This latest Facebook questionnaire asks you to name the top ten records of your teen years. This one sparked more than a few, shall we say, enthusiastic discussions among my social network. There were some near-Unfriending incidents. Granted, mine is a particularly musically-charged gang of misfits. Dear friends absolutely demolish each other over hot button issues such as whether or not Billy Squire got robbed. (Update: Don't @ me.)
Long ago in a galaxy we 40-somethings refer to as "childhood," we built a cherry Kool-Aid world with rad high tech toys like Lite Brite, Etch-a-Sketch, and Slinky...a popular (*cheap*) birthday present. Imagine every one of us rug rats fighting over a toy you play with on the stairs. We made our own fun, too. Get a pair of tube socks and you could slide across the linoleum, or shuffle out some sweet static on the shag carpet. I'm sayin', a kid in 1970s America could make a pretty good time out of not-much, because we had a ton of not-much.
There wasn't much on TV either, so you watched your favorite shows, which aired weekly on specific nights. There was one TV and four channels, so there were fights over who got to pick until bedtime, then the adults watched boring shows (Dynasty, Flamingo Road) followed by the news, until the TV went off overnight. I don't mean the TV got turned off...I'm saying the broadcast transmitter shut down its signal and went to static until morning.
In our house we loved Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, The Dukes of Hazzard, Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk. Up until they started to air commercials for the Star Wars Holiday Special, we thought Battle of the Network Stars was the absolute peak awesome sauce of "special" programming. I mean I assume we went apeshit over the idea of a Star Wars special, but I can't verify, because personally, somehow I have no memory of seeing The Star Wars Holiday Special. I might have blocked it out. We'll come back to that later.
Life Day
The Star Wars Holiday Special takes place in a vague point along the Star Wars timeline, opening with the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon—Han Solo and Chewbacca are attempting to evade a garbage scow in a tense scene. Evasive maneuvers! It's a promising start, but the excitement is woefully betrayed by the next million minutes. There's musical numbers, comedy skits, and at one point there is an un-related cartoon for no reason.
The whole thing hinges on Chewbacca's plight of making it back home for the Wookie holiday. Back on the Wookie home planet his family waits for his return. There's his son Lumpy, and his grizzled father whose name, cringeworthily, is Itchy. His wife Malla is anxiously awaiting Chewbacca and the family bickers because of the tense situation. There are long...surprisingly long...spans of angst-ridden Wookie howling, which is the loudest kind of Wookie howling. It just keeps going on, while Malla urgently seeks news of the Millennium Falcon's whereabouts.
The Guest Stars
Art Carney, Bea Arthur, Harvey Korman and Diahann Carroll. Put another way: who? Even my cool teenage cousins weren't old enough to know any of those people, which begs the question, "Who dafuq was this special for?" Kids, in theory, but in that case, they couldn't have gotten Wonder Woman or the Fonz at least so we'd have some joy of recognition? Performances include Bea Arthur (pre-Golden Girls!) as a bar owner who intones a ponderous ballad that lasts about a week. Harvey Korman does a few different skits, like one where Lumpy reads a technical manual and Korman appears to be acting out the instructions. What fun‒a dramatic reading...of instructions? Was this some sort of zany wacky fun for Grandpa? Although it could be suggested, with that skit, that Harvey Korman may have invented Max Headroom.
The Tech
Our shit was still analog in those days. Lest we forget. A Slinky is a coiled spring. Etch-a-Sketch let us scrape right-angles with magnets. And Lite Brite's entire operating system was a light bulb. In the Star Wars Holiday Special, there was great promise in the cool factor, like when Malla places video calls to Luke, Leia and Art Carney (okay?) to see if any of them had heard from Chewie or Han Solo, because they're still not home and it's almost Life Day. Kudos for the sci-fi, because video calls weren't a common thing yet. But those scenes, as it turned out, were the only appearances of our beloved Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker and R2D2. I am sure my cool teenage cousins said "Aw maaaan! Rip off!" There's promise when we notice that Chewbacca's son Lumpy owns that cool hologram game table from Star Wars. You know, when they're heading to Alderaan and Chewie plays a game against R2D2, when C3P0 says "Let the Wookie win, R2!" But Lumpy uses the game table to call up a hologram dance troupe, and they jump around for about a month. Bor. Ing. There's even a Virtual Reality visor.
