Worst of the 80s
Worst of the 80s according to Brian Briscoe, Contributing writer
I am a walking anomaly. I am, I believe, the only person on the planet between the age of 25 and 35 who feels no 80s nostalgia.
The 80s were pure pain. As dated as all the songs sound now, well, they sounded dated then. Why DOES Simon LeBon live in a house nicer than yours or mine? Why were Poison and Warrant popular for even a moment?
True story (and admittedly, this is from the summer of '90. Still, I believe decades don't follow hard and fast timelines. For example, the 50s really didn't end until JFK was killed. But I digress...):
I was making an extended stop in Hangover City one morning. My high school sweetheart had dumped me weeks before, and I was getting saturated with ethyl alcohol every night. I sat there in the recliner, a sheen of sweat covering me as I tried to keep the room from spinning. Nausea gripped me like Michael Jackson at a Cub Scout meeting, and everything I did to try to find some foothold, some momentarily relief, didn't help. Deep breaths were no good, nor shallow breaths. I couldn't eat, but I was starving somehow. I couldn't move, but sitting still just made me focus on the dizziness and pain. I held on, though, zombiefied in misery, as my younger sister, as always, determined what we watched on TV.
And as always, she landed on MTV. It was no better or worse than anything else until that damned Winger video came on (something about, "...she's only seventeeeeeeen..."). I loathed hair bands. I loathed how popular MTV had helped make them. I loathed watching Kip Winger and his chiseled jaw and ripped shirt, smiling and grinding for the camera.
I puked. I managed to complete the mad dash to the toilet before losing it, but yes, I puked. Winger pushed me over the edge.
Bearing that in mind, a far-less-than-complete list of meanderings through the pain:
Anything Duran Duran did. "The Union of the Snake"—give me a break. Duran Duran were the most embarrassing aberration in the music business since the Village People tried to go "New Romantic" (anyone remember that? "Five o'clock in the morning/This city feels so empty/I don't wanna go to sleep... alone....").
"Still of the Night" by Whitesnake. Jimmy Page said he fell off his hotel bed laughing when he saw the video, complete with one of their guitarists using a bow, a Page trademark.
And who the hell bought all those Johnny Cougar Melonhead CDs over the years? Who and where are his fans?
Jeez, the Psychedelic Furs were just damned terrible.
"Kokomo" by the Beach Boys and "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin were particularly painful, because they were really... STICKY. Bad songs that would stick in the skull well beyond the point of misery.
And you know, Dirty Dancing wasn't even particularly good. Why the hell was that movie so popular? Okay, okay, I know the topic is supposed to be music...
"Stone Cold" by Rainbow, while not overly popular, and not the worst of the lot, does contain one of the worst lyrics ever: "You put me in the deep freeze..."
Faith, by George Michael, was pure agony. And I tried to be stoic. I did. I worked in a record store, and a cute little gal who worked there loved Faith. She danced and bopped around whenever she played it, and she played it a LOT. I put up with it to see the show every day. But eventually she wore out the cassette.
She opened another. That was it. I sabotaged that bad boy with a magnet. Sorry. I should not be required to sit through the complete life of more than one copy of something that cruel and unusual.
The pain is too great. I cannot go on. Really, though: get a life, people. There's wonderful new music out there. Your horizons will be expanded greatly if you realize that you need never hear a Def Leppard CD again.
