The 80s Nostalgia Thread

If you think music sucks now you're not being adventurous in your exploration. There are some pretty damn good bands out there — they're just not necessarily becoming big hits.

Yeah, but the problem here is that many 80s good bands were a hit. Why can't that happen now?

I dunno, I think the 80s is when a lot of music started to suck. That awful synthesizer sound started to take over, and a lot of great artists sounded to sound blander and blander. There are plenty of fun songs from the era, but overall I don't think it was the best time musically.

It was the beginning of the end. Just look what happened to Prog.

So sad.

We did get Iron Maiden out of the '80s, though.

Prog was a victim of itself as much as anything else, though. When a genre starts sounding like its own parody, it's ripe for a fall.

I actually like the synthesizery sound of a lot of 80s music.

And, like I said before, it was a breakthrough decade for metal.

I do prefer the sound of actual instruments to synths, but some bands were able to get a good sound out of them. Some bands.

I love that decade for many, many, many reasons including that fucking glorious, heavy-80s-beat synthpop sound. Hair and thrash metal also deserve honourable mention.

edited 5th Jun '11 5:42:45 PM by MRDA1981

That reminds me of some of the kids putting on Napalm Death on the school bus.

I was born in 1986, but because of watching MTV, re-runs of 80's cartoons on USA, and the general Still The Eighties atmosphere of the early 90's, I still got to experience some of it. My parents recorded a lot of the said 80's cartoon reruns for me too, so I enjoyed them on VHS well through the 90's.

I was 6-15 in the 1980's so I have a lot of 80's nostalgia.

Anyone remember Laser-lights Blackstar? Rock Lords? There was a line of action figures I can't remember the name of which were half crystal/half lava.

My first seven years were the eighties, be we already had "classics" by then: I grew up mainly on Looney Tunes.

As for more up-to-date shows, I remember Inspector Gadget, a bit of The Real Ghostbusters, Choudenshi Bioman, Goldorak and even Seabert in my first years.

edited 13th Apr '11 1:29:45 AM by Medinoc

I remember we had a couple low budget UHF stations in my area. I remember being blown away by the fact that they would actually show cartoons in the afternoon (as opposed to Saturday mornings). I've always had a fondness for the slightly more obscure cartoons they'd show on such stations like Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Galaxy Rangers, Battle of the Planets (aka G-Force (aka Science Ninja Team Gatchaman)), Defenders of the Earth, Robotech, Tranzor Z (aka Mazinger Z), Bionic Six, M.A.S.K, and on Sunday mornings Inhumanoids + Robotics + Big Foot and the Monster Machines. Great stuff. It was the first time I ever so manga style art since most of them were either westernized anime or had all their animation done in Japan.

I lived through the 80's, I was there and like everyone else who was actually there, I have no idea why anyone is nostalgic for them.

Almost no one where I work remembers He-Man. I'm not even five years older then most of them! How can they not remember He-Man?!! That show was pure unadulterated awesome. That and She-Ra, though I'm mainly fond of She-Ra for the incredibly bad names. Like... Castaspella.

No-one remembers He-Man? God, that makes me feel old. I've already put down Thundercats as an example of Finely Aged Suck on that thread, and this cartoon was another. With another great Large Ham baddie!

I remember both He-Man and Thundercats, although I didn't watch them until the nineties.*

I don't get nostalgic for the '80s—I wasn't even born until '90—but I do get nostalgic for certain '80s music, which I was often exposed to growing up in the '90s.

Hearing "These Dreams" by Heart still takes me back to being a little kid in my bed in my family's Upper Arlington apartment. (I'm sure this sounds cheesy, but hey, nostalgia is nostalgia is nostalgia)

edited 15th Apr '11 12:12:22 PM by CentralAvenue

I don't think we had Thundercats back here, but we definitely had He-man. Only, we called him "Musclor".

"Musclor" sounds delightfully old-school. I love it.

Let me see... I was born in 1982, so I cannot remember much of those times. Here in Portugal, we only had two channels: RTP (Rádio Televisão Portuguesa-Portuguese radio and television) 1 and 2.

Some cartoons and live-action children shows on satuday morning - I remember very fondly the "Sitio do Picapau Amarelo" (Place of the Yellow Woodpecker), about some brazilian children rednecks that interacted with swamp animals (actors in very colorfull costumes). We also had our own version of Sesame Street, adapted to look like a street in Lisbon. Another show I loved was the "Turborangers" (Kousoku Sentai Turboranger), with the intro song in french.

RTP 1 also had some cartoons at around 5 PM, I remember mostly "Abelha Maia" (Maya the Honey Bee), He-Man and David the Gnome.

The Musclor opening.

I've seen the Spanish and Italian openings for He-Man. I think those are the most hammy versions of the He-Man opening.

The Thundercats were called "Cosmocats" in French. Here's the opening.

Now "cosmocats" does ring a bell; though I never watched it anyway.

The action series I remember watching most was MASK (assuming Inspector Gadget doesn't count as an action series).

edited 16th Apr '11 2:00:14 PM by Medinoc

My cousins have that version of Thundercats.

edited 16th Apr '11 2:00:48 PM by nekoalexa

I remember the Mutant Ninja Turtles were the rage as well as Disney Afternoon cartoons on channel 7, which were replaced by drama, also, those young'uns were a lot more carefree and didn't cuss a lot and no fear of terrorism. Happy times in my happy place