The Guardian has an excellent and entertaining article on the dubious trend of reviving early 80s music and fashion as ‘genius’. I have to say I like a lot of the retro bands mentioned by the piece, and have recently really enjoyed the releases by Hot Hot Heat (retro Cars and XTC, with Cure vocals) and Ladytron (Gary Numan electro-froid, with Human League psycho-sexual lyrics and Flock of Seagulls synth flourish). And I have been mining bands I’d missed first time around, like Gang of Four or the Chameleons, that all of a sudden have new currency in part because of semi-tribute bands like Interpol. All the same, some of the overlooked trends of 1982 are overlooked for a reason. They may be fun as whimsical fashion marker for the cool kid set, but I can’t imagine them resonating deeply and over time. Or maybe that’s my historical chauvinism at work.
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