"Space Age Love Song" by Flock of Seagulls, Tuesday, February 2, 2021

 

I'm not a fanatic about space, like many children, I was fascinated with the prospect of traveling to other worlds when I looked out at the sky. From learning about the nine eight planets from The Magic School Bus to watching Hale-Bopp in the late '90s night sky, the universe seemed like such an interesting place. After school it was Star Trek: The Next Generation reruns then to PBS for Bill Nye the Science Guy and Arthur. Fast forward to February 1, 2003 (18 years and 1 day ago). The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. This grounded America's space program for two years. 

POP MUSIC'S LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE '80S. This is my memory of the attitude towards the '80s. I talked a little about this when I covered New Order's "World (The Price of Love)," but my memories of the views of the '80s in the late '90s and '00s (what a time warp!) were of awkwardness, terrible hair, men in shorty shorts with hairy legs, girls in tight pink leotards and leg warmers. Tight jeans, porn star 'staches, and aviators. Farrah Fewcett hair. If you watch Dirty Dancing or Top Gun too much you might get a hair in the back of your throat from someone's mullet in the back of your throat and if you try to wash it down with Root Beer, you'd taste the '80s. I immediately turned off music that took "'80s chord progressions." But then in 2004, there was a shift. Falling Up released their second single from their album Dawn Escapes, "Moonlit." The guitar riff sounded like '80s metal. Of course Falling Up was probably not the first musical act to bring back the '80s, but I started to realize that the '80s were going to dethrone the '70s hold on pop culture. Just as long as nobody's getting Flock of Seagulls' haircuts, we should be alright.

...AND I RAN. Music ran towards the '80s sound. The Killers debuted around this time. Their first album drawing influence from The Cure. Little by little the "2000s" orchestra-hit laden Britney Spears/Backstreet Boys tracks gave way to new-wave sounding synth pop. Nowadays, if you look at a pop chart you will definitely hear '80s influence. But what brought back the '80s? Was it some sort of reaction to the conservative policies of George W. Bush mirroring Ronald Reagan? When I think of movies, television, and music of the '80s I think of a time that was much more conservative than now. Television shows tried to instill morality, but yet tried to be edgy by introducing "issue" episodes. In the '80s seemed like a counterreformation of the '60 movements.

THE SPACE RACE...ENDED. I'm writing a lot about a time before I was even born or have no memory of. Last year I enjoyed the Netflix documentary Challenger, which told the story about how NASA went from cutting edge to cutting corners. After America went to the moon, what was next? Mars? Venus? It seemed like nothing was in the way of human innovation. NASA introduced the space shuttle, a powerful rocket that was going to make going to space easy and common. Pop culture was space-obsessed.

You don't have to look far to find an '80s song about space. It was the space age and everything was reading for the stars. Until the Challenger explosion. Upon closer inspection, it cost too much money to go to the moon, so NASA's budget was slashed and with it our prospects manned explorations of the solar system. Of course we've made incredible breakthroughs in the field of astronomy since. It's been mostly on the ground or in our back yard in the International Space Station.

THE MULLET...TRIMMED. To tie everything together, much like the Space Age is still around in much less grand version of itself, so we have '80s-styled dance hits without the hairspray. Or applied in different ways. America seems to be addicted to 1) conservative governments and 2) liberal entertainment. That doesn't seem to be going away as Biden is probably one of the most conservative Democrats. SpaceX might take us to the moon. Let's hope they don't terraform Mars. Climate change may force us again to look to space, but really, though, is there enough time? Until, let's enjoy some '80s synth pop.