pop-music-18-meme

I still need to do this one, but an easier meme has been sent to me. I was a metal head too, but I’m wondering if I was true enough. I love nostalgic 80s music now. And a lot of rock/metal makes me cringe. (Iron Maiden still makes me proud, but Quiet Riot? What was I thinking?)

So here’s the meme:

1. Go to http://www.popculturemadness.com/
2. Pick the year you turned 18 (left column)
3. Get yourself nostalgic over the song’s of the year
4. Write something about how the songs affected you
5. Pass it on to 5 more friends

I graduated from high school at the age of 17, so the songs of my eighteenth year are all associated in my mind with my first year of college.

This first one is kind of cheating since I knew nothing about the song or group until the movie came out. I watched it over 15 times. No. I am not exaggerating. I’m probably understating how many times. I refuse to watch the movie now because, I think, if I discover it was stupid, it will send me into an identity crisis.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/Y_9sB92dJzM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

This was a ubiquitous song on campus. I remember it playing at the Brookside (That was the first year it was renamed Lambein after a doner, but the denizens were fiercely resisting) on a lazy indian summer afternoon, while I waited for a friend I had just met to come down and take a walk or something. The song never made sense, though compared to the video (which I just saw for the first time ever–the Lincoln Memorial?), it is up there with the theory of relativity. Stll, for better or worse, it captures the mid-80s for me.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/IxoqzhgKReY" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I remember being amazed Madonna could do a video where she appeared normal. I hate her but she was and is a genius of pop music. And this one was atmospheric. I never saw the movie and never will. But I still liked this video.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/fvRttd5ESx8" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Great band. Great album (the better songs weren’t the ones that got radio play). Liked the Christian theme. Saw them in concert but was totally distracted and don’t remember much.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/TU7bp8aj99E" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

This one makes the Starship song look like a work of genius. It kind of incarnates everything bad and pretentious about the eighties and makes you want to dance to it. It still moves me (just not in public).

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/jjBXK4CTtvM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Coming back up from dive we just took. Peter Gabriel, “So” came out. I liked all the songs, but this was the first one to be released, I think.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/VArQABogDL4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Finally, going back to not great quality, something about the beginning lyrics really captured my own sense of melodrama and angst (which plagued my first year of college). I have no idea what the song is actually about.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/H_i_C7r6uqE" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Four others: Jennifer, Paul, Wayne, Chris, and Jeff.

5 thoughts on “pop-music-18-meme

  1. Jandy

    I haven’t had time to watch all the videos yet, but I will say that The Breakfast Club is not at all stupid. In fact, it is one of the few eighties movies I actively like, and also one of the few teen movies that I don’t consider a guilty pleasure, but a real one. But I haven’t seen it fifteen times, so who am I to talk?

    Reply
  2. mark Post author

    Cool! Maybe I’ll see it then. My memory certainly agrees with your evaluation.

    If you could give me hope for the Lost Boys, that would be awesome.

    Reply
  3. COD

    I have seen it 15 times, at least.

    Quiet Riot’s first album was actually pretty good. However, they toured for 4 or 5 years before they had enough stuff to come up with one decent record. And the big hit was a cover tune.

    It’s not a surprise they could never replicate it.

    Reply
  4. mark Post author

    Yeah, I noticed that. I also find it ironic that you are the only person who has followed through! (Though I took a long time to do it myself).

    Reply

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