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As kids we saw more cool tech in sci-fi and fantasy and the world has a lot of people to thank for today's devices. Most of which are used for porn. And I don't even mean guys like Steve Jobs. I mean the nerd herd who popularized this stuff, artists and writers like Bruce Vilanche. The Star Wars special showed us VR on November 17, 1978, with a Wookiee head-mounted display. And yes, of course it was used for a wack segment of Wookie space porn. The company that would later become Sun Microsystems would put out the first virtual
reality(VR) products almost a decade later, in 1987, including head-mounted displays (HMDs)and data gloves.
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The Space Porn
The award for Most Awkward guest performance goes to Diahann Carroll. Again, I looked it up to see where we kids might have known her from when the Star Wars special aired. According to my research, she was on Milton Berle. Again: WHO WAS THIS SPECIAL FOR? In her scene, Miz Carroll emerges from a kaleidoscopic field of light as a mermaid sex vixen, and all of this action appears inside the Virtual Reality visor worn by Chewbacca's dad while everyone waits for the Millennium Falcon to arrive for Life Day. What to say about this scene? It's pretty much soft space porn. Working a lotta bare shoulder action, mermaid sex vixen sighs and undulates and croons. She porn-whispers "I am your fantasy." The old ass Wookie grunts and moans in his special chair. She says, "I am your experience. So experience me." He seems to be doing just that. She says, "I am your pleasure. Enjoy me. This is our moment together in time that we might turn this moment into an eternity." She sings a song for about a million hours. And let me hit you with that again:
"This is our moment together in time that we might turn this moment into an eternity."
Dude, what.
The Mental Block
We would have given up our Reggie Bars for anything Star Wars-related, so I should remember the special. But I don't. Does anyone remember it? Maybe we were so sugar-torqued that we couldn't sit through all those loooong, boring guests. I know we definitely for suresville would not have sat through that softcore cyber booty scene with a mermaid lady and a old-ass Wookie. Our brains would have sent alarms and we'd be a streak of flammable pajamas racing away in a flurry of Hawaiian Punch and Cookie Crisp crumbs.
But now that we're older and we have more viewing options (and weed) the Star Wars Holiday Special is available on YouTube, and we'll probably stream it several times each and every holiday season. Have a Life Day party. Smoke it if it's legal, and have a happy Life Day! ⭐
Look, I get why everyone is gleefully clicking and sharing and tagging me. Did you see? You gotta see. I get it. In my circle I'm known to be a flag-waving, card-carrying, true-blue Generation X pop culture maven, my latchkey kid, TV-addled brain way overloaded with massive volumes of useless trivia in such subjects as Schoolhouse Rock, Spandex, when to use gel versus mousse, Madonna, Ronald Reagan's policies, the right way to make a mix tape, Oliver North, new wave, Tiger Beat Star and more details about The Brady Bunch than any normal person ever needs to know. It's not good, nor is it useful in any practical way in life, it's just how I do all this shit. But no, I don't want to make fun of Corey Feldman.
Stand By Corey
Setting aside the fact that I've already seen him sing and dance on YouTube easily 8 or so years ago, meaning that this 80s child star sideshow isn't news to me is this: it's not funny to me. You know what I see when Corey Feldman is performing? A person who is not well. I've been down that deep, dark hole of batshit crazy, and everything about his behavior is looking pretty serious to me.
Imagine living in Corey Feldman's head. He's thoughtful and intelligent, emotional, he's always been eccentric. Imagine already being a differently-wired kind of kid, navigating the substance-fueled gauntlet of fame that took so many lives. Imagine growing to your teens, 20s, 30s and 40s and regularly getting phone calls with news that another contemporary is dead. River Phoenix is dead. Dana Plato is dead. Corey Haim is dead. Heath Ledger is dead. Brittany Murphy is dead. Michael Jackson is dead. Cobain. Whitney. Farley. If even half of the stories are true, it's a miracle that Corey Feldman wasn't one of the headlines.
