I was in my twenties during the 1980s and didn't realise just how extraordinary a decade it was. Looking back now, I feel that decade was the last time culture felt unified, daring and truly alive. People still go on about the 1960s, and rightly so. But if any decade since came close to matching its cultural impact, it was the 1980s. For me, no other decade has come close.
The decade saw the advent of MTV, which gave visual representation to pop songs, turning them into short films, often to a high artistic standard, that everyone watched. It seemed as if each new hit by artists like Madonna or Michael Jackson was a newsworthy event, mentioned on TV and radio news.
There was a shared experience back then. Songs were on the radio, in music videos and in films, like “Take My Breath Away” from Top Gun and “What a Feeling” from Flashdance. These weren’t just hits, they were events. Music, film and fashion moved together, like one element. The concept of “niche markets” had yet to be invented or become a blight on cultural experience.
The films of the 1980s had a kind of magic. They entertained without cynicism. Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, Ghostbusters, were optimistic, stylish and heart-warming. There was still wonder in films then. Few were franchises, and few depended on comic book heroes, like 98% of films now.
The “flashy” clothes people wore (mostly in primary colours) and the "loud" hairstyles might look ridiculous now, but there was confidence and rebellion in them. You could tell someone’s “group” by their look: punks, mods, metalheads, new romantics, goths, rappers. Fashion wasn’t minimalist. It was expressive. People dressed like they meant it. Irony had no place in fashion back then.
The decades that followed resulted in a splintered culture. Then the internet arrived and took away the shared experience we all had. Everyone got their own niche, their own algorithm, their own curated feed.
Today, a song goes viral for 15 seconds. A film goes to streaming shortly after its release and disappears within a week. Music, fashion and film don’t “talk to each other” the way they used to.
In the 1980s, it all felt connected. A song could define a summer. An item of fashion could start a craze. A film could make you want to carry on living. There was a collective rhythm and cultural heartbeat you could feel.
I didn’t know I was living in the last great cultural decade. None of us did at the time. But when I look back now, from the blandness of today’s culture, I see a decade that was vibrant, confident and full of creative cohesion. I miss it greatly. Not just for what it was, but for the kind of culture it made possible. The kind we will probably never see again, as long as the internet exists.
