17 posts tagged “80s”

My first attempt at a simple remix comprising the aforetitled pieces.  Why?  Well, it's because I love the challenge, hones one's generic eye for detail, and learning something new.  DM's 'remixes' are one of my favourite albums when I do speed-cycling around my hometown about 4 times a week at nights - along with Satriani, Enigma's 'LSD remixes, Rammstein, and Jeff Beck.  They all add differing, but complementary, raw fuel to my approach towards life.  

The following is not a 'fusion' remix as i did with the 'Axel Rocks it' ringtone.  Just a 'linear' one.  My aim was to make it seamless and keep the rhythm..along with keeping up the spirits of those dancing to it.  For the 80s spirits out there, Let's Dance!

DM Remix 1 - I Feel Love, Photographic

Depeche Mode

time : 10 minutes 10 seconds
bitrate: 224 kbps

Ed

80snation-banner

for group: 80s Nation

ed

Yes, I had a nice laugh too.  But…

You know, when you think about it, outside of the steel-barred perspectival cocoon of the present (wherein butterflies metamorphosise into their single-cellular predecessors), the above video, amongst a host of other such jokes made about the 80s in ‘style’ programmes, compere comments, spoofs, etc, shows that the 80s can be exaggerated to the point of inciting laughter.  But ask yourselves, what can be exaggerated to incite laughter with regards to the present?  Simply shows that the present has little character to exaggerate when compared to, say, the 60s, 70s and 80s.  You can’t overstate a case without having one.  You can’t blow up to large sizes a photo taken with a 1 megapixel camera.  Think about it. 

‘Kitsch’, ‘passe’, amongst other words, are simply thought-blocking words or mnemonics used by the mindless whom are only mindful of replicating the incessant passage of pixels on a hi-tech billboard.  Such words may sound sophisticated to lesser minds, but to myself, it is incontrovertible evidence that its ejaculators are simply hologrammatic projections of billboards.  Little besides, methinks.  And by the way, this article is not about defending the 80s, but promoting logical thought.

Ed

The following is by 'Koto', an Italian (space)synth-pop band, from the 80s.  The video is nothing to 'wow' about, but the tune is very danceable, at least to me. 

Icon

Vox Group: Nation80s

80snation-banner

Now in case you're wondering why I put in a picture of the Sex Pistols in the banner, it's because the 'dare' and 'innovative' spirit of the 80s is, in part, a legacy of the 70s as the 70s was a legacy of the 60s.  I suppose you could say that the 60s to the 80s occupies the 'left-wing' of the pop culture scene.  So it's a tribute to our 'forefathers' of the prior two decades, so to speak.  The 80s was the last true period of non-conformism, anti-estab, and creative individualism before the no-man's land of the 90s, and the incorporation of the masses with the millennium.  This group does not rival the 'We Love the 80s' vox group, but complements it with perspectives, artwork, etc, of the period.

Axel Rocks It

A ringtone i put together combining Herbie Hancock's 'Rock It' and Harold Faltermayer's 'Axel F'.

DOWNLOAD

Ed
~ cyberpunk

I miss the semblance of intellectual individualism (author's term)- which is a truer form of individualism than its current variant -  of the 80s as illustrated in the era's self-assertive non-conformist styles.

ed

My girlfriend then, in '87, used to really love this song. She thought herself a 'romantic', with me playing the role of the lovelorn puppy, thus vaidating, in her mind, that she was a 'romantic'.  But, in retrospect, I think, like Orsino in Shakespeare's '12th Night', she was more in love with the idea of love and not in love herself....unless that meant being in love with herself. ;)  Haha. Quite funny thinking back about it. 

Anyway, whilst i'm not really into the sentimental crap of these days - I'm more into the relatively innocent stuff of the 50s - 80s - I still quite like this number by the Rah Band.  It's sweet.