The Gauntlet
It's a relief that we still have Drew Barrymore, Johnny Depp, Robert Downy Jr., who endured the gauntlet but eventually broke free. Some made it out, but were never quite right after the the tumult of that punishingly harsh workover on the body and brain. Danny Bonaduce talks about it all the time. Too many drugs too easy to get, too much booze, plus a warped lifestyle and a mercurial psyche. All that stuff rewires your brain. So many of these kids missed the gold ring on the merry-go-round of "normal." To hear the stories of the survivors and the RIP's, it sounds hard, and it sounds lonely and crowded at the same time.
Nancy Reagan's exuberant "Just Say No" pamphlets were a fucking joke, Robin Williams probably used them to snort cocaine. Back then it seemed like there was some sheen of badassery about just not giving a fuck how you get through your day, as long as the show goes on. Wasn't the mere mention of a celebrity's name in the same sentence as "Betty Ford" an instant punchline?
Today there is more tangible, actual help available. More rehab, less recklessness. More yoga and veganism, less hookers and blow. The realities of mental illness are surfacing, the general public is learning the connection between depression and heroin, anxiety and booze.
It's weird when your brain stops working.
When I had my breakdown in February 2014, I thought I had figured out the answer to world peace. I thought it was whispered to me in the night by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, whose death had been announced that day. I was positive that he picked me to tell the world what he found out in the afterlife. I posted some weird stuff on Facebook. My friends must have all known that I was losing my mind, but to me, it was just a thing that was happening as clearly as cooking dinner or doing the laundry. You don't realize while it's happening that synapses are misfiring and you're losing touch with reality.
See, I don't think Corey knows that he isn't a dancer. He doesn't get that lurching around on stage like the drunkest uncle at a wedding is strange behavior. I think he thinks he's doing great. He might be up there thinking that he is channeling the spirit of his lost idol and friend Michael Jackson. I think after the TODAY show performance Corey expected to wake up to glowing reviews.
Doesn't Corey Feldman have people? I had people. My people saw that my behavior was escalating into weirdness, they rallied around me like an army of heroes and I got the help, and I got better. I didn't have the celebrity to go live on a world stage with a back-up band dressed as angels.
Whatever is going on, I feel bad for Corey Feldman. Yes, I can see how you think I'm your Gen-X girl for the news cycle, but no, I'm not joining in the "let's all make fun of Corey Feldman" festivities. He's a contemporary in trouble. I've liked Corey ever since he was Reggie in The Bad News Bears. We were 9 years old.
Winning.
Hey, I might be totally wrong. Maybe Corey Feldman, having gotten clean and sober years ago, is now perfectly rational and clear-headed and this is all just a wild shot taken by an eccentric celebrity to make headlines and test boundaries, like what Miley Cyrus did with the weird protruding tongue and all that twerking.
Could be, but do you really think? Does that sound right to you?
Okay, maudlin soapbox session complete. Next time I pull out the Generation X game board I promise we'll go back to discussing why, dear God, why the hell did Jennifer Grey think it was a good idea to get a nose job. Dammit, Jen.❤
From ages 8 to 12, or from the self-titled debutto Diver Down, I was a Van Halen poseur. I pretended to like them. During this period I drew the band logo on my schoolbook covers, and I made my own shirt with an iron-on transfer from the Skate Odyssey shop (you had to get a baseball jersey for an iron-on transfer, or just don't even bother.) In reality I hated baseball jerseys and I couldn't have named one Van Halen song. Why all this pretending? Because like all of us in the gaggle of younger cousins, I wanted to impress our eldest cousin, Dave. My cousin Dave was the coolest person I knew. The rest of us little cousins were mesmerized. Dave was in high school and had a real girlfriend. He played football. And was a true blue diehard Van Halen fan and was old enough to go to Van Halen concerts and get the real shirt and everything, which I thought was the ultimate pinnacle of supreme badassery. I didn't only want to impress Dave; I wanted to BE him.
