AllMusic has a theory:

"All this ghettoizes an era in pop music that was rich in innovation, great one-hit wonders, oddities, and inexplicable flukes that make it a wonderful cross between the first days of the British Invasion and the peak of AM pop in the early '70s. It was the last great era for pop singles — the last time that singles really mattered, the last time that something totally unexpected could capture the minds of the public, before radio consolidation meant hits couldn't build in a region, before MTV turned to non-music programming and cut off a national outlet for new music."

Are you including yourself in "most of us"? You're 19, which means you born halfway through the 80's!!! What would you remember?

As if the `90s were even that bad by comparison??? I don't get it.

Cloudbuster said:

I wish the 80's was a country so I could move there. And maybe they'd even let you in, Mr. Olde-Timer.

CinisterCee said:

Two words: Celine Dion

VoicesCarry said:

it was so cool to be a teenager thru most of the 80's

Most people are usually nostalgic for the time when they were young and the music that they listened to while growing up.Personally , I think the late 60s and most of the 70s were better eras for popular music.Alot of music from the 80s that I enjoyed at the time, now sounds more dated and plasticky.I think it's because of the (then hot) cheezy synthesizers and production techniques.

I miss MJ from the 80s. Black and popular for his dance moves and music. It was an age where it was cool to like MJ

Madonna, She wasn't practicing Kaballah and was BAD. She had so much sexual energy and was even sexy during this time. It was an age where she could do no wrong, and when people though she was doing wrong, it only benefited her in the end.

Janet. Chubby sweet Janet. It was an age where Janet didn't always have her abs revealed and focused solely on dancing and being Miss Lady of Control

Prince i miss most of all. Sexual Prince. Unjehova Prince. Need i say more.

3 words: Cuz we's old!!!

VoicesCarry said:

I agree with a lot of what's said there. Musically speaking, the majority of the 90s was boring for radio. I stopped listening to R&B radio regularly in the 90s, because it got to be a stale formula, and the same thing happened to pop radio. At that point being "out of style" became the style and grunge took over. It was sort of a phony attempt at an anti-movement, but the grunge era did have some worthy acts.

I miss the 70s.

i wasn't even a teen in the 80's, but i miss the era. i just think it was more fun then. i grew up in the 90's and don't think it was cool then.

80's was the heydey for MTV, sadly lost forever. MTV had no ads, and played mostly underground artists who could never get on radio. It was an exciting time, an explosion of new wave and birth of the music video. Those were the days. Let's hear it for Martha Quinn.

suzysue said:

i thought i was the only one who felt that way. i remember a lot of the acts as a kid in the 80's and loving them but once we got to the 90's the music became dark, predictable and downright boring for the most part.

Plus, the music was just plain fun. It wasn't corny to make a fun record. It wasn't corny to be happy on an album. Now you have to be hard and rough and it's just not cool at all to me.

I don't.

MrTation said:

Well said. I was born in the wrong decade.

minneapolisgenius said:

I actually agree with you. I was totally nostalgic for the 60's while growing up and just hated the 80's the whole time. Why anyone would want to be a teenager in the Reagan era beats me. The music was lame too.

But I tell this to my dad and he just cringes. He says the 60s weren't a great time to be young, because there were really bad things happening, like his friends dying in war.

It's all just a big illusion, I guess.

The 1980s was the last decade where uptempo, funky, dance jams ruled the airwaves, with the exception of the very short lived dance/house era in the very early 1990s. From the 1990s till the present, practically everything is either a midtempo song or a ballad. It's rediculous, music is going backwards instead of forwards. My generation is not the one that's behind the times, it's the new generation. I have never seen a generation that has lost it's will to party and shake ass like this generation has. I guess they will keep getting slower until they return to the dull days of classical music.

The 1980s was also the last decade for individuality. Everyone had their own look back then. Stars looked liked stars, not everyday people. Stars stood out from the crowd and wore custom made clothes that no one else had. They didn't wear jeans and sports jerseys. Today's stars look like they have been shopping at Wal-Mart.

It's not that I miss the 1980s, I miss good, real music, made by musicians and singers, rather than thugged out, juvenille delinquint, common, ordinary "poetry readers".

heartbeatocean said:

Yeah, I always view it with rose-tinted glasses to be sure. But then there are people like my mother who liked growing up in that era, LIVED IN SAN FRANCISCO IN '69, and never once went to any concert! You can't even imagine the shows she missed back then at the Fillmore West, Monterey, etc. I tell her this and she sort of regrets it now, but says she was never into rock music at all back then.

Ummmm let's see,

Micheal Jackson
Prince
Phil Collins (The NO Jacket Required album)
STing and the Police (The King of Pain album)
Bruce Springstein
Lionel Richie
The Billy Joel album that had like 6 top 10 singles..
Madonna
The birth of HipHop music when it was still an artform and not commercialized
New Edition (my generation's Jackson 5)
One hit wonders
Club music/House had stars like - Shannon (Let the music play) & Colonel Abrams
The foreign Bands like - Men at Work
Culture Club
Kurtis Blow
The Minneapolis sound including groups like RFTW and Mint Condition
Run-DMC
Kool Moe Dee
I wear My Sunglasses @ Night
AHA
MTV
Surface
Broken Wings
True - Spandu Ballet
Milli Vanilli scandal
Whitney Houston
California Girls - David Lee Roth

Ok, i could go on, but U get the point. And this is just the music, don't get me started on film and television...

Frankly, growing up during the 1980's sucked for me, mostly because I went through some family tragedies and because I grew up in a rust belt town that had its factories close down either permanently or moved overseas or to Mexico. Having said that, the music I grew up with was fun! I loved the early hip-hop, but most of the kids I grew up with were into the hair metal or new wave. What I liked about that time besides watching MTV nearly round the clock (when they still played music videos) was being able to form your own sense of style. A lot of people I knew were into the new wave look, but there were a few genuine punk rockers and metalheads, but there were also a fair amount of Michael Jackson and Madonna wannabes as well as some b-boys and b-girls. If you didn't go for one particular group, chances were that you would find another hroup much to your liking. And despite the early threats of the Reagan years, things for us then-teenagers was quite positive culturally. However, I believe that the mood of young culture turned dark in 1992, with the grunge and gangsta rap and LA riots and the recession during that time, when the media kept calling my generation a bunch of slackers.

purplecam said:

sadly you're not alone. the 90's were dark and depressing and filled with 'Poor me' syndrome. the 80's just seemed like a happier time to me.

i miss the late 80's of the r&b era. people actually sung their hearts out on their albums and their videos were simply put so that normal everyday people could relate. Now it just titties and ass everywhere, expensive cars and clothes. Its boring now...

People weren't for the most part trying to sound like anyone else in the 80's. That shit started in the mid-90's somewhere. Plus,nobody tried to overdo it when they sang. Whitney came out and was the 80's version of Aretha and even she didn't try to do those vocal acrobatics with her songs, she just sang from the heart and it was and still is memorable.

vainandy said:

man Andy you are RIGHT on with this point! in the 80's stars looked like stars!.i miss the days of the outragousness of Cyndi Lauper,Prince,Dead Or Alive,Boy George etc....i dont want a star to look like any shlub that lives next door to me

oh the 80's, great memories from a great decade
the music was what i feel made the 80's
the fashion well now thats a different story
everything back then was relaxed & fun
have to admit, i sorta still live like i'm still in the 80's

jayaredee said:

I totally agree with you
I really do miss the 80's, looking back it was a great time to be a teen

They just don't make great music like they did back in the 80's anymore. And whatever great music is out there today, 9 times out of 10, I'll bet it has been inspired by something from the 80's.