The Glory of the 80's

[sidcrowe]

Video games were the best back then. Why? Because the characters were representations of things, and it was up to the story, music, and pacing to fill in the rest.

Today, everything looks exactly like whatever it's supposed to be, which seems great at first, but now it's harder for stuff to stand out.

For me, Square's PSX1 FFVII was as good as graphics needed to be

 

[Drtooth]

Originally posted by Chilly Down

--UHF is a great movie. The DVD's got tons of great extra features...and it's only $9.99! A real bargain. I guessed they priced it low because they figured no one would buy it. In fact, it ended up in the top 10 DVD sales shortly after its release! That's better than it did in its initial run in the theaters. The press was surprised, but I wasn't. The film is a cult hit now, and to put all those goodies on there for such a low price... (Conversely, the same studio, MGM, released the Bill & Ted movies to DVD with NO extra features and priced at $15. And they wonder why they sit on the shelves.)
--I'm very much looking forward to Al's new release, whenever it comes out!

Mah man!!! !! In the 80's he felt pressured to release stuff every year and a half. Now he's more selective. In fact I almost (almost) bought a Pokemon sound track just because he had a song on it. Why he decided to do a Pokemon song is beyond me, but whatever he can do to entertain future generations. I went to a concewrt of his back in 1999, and it was, with out a doubt, the BEST night of my life! I have a "Star Wars Episode 1" parody Teeshirt from the concert, never worn! I'm waiting to frame it!

As for video games. Yes, they weren't so technilogically advanced, but they were much more fun. I didn't fully rediscover my fondness for Atari (nintendo is STILL number one for me) until this summer when I downloaded some games to a school computer (I got away with it! ) and played them while I typed up a project. Sure, the games were crude, and some were pretty stupid, but it was SOOOO much fun. No finding keys, no alternate routes, no passwords, no save features, just raw gaming at it's most primal! I even downloaded a porno game just for laughs! I don't want to get specific, or I'll get kicked off the board! It's called Custer's revenge, and I've never laughed so hard in my life!

 

[GWGumby]

I've seen Weird Al in concert twice, I've seen dozens and dozens of other concerts. Al's two that I did see were my top two concerts I've ever been to. He doesn't just play the songs, but puts on an entire show complete with costume changes. And the interstitial sketches, fake interviews, and 50's documentaries are hilarious! Plus, he's one of the few artists who I can see and not have my ears ringing for the next day. I've always like the guy, but his concerts prove that he truly is an entertainer and not just some goofy class clown.

 

[Hairfarmer]

I definatley agree about the video games. I basically gave up on them around '85. But I remember the glory days: Pac Man (Mr. & Mrs.), Battle Zone, Tron, Centipede... We even thought Space Invaders was pretty cool when it first came out. I'm really dating myself there, huh? But the drop-down, holey-moley, buck-buck game for me was Defender! I probably put enough quartes into that slot for three years to buy the thing!
As far as the music goes, I'd take Culture Club over Ratt, Poison, Motley Crue, etc any day. Even if you had problems with the whole gender-bender issue at least Boy George can sing. And their tunes were nowhere near as redundant as the shiney moused-out hair-metal bands. Over all, musically, I think each decade since the '40's has had about the same structure: You've got a small number of incitefull, talented artists making good music that has some truly new and original aspects about it who won't get picked up by the mainstream outlets for about 2-7 years. Then you have a lot of watered-down versions of what was cutting edge 3-6 years previously which is now considered the norm. It makes for some good music, some really bad music and a big chunk of fairly mundane music in between. I disagree with a lot of my friends who rant on and on about how much the music in the '80's sucked. I think there were some really great bands that started or rose to their hey-day in the '80's like Culture Club, Devo, Cyndi Lauper, Eurythmics, Talking Heads, Level 42, Missing Persons, Asia, Joe Jackson, etc, etc, etc. Where the problem with the '80's music came from IMO, wasn't the music, or the musicians, it was the G*% D@^& Coked-out producers and engineers who thougt those horrid cheap-o synth patches were adequet replacement for real strings, and real horns, and pianos, and organ and... Not to mention that you're hearing gets so screwed up on Coke that they actually thought that the tinny, high end, no bass EQ they were mastering *everything* with sounded good. Some of the synth -based stuff was awesome like Herbie Hancock and Gary Numan, but most of it just hoovered beyond belief.
J~

 

[GWGumby]

I love the synths, hate the drum machines. My biggest complaint with 80s music is there were a lot of great keyboard players who knew absolutely nothing about percussion! There were some really great songs like Aha's "Take On Me" or Peter Schilling's "Major Tom" that pain me to listen to because there's a wonderful song being impaled upon a terrible canned drumbeat. (A don't even get me started on "Hooked On Classics...")

What's even more pitiful is the group who never let go of the 80s which evolved into the underground "synthpop" genre. A bunch of people who worship Depeche Mode, but sound more like a mediocre Camouflage.

 

[Drtooth]

It looks like all the 1980's characters and such are coming back! Weven Inspector Gadget

Read Smig's comment at
www.muppetcentral.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=42281

Wow! Ninja Turtles, Gadget, Weird Al...I think I'm in HEAVEN!!!!!!