What's so great about the Eighties?

I used to think that nothing worth anything came out of the Eighties. It was the age of plastic jewelry, plastic clothes-- everything was too fake and too big-- hair, makeup-- neon everything. Obnoxious.


But yesterday I came across the song "Closer to Fine" by the Indigo Girls, and I thought, "Huh, something good did come from the Eighties."

That's when I decided that maybe that decade marking my early youth wasn't so bad after all, (even if I was burdened with a younger brother and sister during that unfortunate time period.)

Despite my sibling rivalry issues, I do have fond memories from the Eighties. I had slap bracelets, plastic headbands, Kit and Kaboodles, and when my brother would share, Marios Brothers on the Nintendo and MTV on the gigantic TV console.

And if my younger siblings monopolized the sun room, I could always go up to my room and listen to cassette tapes while jumping aroung in my leggings and over-sized seatshirts singing "Like a Virgin" into a hairbrush, crimped hair everywhere.

When my much older cousin came to live with us for a year, I would watch her tease her WHOLE head of brown hair so high it looked like it might need structural reinforcements. She would be wearing some shade of a sparkly sweater, or a ripped jersey sweathshirt off of one shoulder, tank top showing from underneath. Her stone-washed GUESS jeans would be folded or pinned at the bottom and her jewelry would compete with her hair: BIG, plastic hoop earrings, (her favorite were white), lots of rings and bangly bracelets.

She would finish primping herself with a smear of bright blue eye shadow, a touch of black mascera and red, red lipstick. The whole bathroom would smell like her: Debbie Gibson's "Electric Youth" perfume, AquaNet hairspray, Marb lights, and occasionally, a touch of pot.

If I got sick of watching her get ready to cruise the strip listening to bands like Guns and Roses or Metallica in her Dodge Charger, I would leave the stickiness of the bathroom to rifle through the VHS tapes, pushing aside Jane Fonda for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Ferris Bueller's Day Off or Back to the Future.

And if I was sick of watching movies, I could always sift through the major networks and stop by a rerun of Charles in Charge, or Family Ties. The Simpsons were even an option before the Eighties were over.


Most of the time, though, I would ditch all of the plastic recreation of that decade, grab my jelly sandals (can't abandon everything) and head outside to find a tree that needed climbing.


So, what I want to know is if the music from the Eighties wasn't all the bad, (and how could it be with groups like the Indigo Girls, Red Hot Chili Peppers, U2 and Ozzy Osborne), why is it the only shit you hear on the radio during "Back in the Day Cafe" is stuff like this:

Songs like this just leave a bad, slightly metallic, technofunk taste in my mouth that colors my opinion of the rest of the decade a putrid shade of neon green.

I'm a girl of the Nineties, and things were still bad in that decade for a while.

Good thing before I had to start worrying about following social trends, the backlash of the Eighties had dissolved into the windpants (skids!!) and fanny packs of the mid to late Nineties.