I finally found one of the tunes I danced to on my prom night in '87 - with my then Malay girlfriend.  I didn't stop dancing for about 3 hours as I knew very well that she wouldn't mind dancing with other guys if I wasn't there to dance with her;).  Well, it was the first time I ever danced - and I haven't stopped since.  Still a danceable tune to me.  Those were the times people actually looked at each other and smiled whilst dancing.  Nice....and still love the tune.  Here are two video-versions of the same song.  Joy's 'Touch by Touch' - another tune I danced to on the 'prom night' follows.

ed

One thing I never did was to mistake 'moving on' for a virtue. 

If I did, that would only makes me little more than a self-negating hologrammatic projection of the billboards of the day.  Do you discard the memories or perspectives of yesterday just because it is a feature of the past.  If we thrived from the nutrition of yesterday, do we not replicate or incorporate it into the diet of today.  Same thing mate, when it comes to the 80s.  Its experimental and critical persona, it's non-arrogant fun-loving spirit, its 'I ain't gonna be sucked up by the corporate machinery' flamboyant attitudes, perspectives and fashions (various aspects of which were more a feature of the 60s and 70s), etc, etc, is the kind of perspectival nutrition that enables me to become more of a Renaissance Person than I might otherwise be - one of the reasons why I have spent some perspectival time in the 70s, 60s, 50s, and in various periods of history throughout the world through history, cultural studies, philosophy, etc, etc. So nay, I say, to The Retards who are 'held back' by the present that they can't do as much tomorrow because they have made a virtue out of 'moving on' and hence discarded the perspectival boons of the past.

Damn!  I love this song!  Bespeaks innocence and simplicity.  People laugh at 'kitsch', the 'backward' effects of past music videos, films, etc,....I relish in its simplicity.

Heaven is closer now today
The sound is in my ears
I can't believe the things you say
They echo what I fear
Twisting the bones until they snap
I scream but no one knows
You say I'm familiar cold to touch
And then you turn and go

Feels like heaven...

See how we planned for saddened eyes
And tears to pave the way
I fought the fever as I knew
My hair returned to grey
Study your face and fade the frame
Too close for comfort now
We can recall the harmony
That lingered but turned sour

Feels like heaven...

You wanted all I had to give
See me I feel, see me I live

ed

I've been hunting for this song for about 2 decades.  And finally found it.  It brings back memories of my prom night and dancing non-stop for 3 hours with my girlfriend.  Didn't want to stop as i was afraid she might just dance with another.  I remember a 'friend' of mine, Cris, the suave, always-dancing-on-stage-during-events, sweet-talking(when it came to girls...whether she was 'taken' or not), MJ and Prince-loving guy, and competitor to myself in breakdancing, coming to me whilst I was dancing and asking in as sickly a charming voice he could muster, "Excuse me, may I cut in"?  Me being a straightforward kinda guy, i replied, "NO!" and gave him a firm 'get-lost' push.  Well, actually, i don't remember doing that.  It was him who never forgot and took to reminding me every now and then for the past 20 years about it in a 'how could you dare do that to Me' tone.  We finally became firm friends (for a while) when he called out to me whilst i was queueing for lunch in the army - both of us shorn of our crowning glories (hair).  Well, they do say misery loves company. 

epilogue

'The Girl' married someone else as her family didn't like us being of different religions.

Chris - being deprived of a stable family background from where he could receive validation of his potentials and significance, took to acquiring validation from social circles in ways that might make one popular during one's teen years and got fixated on the same methods....till there was nobody left to applaud an MJ-impersonator or one who was creative as singapore took a turn toward ultra-conformism and uniformity in the late 80s to the present.  Has taken to boozing, working, and waiting for the Grim Reaper, whilst stuck in a loveless marriage to a chinese girl who views life as a means to work as opposed to a means to life - quite the norm here....where interest, imagination and initiative is confined to 'work' as opposed to relationships or life.  Sad isn't it.

ed'sperience