Some nostalgic summer music - I think only Germans can make a depressing reggae summer song with loads of Weltschmerz.
Ideal was part of the so called Neue Deutsche Welle (New German Wave) - but was never as popular like Nena or Trio (remember Da Da Da?).
Click image for a stronger woman.
Another brilliant Mapplethorpe moment - with all the power, beauty and grace almost all his snaps posses. For me it’s also a perfect expression of the 80’s - and a new feminine strength showing in art that is neither weak nor overdone.
Philip Glass is one of the few soundtrack composers that is famous for his movie and classical work as well.
His style is hypnotic, often a bit weird and unusual compared to music from great soundtrack composers like John Williams or classical ones like Beethoven. But he certainly is unique - and therefore not for everybody.
I personally love his hypnotic violin waves and delicate themes. It’s an almost surreal music - I guess that is why it was chosen for Koyaanisqatsi (1983) and later for Mishima (1985).
The Mishima soundtrack is a permanent item on my play lists for now over twenty year - and I am still loving it.
Click to play “November 25: The Last Day” (which is very similar to the Main Title):
Click to play “1937: Saint Sebastian”:
Click to play “Kyoko’s House (”Stage Blood Is Not Enough”)”:
Once again this music is not “easy listening”, but it’s well worth exploring. If you only want to buy one Philip Glass CD ever - than I recommend “Mishima”.
More? Philip Glass @ Wikipedia and Philip Glass @ Amazon.com
Still one of the quintessential 80’s pop songs in style and content. Although it seems neither the Russians nor the Americans have learned any lessons from this?
What an amazing and unusual game! Disc of Tron used a two different controllers: one to aim your light disk at the red (pink?) player and one to control your blue avatar. It was pretty hard to play, because you needed some serious hand & eye coordination …
There are not many pop songs in my life that I have admired and liked since my childhood. It is a weird sounding arrangements - not the usual 80’s candy pop - the piece has some twists and turns as well. Plus the lyrics raise well above the usual ‘I love you’ moaning of pop music.
The video above was pretty innovative back then - and once again pretty weird. But like I said - pretty much impressed me almost 30 years ago and I think it’s still something worth remembering today.
Back in the 80’s I adored these modern looking Apricot computers. Too bad they were not so successful like the IBM machines. Their design and technology were pretty cool and innovative.
More? Apricot @ Wikipedia
Fighting against a Gorilla was never my passion. I prefer killing aliens. Donkey Kong was actually the first video game that actually had something like a story ("You player rescue girlfriend!") - and it also introduced to us the great Mario.
This was the first game of the amazing Shigeru Miyamoto - who never had written a line of code or designed a video game before this one.
In the end the Gorilla might have eaten all your money, but Nintendo and Mario were the real winner.
The older Max.
The younger one back in the good old days …
Well, it’s only for a very amusing TV spot. But at least they used the original actor (Matt Frewer).and setup. Great Homage to one of the greatest pop icons of the 80’s. Remember that cool song from Art of Noise with Max?
Once more thanks to Edosan for keeping me updated on my childhood heroes.
I still remember trying to see Walkman for the first at a local department store (Karstadt). They were on display - but all chained to the counter. Bastards. Compared to today’s iPods or discmans they were pretty bulky and heavy. Most of all VERY expensive.
A few weeks later some privileged kids and youngsters had one of these. You could simply spot them by those glowing orange ‘rubber ears’ and their almost absent style of walking. These days it was VERY unusual for anyone to run around with headphones on.
I also liked the Walkman speech phenomena - people who talked while listening to their precious music always screamed - just like some people do today with their cell phones. Oh, what joy - made them always behave like idiots.
Similar the Walkman gaze - some people seemed to dream or stare at distant realms while listening to their music. Somewhere, some other sound planet …
With the Walkman also arrived the tape mixing frenzy. It was not enough to record any old record and just listen to it. You needed special remixes for special moments: one cool mix for jogging (another 80’s craze), one for video gaming (rush tapes) and of course for waking up in the morning on your way to work or school. Some of these tapes are burned so deeply into my memories that I still expect certain song combinations - just the way I banned them once on tape and listened to them a thousand times.
And the shitloads of batteries we consumed to keep those little buggers running. Plus the never ending quest how to transport it. The early ones were to big and heavy for your jacket - so you needed a special belt case, which was uncool. If you put your Walkman in your rucksack you might entangle yourself somewhere. Today we are used to have cables and electronic devices all around us - but in the 80’s hardly anyone carried anything ‘cable’ with them.
Also the world was a much quieter place then. The music anywhere revolution was just about to begin: MTV had to be invented yet and most stores didn’t feature roaring TV sets with ads or fast music videos. Hey, even McDonalds was a quiet place to crunch your burgers!
One thing I very much enjoyed was tape swapping with friends. You listen to mine and I check out yours dude. A few models had two headphone plugins - wow - that was cool to listen to great music together. Especially for couples …
Another rather uncool thing was reliability. I literally glued and taped some of these machines until they fell apart. And there was no way of fixing these broken jukeboxes. It was always cheaper to buy a new and smaller one.
