Get in hosers-it's 1984

tour of my childhood 45s collection

Let’s have something nice and fun, eh?

Older people know this. Younger people want to know it.

The answer is yes. The 1980s were wonderful. You can’t imagine what a glorious time it was to be a kid and a teen. Yes, we had lots of problems. We had hard times. Nothing was perfect.

But it was as cool as it looks in those old photos. It was just as fun as you think it was. As awful as my childhood was, I have as many really happy memories of that decade. The music, the style, the haircuts, the clothes—everything looked so brand-new, so modern, and it felt like the entire world was set up just waiting for you to jump in. The beautiful people were there, and they were calling you to the skating rink and the dance floor.

In late 1979 my family and I stepped off the Amtrak in Los Angeles to make new life in California after jobs dried up back East. I was five years old, and overwhelmed. It was like Dorothy walking out of the sepia house and into Technicolor.

That’s when “the 80s” began for me.

The music of your youth is the music that stays in our hearts, every generation. I’m submerged in nostalgia, and I don’t care. No music will ever feel the same to me as the songs I grew up with. My parents got me my first record player that year, a Fisher-Price suitcase style. We had a stack of long-playing albums of fairy tales, Disney, as well as Disney and Little Golden Books that came with 45 records. “When the chime sounds, turn the page!”

By 9 or 10 I was getting into pop music. I’m a partisan for “basic” Top 40. My musical taste is eclectic from polyphonic medieval chanting, to classical, to early Jazz, ragtime, sacred music, classic country, and more. But the biggest hits of the 80s on the charts own my heart.

The first thing I bought with my paper route money was the latest 45 single. Mother allowed me to buy one per week down at Center City Mall Records on Main St. in Cortland, New York. They Xeroxed the Top 40 every week and pinned it to corkboard over the bin with 45s sorted by singer name. What made this record store great was that they mixed in 60s girl group 45s—new pressings—with the Top 40. I could get The Supremes or The Shangri-Las along with my Duran Duran.

Here’s a sampling of my record collection from that era. These are just the tip of the iceberg; could probably do hundreds of these, maybe more. This is just what comes to mind right now.

Mickey

My first pop 45, given to me in California by my upstairs neighbor Jennifer. “I’m so sick of it.” I wasn’t. Within a week my mother was. Jenn’s mom Kathy used to drive us to school in her kelly green 1974 VW Superbeetle.

Rio

That bright, soprano synth run up and down the scale like cascading water droplets sent me from the first time I heard it.

What a Feeling

Well, I hear the music. Close my eyes; I am rhythm.

Material Girl

I’d already been into her for a year, but this song turned me into a superfan; I believe it put an actual spell on me. When I saw the video on MTV, at that spot in the bridge where she goes “a material, a material, a material” while the men push her up on a pedestal in that Marilyn Monroe gown, my jaw fell open. Actually in real life. My eyes widened. I didn’t know the words for it, but I thought “this girl is some kind of goddess.”

The gruff Korean War vet Sarge who drove the school bus was the grumpy bastard gym coach. But he had a soft spot for me. I sat in the front seat to stay away from other kids. When Material Girl came on the radio, he turned it up on the bus PA for me.

She Bop

Couldn’t get enough of this song. INSISTED on having the 45 even though I already had the album, because the 45 was the radio edit and the arrangement was better. The lack of a single synth riff can make or break a pop song.

I used wait for Nick Rocks to come on Friday nights on Nickelodeon, hoping this would rotate on.

The thing about 80s music and earlier, some 90s too, is that it was just as likely to be happy and hopeful as it was to be dark and broody. But the tone of modern pop is much darker, much dumber, much more savage, more animal. It’s disturbing.

Rap, of course, isn’t music at all. Much of it literally has no actual pitch. Not a single note. You’re lucky if you get a repeating drone on a notional tonic.

But pop music has much less in the way of melody and harmony than it used to. Pop songs live and breathe on melody and harmony. Sure, some of them have such excellent rhythm and percussion that drums become the stand-out feature of the song. But it can’t carry most songs. You need a pretty and catchy melody, and a skillful instrumental and vocal harmonic arrangement to really make a pop song vibrate with life.

How Will I Know?

How can you not be carried away with sighing, wistful, joyful teenage anticipation of love? It’s so upbeat. It’s bittersweet and happy and hopeful and it’s a fucking banging groove. That Roland synthesizer riff and then the same throughout as a bassline transports me.

Also, a half-step key change. Bring them back!

Touch Me

Even gay boys knew it—Sam Foxx was fucking hot. This song drove me nuts. The perfect blend of hard rock and pop, with a sexy tart who had all the confidence and charisma she needs.

‘Like a tramp in the night I was begging for you to treat my body like you wanted to."

You and me both, Sam.

Funkytown

No, not that one. This one. Look at and listen to these boys from Australia. They’re all gorgeous, they all play instruments really well, and they’re great singers. This was considered a minimum, MINIMUM, to be considered for a record contract. Compare to today.

I could go on for hours like this, but the gimmick would get tired. If you like this kind of thing (or don’t), let me know.

Just one last story.

The Hollywood Restaurant in Cortland, New York is an institution. My mother would take us there on the very rare occasions we could afford to eat at a restaurant. This is upstate New York local Italians, which means you can count on everything from the pizza to the pasta to the salad tasting exactly like it should. The Italian cuisine in Cortland is the same and as good as the old school New York City stuff.

It’s Hollywood-themed, obviously, with framed posters of Elvis, Monroe, John Wayne, Ava Gardner, etc. It’s also Florida themed. It’s paneled in some kind of teak wood with Hollywood spotlights bounced off corners and brightly saturated fake palms. Yeah, I know, but it works. It’s such an inviting place.

It burned down in the 90s, horrible. Complete devastation. But the family rebuilt in the same spot in the same style. I’ve been since, and it’s the same restaurant I used to know.

Anyway, when I was a kid, there was a huge Wurlitzer jukebox at the end of the bar. Curved and chromed, with coruscating super-saturated colored neon lights. But—oh, frabjous day!—each booth had a mini-Wurlitzer built in. You flipped through plastic card pages of the available songs and put your order in. The main machine would play it. And it was loud. Everyone heard it.

A quarter got you three songs.

You should hear how good this sounds coming out of the “record machine.” Talk about one hot bitch, too.

I love Rock and Roll