It was not until Dave played us little kids Diver Down (1982) did I actually listen to Van Halen. Diver Down has three instrumentals and five covers, including Roy Orbison's "Oh Pretty Woman." My favorites were "Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now" and the album ender, a silly a capella slur-along of the old country standard "Happy Trails." Maybe I'd heard a version of those songs before, at Grandma Lombardi's house, because she watched Hee Haw. Diver Down was a gentle intro to Van Halen and harder rock in general, like a sweet slushy margarita that gives you a taste of the hard stuff before you eventually jettison all that ice and sweet syrup in favor of straight shots of Cuervo. Dave probably knew that, because now he had me asking for more, and here comes the back catalog with "Running With the Devil" and "Everybody Wants Some." By the time "Jump" came out, I had made another iron-on T-shirt because now I was 14 and a true blue diehard Van Halen fan. "Jump" was the first single off 1984, which also had "Hot for Teacher," "I'll Wait," and my favorite, "Panama." 1984 was awesome.
"Jump" was the first concert video that captured my attention. Compiled from a series of live performances, it's got riveting visual dynamics -- fast cuts and slow motion edits -- and it's got David Lee Roth leaping, pouting, undulating and just generally sexing up the place. Diamond Dave was a consummate front man, perfect for MTV. Wolfish grin, lean and sinewy gymnastics-made body that he showed off with snug, barely-decent spandex and leather. Leaping off Alex's kit (FOUR kick drums), writhing on the floor, doing naughty things with the mic stand...the guy was a force. David Lee Roth's stage antics, paired with Eddie's guitar wizardry and a killer synth riff, define what Van Halen was all about in their heyday. If people want to know what was so great about Van Halen, just show them "Jump." They'll understand.
Until my coolest cousin set the needle into the groove of "Running With the Devil," the hardest rock I'd heard was maybe Journey? Does that count? But now these accessible, friendly party boys emboldened an expansion into harder, faster rock. Though I was mostly a Brit pop, new wave, Madonna-emulating teenager, still I appreciated, while not exactly reaching T-shirt making level, bands like Def Leppard, Quiet Riot, Ozzy and even, thanks to a new girl who'd come to our 7th grade class, Motley Crue. (Side note: same girl introduced me to Zappa).
Admittedly, these bands were one-offs, a smattering of faster, louder but still mainstream hits that arrived with the pablum of an entertaining video or else how would I have come to know them? In fact, I didn't "know" Def Lep or Riot or Ozzy. I knew "Photograph" and "Cum On Feel The Noize" and "Crazy Train." It would be years yet before I'd be indoctrinated into heavy metal proper, outside the realm of MTV.
I need to credit Van Halen with a notable side effect. Achieving a passable knowledge of heavier rock gave me an edge over the other girls in high school in terms of earning the attention of this one certain boy. There was nothing to do in our woodsy northwest corner of Connecticut, so we drove around aimlessly, fishbowling with deafening heavy metal. He blasted his catalog of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Queensryche and Ratt at ear-splitting levels on the tinny radio in his beat-up VW Rabbit. I mean loud. I didn't hear a single word that guy said for our whole first year. I just nodded and smiled and read the liner notes for Operation: Mindcrime. But all of that was years in the future. And it all began with Van Halen.
The band may have done okay with the next two records after all the Eddie/Dave drama causing the split, but by then we were calling them Van Hagar in a decidedly eye-rolling tone. Sure, they'd later reunite for a couple of events. In theory the old wounds were healed, and the awesome foursome ambled through some decent sets delivering the old crowd-pleasers. But we all knew it wasn't the same, and never would be again. It would never again be "Jump."
This
essay was part of a "Throwback Thursday" series requested by a friend. A
bunch of us did it. You're supposed to post, and write about, one "top
favorite" video from the 1980s every Thursday.
Culture Club got so popular so fast that I needed to rouse myself from my summer of 2016 grim languor and actually do research. Billboard charts show that, yes, these guys were the first band since the Beatles to chart with 4 songs at once. No wonder it's all a blur.
"Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" was the first charting single off Culture Club's debut album Kissing to be Clever (1982), then they followed quickly with Colour By Numbers and more hit singles. Every hit had a video. Wouldn't you, if you were such a visual delight and was 1982? I fell headlong in love. I'm certain that what pulled me into Culture Club's incredibly infectious blend of new wave and blue-eyed soul ("the blues in high heels") was the second album, Colour by Numbers, and that it began with the video for "Church of the Poison Mind. " You see, in the earlier "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me" Boy George was doing his kicky/sway dance moves, but he was a bit stiff and his expression remained stony throughout. But in "Church of the Poison Mind" Boy George lets fly his wholly endearing personality. Those devious eyes are sparkling, he's smiling, he's singing with his hands, his cheeky wit is popping off the screen. The uptempo pop/soul tunesmithery is accompanied by the band members running away from Japanese paparazzi, down streets and through alleys, and finally escaping through a door in a brick wall into an airplane, which Roy Hay and Jon Moss pilot to New York. Not only that, but "Church of the Poison Mind" also prominently features Helen Terry. Helen was the shit. Her gospel vocals soar, murmur or sidle alongside, around and over Boy George's velvety croon. That lady sends that whole record over the top. When Helen sings, ain't nobody sitting down.
Culture Club shot off like a firecracker and burned out just as fast. Waking Up With The House On Fire (1984) offered few gems, the standout track being "Mistake No. 3." I'd suggest that maybe they should have spent more time with the material instead of rushing a third release so quickly, but I don't think it would have helped. Boy George was reportedly leading an ill-advised, excessive lifestyle and the band couldn't survive the tumult. They broke up in 1986 and things looked pretty dire for Boy George. But happy ending -- he does bounce back with some respectable solo projects, famously sang the title tune for The Crying Game, and today a new, once again slim and happy-looking Boy George is back performing for the people.
I played my Colour By Numbers album until it warped, then I got the cassette, then the CD, and now I just stream it. Colour By Numbers has traveled with me for three decades across the great digital divide.It's other big hits were "Karma Chameleon" of course, and "Miss Me Blind," but if you have never heard "Black Money," "Stormkeeper" or "Victims" then you really need to get Colour By Numbers. "Victims" brilliantly ends the record, as well as any argument against Culture Club being anything but pure genius.
(This essay was part of a "Throwback Thursday" series requested by a friend. A bunch of us did it. You're supposed to post, and write about, one "top favorite" video from the 1980s every Thursday.)
Cyndi Lauper arrived on the scene with all the gentle politeness of a flash flood. One day she was just suddenly everywhere, blowing up MTV with "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," the first single off her first record, She's So Unusual. Cute as a button with that unruly mop top of streaky orange hair, Cyndi's synth pop, throaty voice and blended motif of punk and old Hollywood glam appealed to just about everybody. Style meant a lot back when video killed the radio stars, and this chick from Queens had buckets of style to spare.
Where were you when music changed your life?I was in my room in our pink ranch house, listening to Casey Kasem's American Top 40 on my boom box radio, which is a very, very old sentence to say. Along with the TV shows Dance Fever and Solid Gold, Casey Kasem was expanding my musical range beyond that of my parents' influence. Not to imply that my parents have poor taste. Quite the opposite. My parents crush it for sorting out the best music.In those days their growing record collection had propulsive disco 45s and long-playing singles, danceable hits like "The Hustle" and "Fly, Robin, Fly." I was taught to carefully lower the turntable needle into the groove for Vicki Sue Robinson, Barry White, Earth Wind & Fire, The Commodores, Tower of Power, Sly and the Family Stone. We never missed Soul Train. The living room radio dial was permanently fixed at 107.5 out of New York. WBLS. All soul and R& B with jazz on Sunday afternoons, and the Quiet Storm really late at night. Slow jams. Luther Vandross, Minnie Riperton, Teddy Pendergrass, Marvin Gaye, Sade.
