Around a decade ago, maybe more, the big debate in music was all about whether the 80s should ever come back. If the 90s had been marked by its heros resoundingly rejecting the synth stabby vocodered robotic soulless shallowness that the musicians felt had marked the tone of the decade before, the 2000s had some momentum that led to quite an uncomfortable place -- if, as we had discovered by the late nineties, if we are allowed to brazenly sample the fun elements of funk, rock, prog, everything and turn it into something else, then surely... surely... it wouldnt be so bad to actually, slightly cheekily, get some of that daggy music and insert those fun elements into guitar rock, which by the end of the 90s had fallen to the same faults the alternative revolution had begun -- far too much taking itself too seriously, either by being massively overly earnest, or on the other hand, tending to ridiculous largess. And the eighties revival of the early naughties came in many guises... the sharp euro-kitch of miss kitten, the hacker, tiga, ellen alien made for nightclubs that demanded different haircuts. The pop radio stations teased - with dancefloor versions of elvis songs, a spanish novelty song about tomato sauce set to the chorus of rappers delight, and neighbours stars finding turkish Eurovision songs from the year before and sampling *their* melodies, as the unforgettable Holly Valance did with her legendary Kiss Kiss in 2002. But the hardest sell was the adding of the 80s to indie. You already had the throwback electro douchies like Mylo demanding that rock n roll be destroyed, and Jet firing up a pretty good case for that to happen, but there was a melding to be had, and it crept in nicely. By 2007, what was amazing was being at a party where rap, house and indie pop could fit perfectly together -- and much of it tied, at that time by a binding new use of old synths, keys and mics, if just for effect. Justice vs Simians We Are Your Friends would give way to the Klaxons Golden Skans and the dancing would be with all shoulders and steps... But there was a special, happy and joyful place in my heart for whenever an Aussie band that was in on the action would make it onto the ipod playlist... and the one that I loved the most was this one, teenagersintokyo. It was always the cutest girls at the party that would sing along to this. It was always the battle in your mind -- how can I like this when I spent a decade rejecting this and anything like it, but how can I deny this amazingness! Replete with energy, cynicism and muted hope, teenagersintokyo ruled my world, and for that I am very grateful. This was where the 80s thing made most sense to me - it wasnt a parody or a rip off, it was an appropriate use of a sound to firmly get a point home. I woke up with this in my head this morning, and now hopefully its stuck in yours.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 00:44:09 +0000
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