica Lewinsky (need I say more?). Columbine! Titanic sailed into box-office and Oscar history. Friends, Seinfeld, Beverly Hills 90210 and Baywatch got us hooked. Viagra came to the rescue of the human race. Keanu Reeves proved he could (sort of) act in The Matrix. JFK Jr.’s plane crashed and a whole dynasty ended. The Backstreet Boys ruled!!!!!!!!!
Am I glad to have grown up during these two “Wild, Wild West” decades and not the fear-riven post-9/11 one!
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