This is a little bit of a read, but it would mean a lot to me if someone read this and found that they related! I know a few of you follow me for the content I put out relevant to this topic, especially.
This explanation is a long time coming. It's time for me to dissect what environmental factors led to my deep love for the 80s, and most specifically its music.
The first thing I can remember that got the ball rolling was car rides home from Friday night high school football games. I was in the marching band, and my mom and I liked to listen to the "Football Scoreboard Show", so they called it, on the radio. It would announce all the local scores that night, give us a good laugh at some very deep Southern accents, and sometimes we could even hear another band or two from a live audio clip, so we liked that.
After the show was over, we would flip radio stations until we found one we both liked, which usually ended up being a mix of 80s and today's music (I was in high school from 2011 to 2015). I always found myself begging my mom to tell me what that song was on the radio with that specific sound. It was always something like Phil Collins, Prince, or Madonna. This continued, of course, until I had a powerful kneejerk reaction to the first few measures of a good song by whipping out Shazam on my first smartphone. I was noticing a trend in what I liked, and beginning to flesh out genres I might be interested in.
Then there were the marching band competitions, scarce but glorious enough to count on two hands and one foot. Not only did my band perform renditions from many 80s artists, including Kansas, Michael Jackson, and Styx, but the bigger and better high school bands left my friends and I starstruck and trying to figure out what the hell they were playing, because we swore we'd heard it somewhere. It always had me scouring YouTube for answers, which led to an obsession with certain artists, albums, and songs. The parents of many of my friends grew their children up on the music of the 80s, so we shared music with each other and built memories quickly.
Then came Dish Network and SiriusXM. My family had just dropped DirecTV and made the switch. I was probably 16 at the time. Dish Network came with free SiriusXM, and though I knew I loved the music of the 80s already, I didn't know how deep I would fall in yet. Not until I discovered 80s on 8, hosted by the four original MTV VJs: Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, and Martha Quinn. This flipped my whole world around really quickly. I would have 80s on 8 playing in my room from the time I woke up in the morning to the time I went to bed at night in the summer and whenever I was home from school. I soon built up quite the repertoire, discovering new sub genres and artists like New Order, Hall & Oates, Fleetwood Mac, Yes, Genesis, and every single one-hit wonder you can think of. I listened feverishly in the middle of the night to the VJs' stories of their experiences at MTV and the first songs ever played on the channel. I listened to the Big 40 Countdown that would rewind to this week in 1980-something and play the top 40 hits from that week. It was like a religious awakening for me, but it didn't stop there.
Eventually, my parents said no to Dish as it became too expensive. I was hurt, but I was on my way to college soon anyway. I discovered Survivor's High On You the night before I left for my freshman year's band camp through Apple Music, which was a euphoric experience that kept getting me closer and closer to "my perfect song". I continued to listen to my favorite 80s artists and songs and discovered even more than I could imagine.
Then sophomore year came. I was subscribed to a YouTube channel called Electronic Gems. I have loved electronic music since I was old enough to understand the concept of studio recorded music. This channel was right up my alley, always sending me into a fit of inappropriate excitement when I would get a push notification that they had uploaded a new track. So then came FM-84's Atlas. A neon palm tree as the background image, a few hi-hats, a few chords, and my mind was completely blown. Finding Arcade Summer off of Atlas was like Christmas Day. It felt like someone had crafted a song just for me and me alone to listen to. The rest of the night I took my sweet time listening to Atlas, top to bottom. For some reason I was headed home from college in the middle of the week, and left shortly after the sun had gone down. When I started down the road with that first track blaring under a million city and street lights like stars above my head, everything instantly made sense. I was floored. I knew what it was that attracted me so intensely to this music. I was falling completely in love with the synths, the drums, the driving or sultry tempos, the vocals that wrang your heart dry, and most importantly the very distinct feeling of freedom that they would give me as I drove alone in my car that night or as I would walk to class or as I would clean my room. I knew then it was this sound that was one of the most integral parts of me, holding inside every memory that had ever meant anything to me. It is as clear to me as you reading these words on your screen, something almost tangible. Something akin to love or hope or spirit.
And of course, from there I found the synthwave/new retro wave genre that has been coming to the forefront. Bands like FM-84, The Midnight, and vocalists like Ollie Wride and Michael Oakley flooded my playlists as fast as my fingers and ears would let me. It was like I could, and still can, feel these songs running fast through my veins. FM-84's Never Stop featuring Ollie Wride soon became favorite track of all time, surpassing even the Killers for intense nostalgic value. Its release date of mid-August 2017 was the beginning of a new age for me. I remember listening to it for the first time and breaking down into tears, still in complete shock that music like that could ever exist. Never Stop is nights when my best friends and I would hop in my car just to see our college town light up after dark, staying up way too late knowing damn well we would regret it on the bus to the football game the next morning. This song came after the worst year of my life. Those friends came after the worst year of my life like angels waiting in the wings. It was that same feeling, freedom, pure happiness, the way they saved me, all blended into a wall of tear-jerking explosive sound and power vocals. The Midnight's Explorers did it for me once again in September 2018. Big sound, big nostalgia, and endless gratitude from me. My friends and I obsessively listened to Survivor's Vital Signs in my car for the next few months, which just kept on pushing me.
All this, in a roundabout way, can help me start to understand my love for 80s. It's the movies. You can feel how they're different, but can't exactly put your finger on it, can you? It's the music. It's undeniable, lyrics overflowing with passion for life or complete loss or devotion. Hell, it's even the fashion. I can't stay away from it. I will take any excuse to snatch something completely impractical off of the shelf if I feel like I can pull some kind of outfit together. The hair, the jeans, the shoes. It's everything big, big and wide open like a clear blue sky. It's the reason I have been writing this for hours, just because I feel like the world should know and that I should understand it myself. It's the obsession with new technology, the fascination for mall arcades and video games and computers. The magic in E.T., Indiana Jones, Star Wars. I was born in 1997. I can't tell you what it was like to be alive in what is considered to be a halcyon era. And I can't tell you I would trade what I have now, because I wouldn't. But I have an undying admiration that started with a spark and grows every day. Maybe there's not even a rhyme to why I turned out this way, but I think there's a reason. The joy that the admiration gives me is enough to want to keep going. Do great things. Finish my computer science degree in a few months, tell my friends I love them, smile at somebody. Carry on that hope with me. For some reason my source is that sweet 80s sound, and while I might not understand it, I am forever grateful for it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love the 80s.
