Headlines
Synthpop, Shoulderpads and Mrs (Thatcher) Brown
10th March 2009
There was something awfully good about the ‘80s. Despite the decade being a tale of two halves and most of the College population not being born until the 1990s, Britons, especially the young, are reliving the iconic decade twenty-something years on, writes Shae Courtney.
It seems that some of the best, and unfortunately worst, bits of Mrs Thatcher’s decade are making a comeback. Yes, mass unemployment, some truly chronic fashion and a population increasingly disengaged from politics are rumoured to be amongst some of the rebirths.
Sarcasm aside, there has been a revival of new wave and synthpop by groups such as, New Young Pony Club, La Roux, MGMT and Noah And The Whale. Womens’ shoulderpads, skinny jeans, ‘alternative’ hairstyles and leggings have made somewhat of a return in the recent year and 2009 is tipped as the year of increasing social divergence and upheaval. If union leaders and an increasingly aloof government cannot resolve their grievances then scenes such as the Brixton Riots, the Miners Strike of 1984-85 and increasingly segregated and irritant immigrant communities are not beyond the realms of possibility.
On a more positive note, just as the ‘80s had both good and bad times, so have the noughties. Economic prosperity came in the first half and economic ruin came towards the end, but will this signal an end to Labour in power or will they be able to reinvent themselves and scrape a tight election success like Major did in 1992? Nobody knows the answer, but we can look forward to a decade of almost certain change. Will the ‘tens’ herald a feel-good factor that was greater than the noughties?
Well…arguably the noughties never really had the pleasure that the eighties did anyway, so we can probably look to the future with almost desperate certainty and say that the next decade has to be better than the current. Who knows, they may even wheel out Mrs Thatcher for ‘round two?’