The Neon Decade: Why The 1980s Remain The Unbeatable Peak Of Pop Culture
Take a look around. Whether you’re listening to the pulsing synth scores of Netflix’s biggest shows, or checking out that dude rocking Donkey Sauce high-tops like they’re still fashionable, you’ll find that we currently live in a society plagued by an intense nostalgia for things from forty years ago. The ’80s was more than a decade. It was a cultural revolution that solidified the idea of “cool” for the world.
So why does this era continue to influence millennials and gen-zers at an astronomical rate? Quite simply, everything was awesome. Forget about realism and oversaturated world problems; the ’80s handed us big-budget films with even bigger colors and a perspective we’ve never seen since technology and art met for the first time. So it's no surprise its often considered the neon decade.
The Silver Screen and the Birth of the Blockbuster
Film in the eighties gave us blockbusters, yes, but it also gave us new myths. Myths that still make up the majority of films in our cinemas to this day. The eighties were when Spielberg and Lucas learned to harness the power of the Hollywood blockbuster by creating movies around "high-concept" premises. The moment you walked into the theater, it felt like you were entering someone else's universe. One filled with flying frogs and robot vacuums or clandestine missile factories and DeLoreans that travel through time.
It was also the peak of effects that "felt" real, as they were made with intricate models and puppetry. Monster actors had glowing eyes made of rods and knew how to steal your soul with their appetite for destruction. Filmmakers had to get creative with heart and character, because they couldn't cheat us with computer generated magic. They made us care about these characters with wit and personality, and score tunes you can still listen to forty years later. The movies from this decade are fantasies you know were created with passion. Every light on those sets were hand wired, and every monster was crafted by artisans.
We also got fantastic coming-of-age stories that actually respected teenagers. John Hughes figured out how to capture that "high school drama" we all felt growing up and made us see that the prom drama was our own "Star Wars." We grew up with these movies telling us it was ok to feel lost, and that's why they will always resonate.
A Sonic Revolution Powered by Synthesis
Whether you think of eighties music predominantly in terms of sounds or images, the synthesizer is probably your gateway passage. The ability for musicians of any scale to play around with electronically produced sounds gave bedroom nerds and megastars everywhere an opportunity to create music that truly sounded from another world. Never before had sounds been so bizarre, and genres like New Wave and Synth-pop proved that Top 40 radio could go further off the wall than you may have thought possible.
Music television revolutionized how you listened to music by demanding a visual to accompany every tune you devoured. Artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna were some of the first to realize that in addition to making great music you now had to be able to act, dance, and wear outrageous outfits while doing both. You never simply listened to a hit single; you watched it on MTV.
From glam metal to rap music, the ’80s proved that a lot of divergent styles of music could make it big. Music was bigger than ever and there was plenty of room for glam metal singers and Village People-style groups to top the charts, sometimes in the same five-minute span.
The Dawn of Digital Play and Living Room Legends
Video games evolved from arcade rarities to household staples all within this decade. The NES launched the gaming renaissance we know today and popularized icons more recognizable than many Hollywood celebrities. Don’t pretend like you haven’t spent hours maneuvering that plumber man through hordes of ninja turtles. Video games took root in our culture and they aren’t going anywhere.
Action figures and cartoons came together to form some of the most iconic franchises of all time. Of course every show was trying to peddle toys but the storylines were actually top notch. These weren’t your average cartoons they were gateways into galaxies you could explore with your own creative powers.
Computers shifted from scary green and black blinking text to becoming kid friendly and family oriented. Technology began creeping into households with the Commodore 64 and Apple Macintosh line of computers. For the first time the digital gap was closing and it all started here. From pixelated graphics and dial up internet we’ve come to live in your world of hyper connectivity. So, with all that mind, its evidently clear that no other decade quite beats the 80s in terms of music, culture, and old-fashioned fun.
