Back to the future: is 2017 really 1980 in disguise?
It started with the relatively innocuous, "I want to get my hair dyed." Well, it was the start of the summer holidays so there would be no problems with school, and if my 13-year-old stepson wants to dye his hair then who am I to restrict his freedom of expression/have an argument I can’t win? The hair would probably go blue or purple or something, I thought, he’ll learn the error of his ways and either he would grow out of it or the colour would just grow out of him. As it turned out, he wanted blond highlights, only the width of a Rizla paper away from dreaded ‘streaks’ – still the accepted shorthand for ineffable naffness in any half-way respectable western society.
Still, had I not dyed my hair at about the same age? Sort of. I cleverly dodged the expense of a professional hairdresser by the simple overuse of Sun-In one long summer and consequently spent several weeks walking around with a mop of bright orange hair. Thankfully, any evidence of that calamity exists only as faded pictures overdeveloped by Boots and confined to battered shoeboxes in peoples’ attics in the South Manchester area. There were no cameraphones then (who, over the age of 30, has not had cause to celebrate the tardiness of technology back in the day), and there are now, everywhere, but if he wants to dye his hair then, erm… on his head be it.
The truth of it was that, having been well advised to avoid the Sun-In route, he came out of it looking pretty good. And then the snow-washed skinny fit jeans arrived. And the Lacoste tracksuit top. And the mirrored Lennon glasses. And all of a sudden there was a better-looking version of me at the same age wanting a lift to his mate’s house and asking if he could borrow my Adidas Beckenbauer trainers (answers respectively, yes no problem and no, don’t even think about it if you want to make 14).
Since that moment, I've started noticing echoes of my childhood all around me. Choice of trainers aside, this is no personality crisis, kicked into action due to the cruel passage of time – my peer group are picking up on the same thing.
Flight jackets and buzz cuts are suddenly back in the papers, but it's not just fashion, there are reminders of the 1980s everywhere.
"Who’s Basquiat?" asked the kid. Fair question, given the media onslaught surrounding the retrospective at the Barbican recently.
"An 80s graffiti artist."
"Cool."
"Who’s that old guy with Ryan Gosling?" Less cool, but it will have been heard to jaw-dropping astonishment in households all over the country as Harrison Ford (b. 1942) accompanied his young Oscar-nominated cohort (b. 1980) across the chat-show hinterland of Britain to promote Blade Runner 2049, the long-awaited sequel to Blade Runner (b. 1982). Old guy? Ok, fair point, but he is just about to make another film in the Raiders of the Lost Ark franchise, and if you remember the original fondly the chances are that you are pushing 50 and will have grown up with the threat of nuclear armageddon.
Ah yes, nuclear armageddon. Remember that? No need, it’s back. Under the auspices of Ronald Reagan, a president from the outer reaches of popular culture (B movies, of all things), an arms race and political stand-off with the ‘Evil Empire’ reached such an impasse in the 1980s that we were taught to listen out for the four minute warning and construct nuclear shelters by removing doors and propping them against dining room tables with the aid of sandbags. Now there’s Donald Trump, a president recruited from reality television who, intent upon proving Marx’s improvement upon Hegel that history repeats itself, the "first time as tragedy, the second time as farce" and encouraged by re-runs of M*A*S*H, is attempting to reignite the Korean War, only this time with nuclear warheads attached to intercontinental ballistic missiles. The threat of nuclear war is now ‘a thing’ again.
Closer to home, the leader of the Labour Party, a scruffy devotee of unilateral disarmament (no, not Michael Foot), is polishing up his peace badges as his opponent, an unpopular female Prime Minister, struggles to unite the Conservative party over Europe while presiding over a period of credit-crunching austerity. For Theresa May, read pre-Falklands Margaret Thatcher.
In the 1980s, this led to raft of bands keen to proclaim their ‘right-on’ credentials, today the protest cudgels have been picked up by artists as diverse as Captain SKA and the electioneering number one Liar, Liar, Stormzy embracing ‘my man Jeremy’, the Sleaford Mods with their working class ennui, and Hard-Fi’s Richard Archer raging against Brexit among many others.
Not your cup of tea? Had your nostalgia fix by watching the curious autobiography/obituary George Michael: Freedom on Channel 4 recently (both products of the 80s, of course)? Then you can always catch one of his Now That’s What I Call Music album mates (b. 1983 and currently up to edition number 97), now reformed and touring: Bananarama; Madness; B52’s; even ‘Bros lead singer and international star’ Matt Goss is back this Christmas. Apart from the Smiths and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, if you can think of a big band from that decade, they’re probably out there somewhere, overcoming ‘musical differences’ for one last lucrative payday.
For those less inclined to go to a gig these days, there’s always Stranger Things, the weird sci-fi horror TV series complete with and its reminiscent typeface set in the Indiana of the mid-80s, or the reboot of the decade-defining soap opera Dynasty on Netflix.
The 1980s are everywhere in 2017, apart from at the top of English football where, after a dramatic reversal of fortunes, Manchester City are now seemingly unbeatable and Liverpool are currently a laughing stock (the English and Scottish national teams remain rubbish, but this is no longer a cyclical thing). And so it seems fair to draw a line at this point, before mullets return and take it all just one Back to the Future too far.