Walkmans really made the phrase ‘My life is a Soundtrack’ possible and I still can remember certain moments in my life plus the tracks that I played that very instant. Crazy?!
What are your Walkman memories … drop a comment please …
Ah, another classic! I remember endless nights in front of my first PC exploring the universe. This was so cool. Click here for a great fan page.
This was the last big Adventure movie made with Stop-Motion puppets. If you watch it today it’s cheesy and childish compared to all these computer generated action flicks. Even a decent episode of Xena or Hercules is better.
The list of actors is rather impressive: Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith and Ursula Andress. But even their greatness can’t help the bad script and usual Hollywood distortion of an old Greek myth (a norse Kraken has nothing to do with the Greek Titans).
I am still waiting for some TV show or movie series that tries to portrait Greek mythology in a good and serious manner! There are so many great stories waiting to be retold. But movies like ‘Troy’ or the above mentioned crappy Xena and Hercules certainly DON’T do these great tales ANY justice.
More? Wikipedia entry and watch the whole movie online.
It is amazing how many bad movies Disney has made since the early 80’s. One of them is the SciFi flick ‘The Black Hole’. It coincided with the first Star Wars movie - and was pretty lame compared to Like Skywalker and the most nerve wrecking space battle ever.
The movies production was actually started way before Star Wars, which explains the old school special effects using wires and models - instead of computer animation and computer controlled space ships.
I can only recommend the movie if you really really really don’t find anything else to watch - or you want to bore some kids. 
More? Wikipedia entry and watch the whole movie online.
What a guy! He had magic! He had power! He had an incredible voice! He rocked the audience! Queen’s performance for Live Aid shows you all you need to know about the power that was known as Freddy Mercury:
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5]
Aids killed Freddy way too soon. Why do we also loose the good people first?
More? his last last appearance and a tribute to Freddy Mercury. Plus his detailed Wikipedia entry.
I still remember my utter surprise when I listened to this album for the very first time. It was pure avantgarde at that time: minimalist electronic sounds and voice arrangements, intellectual lyrics and themes. A harsh contrast to the candy pop of the 80’s.
Also her performances (like in this song ‘O, Superman‘) were most amazing and unusual: video performance art, using computers on stage, special instruments and projections. Laurie Anderson certainly greatly influenced pop and was one of the rare creature ahead of her time.
More? Wikipedia and her official website
If there is one photographer that has shaped the 80’s visual landscape it’s Herb Ritts (together with Robert Mapplethorpe and . His strong black and white portraits and composition lead to a new cool and extremely pleasing aesthetic style.
When I flip thru some of his books or online galleries it’s amazing how many pictures you will recognize, either from magazine covers, pop albums or videos: Herb Ritts at Stanly Wise or a small biography.
Too bad he already died in 2002. Another sad loss.
Images: by the groundbreaking Herb Ritts
Just recently watched my Twin Peaks collectors edition - and all I can say ‘YES!’. Hardly anything on since then can compare with it. I just love David Lynch’s work. But also so many of Twin Peaks are so memorable - like Albert Rosenfeld. He just rocks!
Brilliant photo set on Flickr. Thank god Petromyzon saved these images from the trash. Sure it brings back many memories - but also gives some historic insights in the craziness of the video game revolution. I mean it’s crazy - you spent huge amount of money in a dark, beeping and blinking cave - for nothing but FUN.
The title melody still rings in my ears … so cool … another classic game! Read all about it here on Gamespy - and even download the MAME cartridge. Or simply play it here.
If there is one photographer that has shaped the 80’s visual landscape it’s Herb Ritts (together with Robert Mapplethorpe and . His strong black and white portraits and composition lead to a new cool and extremely pleasing aesthetic style.
When I flip thru some of his books or online galleries it’s amazing how many pictures you will recognize, either from magazine covers, pop albums or videos: Herb Ritts at Stanly Wise or a small biography.
Too bad he already died in 2002. Another sad loss.
Images: by the groundbreaking Herb Ritts
The graphics were shit, but the fun was real. I don’t need super-3d-pixelation - I just need a good game. DigDug was simple, cool and nerve wrecking.
Typical technical simplicity.
Snap! had all it’s cover in this comic style. Unique style.
The techno style included a lot of image recycling. Thanks to cheap scanner and photoshop.
Very stylish: silver sleeve, simple symbols, cool attitude.
Font distortion was all the rage - once people discovered how to make outlines in FreeHand and Illustrator.
No techo collection without a smiley.
Actually a very rare cover style - with a real human. Disgusting!
Stylish image blending.
Mixing the techno comic style and showing off a fertile female.
Wagga Wagga Wagga!
Everybody in my generation knows what that means …
Or just play it right now.
PS: And there is nothing that the japanese can’t turn into to fucked up video.
