Inside Pop Music's 80s Revival
The pop-culture obsession with nostalgia is undeniable. It seems as though more and more media every year is allotted to rebooting, revisiting, or squealing some former property with which the public has an emotional bond. This trend is also true for pop music where past trends are constantly rearing their heads in the modern landscape. The most recent of these revivals have been the 80s revival: a sound that has been dominating the charts. Just look at two of the biggest albums of 2020: “After Hours” by The Weeknd and “Future Nostalgia” by Dua Lipa. These albums were both critical and commercial hits, spawned several radio-spinning singles, and went on to become two of the most streamed albums on Spotify in 2020. And when you delve into the sounds of both projects, they are bursting with 80s influence.
The 80s are baked deep into the DNA of “After Hours”. Amongst the driving synths of chart-dominating “Blinding Lights” you can make out a sample of “Take On Me” by Ah-ha, one of the most notable one-hit wonders of the 80s. But the influence doesn’t stop there. The Weeknd croons through glistening soundscapes that recall the synthwave grooves of Michael Jackson and Tears For Fears, all reflected through a moodier modern lens. “In Your Eyes” even features Kenny G for its standout saxophone solo.
In Your Eyes - The Weeknd
Dua Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” is an album that announces its nostalgic influence right out of the gate. With its tracklist of dance-floor ready pop, it feels glitter-slicked, wrapped in lycra and poised for a good time. There’s the obvious Olivia Newton-John nod on bass-heavy single “Physical”, which came accompanied with a Jane Fonda inspired workout video. But there’s also the clave rattles on “Don’t Start Now” recalling Madonna’s “Borderline”, and Lipa’s sultry lower range, reminiscent of other 80s pop icons like Kim Carnes and Pat Benatar.
Physical Workout - Dua Lipa
But if you look back into the pop of the past couple years, you’ll see that this influx of 80s is nothing new. Another album from 2020, “Plastic Hearts” by Miley Cyrus, showed Cyrus going full glam rocker with assistance from Joan Jett and Billy Idol. “Kings and Queens” by Ava Max, (currently situated in the top 20 at the time of this article being written) directy interpolates “If You Were a Woman (And I Was a Man)” by Bonnie Tyler and has a melody reminiscent of “You Give Love A Bad Name” by Bon Jovi. Back in 2016, “24K Magic” by Bruno Mars stormed the charts (and Grammy voters’ hearts). Its sound pulled influence from the funk and R&B of the time. In 2015, Carly Rae Jepsen’s cult classic “E•MO•TION” captured the pure catharsis and glee of an 80s love song done right. Even Taylor Swift’s 2014 move to pop superstardom, “1989”, pulled several sounds from the 80s handbook, such as with the storming electronic groove on final single “New Romantics”. Other acts like WALK THE MOON, The 1975, MGMT, CHVRCHES and Robyn have pulled heavy influence from the decade as well, both on and off the charts.
Versace On The Floor - Bruno Mars
What about the 80s that has made them so appealing in recent years, more specifically, the 2010s? There are many potential reasons, the most prominent being the theory of the 30 year cycle of nostalgia. The theory revolves around that it takes approximately 30 years for the people that grew up in a certain time period to eventually age into the position of controlling the cultural zeitgeist, falling back on older properties that provided them comfort and inspiration in their youth. This isn’t just true with the people that make art but with those that consume it as well. People in their 30s have disposable income to spend, and oftentimes indulge in nostalgic properties. Creators are rewarded for filling that demand, and hence the loop continues. This can be seen with the slew of movie remakes/reboots/sequels in recent years, (“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, “Terminator”, “RoboCop”,) and new properties that bank off of that old nostalgia, (“Stranger Things”, “The Mandalorian”, “Cobra Kai”). The same trends are bound to be found in music as well.
Now, by 30 year cycle terms, we should’ve been well into the 90s revival by now, and yet, we still haven’t made it. What has given the sounds of the 80s such longevity in pop music? A look into some history of the decade might help. Many things changed for music in the 80s. Music production technology was making great strides in the 80s, with the introduction of higher quality samplers and the digital synthesizer. However, it was not in music production, but in music consumption, that we see the most growth.
Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
One of the most notable musical events of the 80s was the launching of MTV, or Music Television. Along with MTV’s launch came the boom of the music video, and with that, an emphasis on visuals when it came to an artist’s marketing. What resulted was a decade where everything was engineered to be iconic in the very technical sense: images represented the people as much as the music. Artists like Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince influenced not only music, but fashion and cultural trends. Constant reinvention to keep your fanbase interested became the norm. Music wasn’t just about the songs anymore-- though the songs were still very important.
Along with the launch of MTV, a slew of new music technology hit the market. The introduction of CDs, cassettes, the Walkman and boom boxes made music portable and customizable to individual listeners. On top of all of that, the general economic stability in the U.S. during the 80s left people with increased disposable income. People had more money to spend, and they wanted to spend it on the wave of popular music flooding the market. The genre reached a level of relevance and ubiquity in the 80s that is nothing short of impressive.
The overall influx of new technology, globalization and commercialization of music in the 80s resulted in an accelerated market that shifted from trend to trend at breakneck speed. Musical trends included the growing prevalence of hip hop and rap, hair metal, new wave and synth pop. The 80s also saw countless older stars, like Diana Ross, Paul McCartney and Lionel Richie revive their careers. But it also saw an influx of new stars. But the 80s were the decade of the one hit wonder, and some of these hits could get obscure. Take “Rock Me Amadeus” by Falco from 1985, the only German language song to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and a parody song about Mozart at that. The result of all this was a decade that has an incredible amount of sonic variance, and stars, to its name.
Take On Me - a-ha
This is one of the biggest potential reasons why the 80s revival has been able to hang around for so long. The decade has so much to offer in the sounds one can borrow from it, and this is apparent in the results of it’s revival. All of the modern projects mentioned thus far sound like the 80s, but they sound nothing like each other. Because while they all pull from the 80s, they pull from such different parts. “Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus is a glistening pop crooner with an underlying rock rollick, pulling influence from the likes of Stevie Nicks-- even getting remixed as a mashup with “Edge of Seventeen.” The crunching guitars on WALK THE MOON’s smash hit “Shut Up and Dance” were a nod to “Jessie’s Girl”. And still, the ghostly, moody synths echoing all over MGMT’s “Little Dark Age” whisper with influence of acts like The Cure. The ubiquity of sounds that the 80s produced means that there is a vast, deep pool from which to pull influence, one that hasn’t run out in all the years people have been doing so.
Midnight Sky Remix - Miley Cyrus
With all of this in mind, the future of the revival is up in the air. It’s still too early to see what the hits of 2021, or the new decade as a whole, will look like. But we can try and speculate based on some emerging trends.
As mentioned before, if we follow the 30-year cycle, then the 90s should be ripe for the picking in the 2020s. A 90s revival has been brewing in the indie rock sphere, with artists like beabadoobee, Soccer Mommy, and Snail Mail pulling influence from Lilith Fair artists like Fiona Apple and Liz Phair. You can also see the 90s boy band craze mirrored in the influx of K-Pop groups. However, it also looks like the 2000s could potentially make a comeback too. Take the nu-metal pop infusions that’ve been flooding the scene from artists like Poppy, Grimes, and Rina Sawayama. There’s also the booming genre of hyperpop, which is basically a love letter to early internet aesthetics.
XS - Rina Sawayama
The usage of nostalgic sounds may, at first, seem just as reductive as the endless churn of movie remakes, art that revels in pastiche and cheap brand recognition rather than innovation. But a revival also offers a slew of opportunities to look back towards the past as a way of honing in on what the future may bring.
First off, revivals can be used to refine the ideas of the past. Take “24K Magic”, which showed Bruno Mars’s distillation of past sounds with incredible successful results. It appealed to the general public and gained Grammy praise and countless radio spins for a reason. The album takes past trends and polishes them up. However, the really exciting potential of revivals is the opportunity to not just polish, but to sculpt and collage. On “Future Nostalgia”, for example, Dua Lipa didn’t just pull from the 80s, she braided them in with Kylie Minogue influence, a touch of disco and a pinch of modern flair. What a revival can offer, (and what this 80s revival has resulted in at its best,) is less of an empty pastiche and more of using past influences as stepping stones to lay down a new path. Let’s hope that no matter what old sounds we pull from next, we’ll be using them to craft something new.
Sources:
https://americansongwriter.com/inside-shut-up-and-dance-walk-the-moons-number-one-hit/
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/audio/a30369182/80s-music-inventions/
http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/80smusic.html
https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-commercial-allure-of-the-eighties