Sundance Channel

Rediscovering Human League

Bradford Shellhammer — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:58:25 +0000

When I saw, and wrote about, OMD's new record the other day a few of my younger friends said they'd never heard of OMD. Never heard of OMD? I was shocked. I felt old. Very, very old. This realization that the youth of today is missing out on such a wonderful period of music, the 1980s, shocked me. Um, where do you think Gaga got all her ideas? I started searching through the 15K songs in my iTunes library. Where did pop music as we know it today come from? Too electric to be Rock. Too camp to be hip-hop. Today's pop music, from Ke$Ha to Gaga to Rihanna, owes much to electro-pop.

Tiffany and Debbie Gibson Together at Last

Bradford Shellhammer — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 21:01:01 +0000

In a headline ripped from the "WTF?" file, I was just told about a pair of 1980 teen pop tarts, Debbie Gibson and Tiffany, and their upcoming movie for the Syfy Channel. Yes, Tiffany and Debbie Gibson are starring in a science fiction movie decades after their fame has sputtered out.

OMD, OMG!

Bradford Shellhammer — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:20:20 +0000

OMD is back. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, the duo of Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, first took to the stage in 1978, over three decades ago. And while the 1980s made them pop stars, they never quite achieved superstardom like their contemporaries. This is a shame because their body of work is remarkable and [...]

One-Night Stand Wisdom from ’80s Song Lyrics

Em and Lo — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:00:53 +0000

When we published "How to Greet a Former One-Night Stand" on our site last week, Madamoiselle L suggested the worst way ever to do so: “Hey, how are you doing? Oh, I’d like you to meet your son.” To which Spes responded, "Wasn’t there an '80s song about that?" Reader SS to the rescue! "Googling this was much more fun than folding laundry," posted SS, "which is what I’m supposed to be doing." So here, thanks to SS (and Madamoiselle L and Spes for the inspiration), are the weirdest -- or, at least, most specific -- lyrics about a one-night stand that we've ever heard.

Barbie just wants to have fun

Bradford Shellhammer — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:52:07 +0000

Barbie, long a brand that epitomizes wholesome, American values, has switched gears with the announcement of a new line of dolls in the likeness of 1980s pop music icons. Women, who were little girls during that decade of greed and outrageous fashion, assuredly will approve. Gay guys, who secretly worshipped both pop stars and Barbie dolls, will scream like little girls.

Grace Jones – a mad hatter

Bradford Shellhammer — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:43:58 +0000

Gay icon and scary woman Grace Jones is on tour. Relics of the 1980s continue to tour – look at Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys – but I am especially excited about Ms. Jones coming to town. The onetime fashion model turned Warhol muse turned chanteuse has remained remarkably youthful in appearance over [...]

Re-creating a BACK TO THE FUTURE scene for BACK TO THE FUTURE II

Andrew Hearst — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:17:29 +0000

This is great: Someone has done a side-by-side comparison of two identical scenes in the first two BACK TO THE FUTURE movies. As I Want Stuff explains, In the years between Back to the Future and Back to the Future II, Michael J. Fox visibly aged and the actress playing his girlfriend was replaced by [...]

Product-placement pioneers: the hair-metal band Autograph

Andrew Hearst — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:17:36 +0000

Jon Fine of BusinessWeek has a great post about one of the earliest-known examples of product placement in a music video: the pen company Paper Mate’s sponsorship of Autograph’s 1984 video for “Turn Up the Radio”: Yes, this actually happened: In 1984 Paper Mate found an unknown poodle-rock band called Autograph, gave ‘em some bucks, [...]

Salvaging the reputation of Howard the Duck (the comic book, not the film)

Andrew Hearst — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:30:45 +0000