Still, at 13, I was looking for my own musical icons, and for me that meant diving into the mainstream. I turned to Mr. Kasem and Deney Terrio and that lot for new sounds. In retrospect, it was most likely in order to have something in common with my cousins and the other kids in my class. Before long my bedroom walls were covered with pulpy magazine pin-ups and posters of Rick Springfield, David Bowie, Styx, Journey, Hall & Oates and Michael Jackson.
Now, let's see, who was charting in Billboard in '83, the source from whence Casey Kasem spun his weekly Top 40. A quick consult with Wikipedia to collaborate with my memory and my bedroom walls. We had Juice Newton, Air Supply, Supertramp, Barry Manilow, Christopher Cross, Lionel Richie, The Pretenders -- Oh! Culture Club! Now there was an outlier. Clearly something new was afoot with Boy George arriving on the scene with "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me" but that masterful new wave pop deity hadn't fully hit my radar yet, and it would be months before "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me" got far enough up the charts to share space with "Billie Jean."
Then seemingly out of nowhere, here comes "Hungry Like the Wolf." Things would never be the same again.
From the first trill of girlish laughter that kicks off "Hungry Like the Wolf," I was quite literally stopped in my tracks. The song was so utterly captivating that I just stood there in my room, staring at my mini-boom box, transfixed by the bright bass and the infectious synths and doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo's the likes of which I had never heard before in my scant life. Time slowed down. I can see the whole scene in my mind's eye -- my antique bed with its white eyelet spread, my radio, all of it. It's like the music was saying "This is going to be important. Forget nothing about this moment."
I had no clue who the heck was this Duran Duran. I was too young to have seen Barbarella so I didn't even recognize the reference as the name of the bad guy in that 1960s Jane Fonda soft porn space movie. No Wikipedia, kids. No looking up every iota of information in two seconds.
I wasn't the only one. Before too long, my friends and I were ALL ABOUT Duran Duran. We each picked out our favorite guy and wrote his name all over our book covers and did a lot of other stuff you do when you're a 13-year old girl. I remember one Tiger Beat or some such publication informed us that Nick prides himself on keeping his nails trim, and Simon had studied to become a tree surgeon and prefers blue underwear. Utterly ridiculous from the adult perspective, but at the time, we absorbed every inane factoid as gospel and reveled in every dumb detail. They were our Beatles.
I had dibs on Nick Rhodes. Not only was he simply a stunning beauty with full, effeminate lips, a shock of floppy boyish hair and bold eyeliner, but that 80s synth just never fails to slay me. I wouldn't know until years later that Nick is in large part the primary studio guy for Duran Duran, meaning his gift for synth sounds and songcraft carried a lion's share of the distinctive DD sound.
I still don't think Nick Rhodes gets enough credit, because people see him in live performances pressing one finger on his keys and assume he can't play. You have to understand the programming he does in the studio in order to be able to trigger those sounds with that one finger. He's created and arranged those sounds in advance. He's a genius.
In the video for "Hungry Like the Wolf," notice that Nick is barely in it? That's because the rest of the band went to Sri Lanka to start shooting it ahead of Nick, who remained behind in the studio making magic for the next release.
Though "Hungry Like the Wolf" blew my little mind at first radio listen, who knows where Duran Duran would be today if not for MTV? There might have been better songs out that year, but these five young men were gorgeous, and just in time here comes a platform to exploit their stunning looks and London style. The video launched them into super-stardom. "Hungry Like the Wolf" aired on MTV every two hours, at least.
My friends and I all got our own copies of Rio, and I played mine until my parents wanted to murder me in my sleep. I even named my cat Rio. Rio is start-to-finish a magic slice of 80s synth pop bliss, and "Hungry Like the Wolf" instantly became a personal and cultural touchstone for me and many members of my generation. My parents had some great records, but Duran Duran showed up at the exact right time and place to become part of the great wave of influence that put my generation on the map, culturally speaking. The "fab five" contributed in a huge way to the rich foundation where we planted our own flag, and it's still there today. It'll always be there. X marks the spot, my loves.
