OFF: Lame 80s pop teen horror

[Laura Waesche]

I think Duran Duran may actually have been the worst of the lot, yeah...

They had nice clothes...

>>> Nick Medford <nick at HERMIT0.DEMON.CO.UK> 10/23/01 05:52AM >>>
I felt compelled to respond to this, in the spirit of continual boc-l non-
consensus :)

On Mon, 22 Oct 2001 15:04:43 -0400, Eric Siegerman <erics at TELEPRES.COM>
wrote:

>
>Not me!  But then, Karma Chameleon was pretty catchy.

Hmmmm...

I thought it was a dreadful slice of weedy blandness, but I would say this
much: Boy George could actually sing. Unlike, for example, Simon Le Poseur
in Duran Duran.

Violent Femmes' cover of Do You Really Want to Hurt Me is quite good
though...

>
>A lot of shit artists have done, like, one good song apiece.

In general I disagree. But then I tend to operate from a position of black
bilious hatred towards such "artists", so maybe I'm too biased to judge
fairly.

>Material Girl was a perfect 3-minute summation of the entire
>decade.

I know what you mean, but it was still very crap indeed, was it not?
However... there is one Madonna song I do like a lot... "Justify My Love" -
I remember hearing it on the radio and thinking wow! what is this- truly
erotic, so cool and so hot at the same time... ahem. When the DJ said it
was the new Madonna single, I would have fallen off the floor had that been
possible.

>Billie Jean.

Um... no. Lost me again.

>Seems to me there was a Cure song I liked

Surely a tad harsh, lumping the Cure in with the above! They weren't that
bad. I saw them play at Glastonbury one year and they were a good live
outfit.

>
>If DD had even one good song, I don't know it.  Q.E.D.

I think Duran Duran may actually have been the worst of the lot, yeah...

It's truly painful to think about all this... growing up in the 80s liking
prog and psych was a real test of character, not to mention bloody-
mindedness. Most of my peers had crap highlights in their hair and would
mercilessly mock my latest vinyl purchases on the bus home from school.
Until the day I bought "Flying Teapot", which was *so* over-the-top it
actually freaked them out. They all went quiet and asked if I was feeling
alright. How strange that it's "OK" to like psychedelia now. When I first
discovered it I relished the extreme anti-fashion statement it seemed to
embody.

Strangely enough, within my circle of prog-loving schoolfriends, I could
never convince any of them that Hawkwind were great. One of my old mates
from that time became the biggest Gong fan I know- he has virtually
everything Daevid Allen has ever released (which is a lot)- but he still
maintains that Hawkwind are crap. C'est la vie.

But it's worth noting that all these crummy 80s pop acts were at least
"real bands" of sorts, unlike the manufactured tosh foisted on us now.


>
>The only cool thing DD had going for them was their name.  Ditto
>Heaven 17 (obscure movie references both).

Agreed.

Viddy well, oh my droogs.

NM