The '80s live again

Last week, in some real, quality bonding time, Avram and I had a discussion about '80s music that we liked. It turns out most of the music doesn't even make it on the same radar. (Ok, so I'm totally recreating the conversation based on the songs we talked about - everything else is made up).

Avram: I like Danger Zone (I'm totally making up this title) by Kenny Loggins. From Top Gun.[Avram just informed me this was the actual title. He also wants you to know that it's a great song. Great Album.]

Me:Boring. I first heard it on the movie Twister, and thought it was cheesy. I loved "Eternal Flame", by the Bangles.

Avram: What song? By the who? Speaking of the Who....

Me: Never really heard of them until we got married.

And so on. But as I was creating my made up mixed cd I would buy on i-tunes, we got the idea of looking up these songs on You Tube, so we could share the songs with each other. The first song we looked up was "Total Eclipse of the Heart" - the Bonnie Tyler version. We watched the original music video. Now, you need to watch this video, even if you think you don't have time to, or the inclination. It'll give a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Bright Eyes." If you don't want to watch the whole song, skip to 3:39 - but I'm warning you, then you'll miss the ninjas.



After that fun, we had to watch other '80s videos as well. None of them quite had us busting a gut like this one (mostly because it was not in any way what I expected from knowing the song), but we did enjoy our walk through the past. As we were winding down, Avram wanted to see a song from our shared (in style, but never in actuality) Stake Dances. He found "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by the Eurythmics.



We watched it, and yup, that was the song we'd both heard in our teenage dancing years. (And no, I don't know what a cow has to do with abused dreams). But then we were curious who the woman was, so Avram looked it up, and it's (ready for this?) Annie Lennox. Annie Lennox who sang "Into the West" from Return of the King. Wow, does that woman know how to...keep singing? Reinvent her image? Sing different styles?

PS - for the curious, here are my songs: They are in no way indicative of the best songs of the '80s - they are just the songs I grew up hearing on the radio in the '90s, and liked a lot.

"Forever Young" Alphaville
"Don't Stop Believing" Journey
"Eternal Flame" Bangles
"Break My Stride" Matthew Wilden
"99 Red Balloons" Nena (with the eternal question - German or English?
"Land Down Under" Men at Work
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" Bonnie Tyler (although I'll never think of this song the same again. The undertone of...well, pederasty is too strong of a word here, so we'll go with younger high school crush is just a little...disturbing.)
"One Night In Bangkok" Murray Head
"Jack and Diane" John Mellencamp
"Major Tom" Peter Schilling
"Take My Breath Away" Berlin
"With or Without You" U2

Avram's Songs:
"Don't Worry, Be Happy" Bobby McFerrin
"Danger Zone" Kenny Loggins (from Top Gun)
"The Touch" Stan Bush (from the Transformers)
"Storybook Love" Willy Deville (from The Princess Bride)
"You're The Best" Joe Esposito (The Karate Kid)
"I need a Hero" Bonnie Tyler (A Paramount Pictures commercial)
"The Last Unicorn" America (from the movie by the same name).
[Edit] From Avram--Thora and I were talking about this post, and Michael Jackson came up. I was an enormous Michael Jackson fan when I was kid (and still am, may he rest in peace). I loved "Bad" and "Smooth Criminal" "Thriller" and so on. I even used to watch Michael Jackson's egregious anti-drug movie Moonwalker because it had that awesome Smooth Criminal video. In fact, I once got in trouble with my Primary Presidency, because we were to make hand puppets of our heroes and I made Michael Jackson. It was a pretty great puppet, with the glove and everything, but apparently my teachers took my parents aside because they were concerned about my role-models. They had nothing to worry about--there is no way I could dance that well. -ARS.

Notice - I got my songs from the radio. Guess what Avram's exposure to the '80s came from?