(This essay was part of a "Throwback Thursday" series requested by a friend. A bunch of us did it. You're supposed to post, and write about, one "top favorite" video from the 1980s every Thursday.)
I was 15 when "Take On Me" hit the American airwaves, along with a killer video that made this Norwegian pop song into an instant classic. It was one of two singles off A-ha's first record, Hunting High and Low, but most people are hard pressed to name the other one.
"Take On Me" is a sonic transport 30 years back in time to the spectacular corn & cheese laden decade of roller skates, legwarmers and big hair. Anchored by a delicious, irresistible Juno synth keyboard riff, "Take On Me" is a strong pop song with cute lyrics, catchy phrasing and that crazy dynamic falsetto in the chorus. It's been covered dozens of times and, I admit, is one of my personal favorite shower singin' tunes. But only when Joe's not home. I'm not much of a singer, one of my big Sads.
In 1985 the video knocked my mismatched neon socks off. The action starts in a diner (a popular music video motif in those days) where a pretty girl is flipping through a giant comic book. She's gazing into the pencil-drawn eyes of lead singer Morten Harket when he comes to life and invites her into his cartoon world. He shows her a two-way glass that reflects the real world on one side. In a greaser jacket, snug white T-shirt and jeans, looking all dreamy-eyed and well-coifed as any 80s boy should, Morten is equally sexy in both worlds. The guy is just a dollface to the moon and back. Who wouldn't take his outstretched cartoon hand and follow him into the comic book pages?
"It's no better to be safe than sorry...take on me...take me on..." The love story resolves back at the girl's apartment, Morten breaking free of the crumpled pages by hurling himself against the walls, landing finally as a sweaty flesh-and-blood man on her floor. Yeah, that didn't suck. Nothing makes a sweet boy-meets-girl song better than sexing that stuff up with a glistening Adonis from Oslo.
In 1985 I wouldn't know this, not for many years yet, but the drawing used in "Take On Me" is an early animation technique called rotoscoping -- essentially tracing with a pencil over real frames to create a kind of digital flipbook. The by-hand method of rotoscoping would be replaced by animation tech, but never really went obsolete. I think that's what makes the video hold up.
Essentially a one-hit wonder in the states, A-ha has actually been making records on and off, but fairly consistently, throughout the 90s and 2000s. They never did hit as big in the USA as they did with "Take On Me," but in Europe they fared pretty well these last three decades. Their website says that there's even a new 2015 record, Cast in Steel, and an upcoming tour.
Say after me. That's, like, totally rad, like, right?
(This essay was part of a "Throwback Thursday" series requested by a friend. A bunch of us did it. You're supposed to post, and write about, one "top favorite" video from the 1980s every Thursday.)
Frank Davis Resort, Moody CT (Photo: Colleen Berry)
Eighth grade class trip. This place closed down, but just envision Dirty Dancing and you've got the idea.
But without any of the dancing or dancers.
Just the vaguely germ-spreading social activities,
and also the pool from Caddyshack.
Me and my best friends all went a different way dressing for the class trip.
That's the problem with having to wear school uniforms.
We get this one single day to make an impression on everybody at once. The Michelles look like Simone's back-up dancers.
Michelle's outfit is hard to see - she's wearing a pink Tuxedo ruffled top and pleated pinstriped jeans.
Look at Simone in her Madonna belt and Duran Duran ankle boots! I look like an extra in a Go-Go's video. That's my mom's red striped swimsuit.
That's our teacher Mrs. Dorozinski on the lounge.
I wish Colleen was in the photo.
Bonus Throwback.
Left: 8th Grade Graduation.
Right: Simone's house in Thomaston, CT. There's Colleen!
The Gauntlet
See, I don't think Corey knows that he isn't a dancer. He doesn't get that lurching around on stage like the drunkest uncle at a wedding is strange behavior. I think he thinks he's doing great. He might be up there thinking that he is channeling the spirit of his lost idol and friend Michael Jackson. I think after the TODAY show performance Corey expected to wake up to glowing reviews.
