Sharing The Eighties

Sharing music has always been my passion. Ever since I was in high school, I would invite classmates and friends over to my house and play stuffs to them. I would introduce each song like a radio DJ would, mouth some trivias about the artists and start my indoctrination process. There were days when my audience would become patrons of my art, and some days when they would just ignore my mission to convert them. College was a turning point when I met a like-minded classmate who turned out to be more knowledgeable than me. He opened my eyes and ears to British music of the eighties. I remember seeing a cassette of the Sheffield band ABC in his attache case. After class, I bought a copy of ABC's "The Lexicon Of Love" and that introduced me to the world of U.K. synth-pop music. Yazoo, Depeche Mode, Heaven 17, British Electric Foundation, Roxy Music, Ultravox, Blancmage, The Human League, Haircut 100, Adam & The Ants, Visage, Soft Cell, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Fun Boy Three, The Pretenders, New Order, Joy Division, Altered Images, Bow Wow Wow, The Art Of Noise, Thompson Twins, The Cure, Echo and The Bunnymen - the musical outputs of these acts became the barometers of what we would brand as great music. We are equally impressed by the names these acts call themselves. British bands are certified geniuses! Sadly, my friend and I totally ignored what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic. They were several attempts to sincerely appreciate the American counterparts, but only a chosen few were deigned credible. Blondie, Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, The B-52's, Devo, Sparks, The Motels, Violent Femmes, Guadalcanal Diary, 10,000 Maniacs, Laurie Anderson and REM. The Australians had it worst. We felt they were producing a bunch of really mediocre acts like Midnight Oil, Pseudo Echo, INXS, Eurogliders, Real Life. How about the Germans? They had Propaganda, Alphaville and Camouflage, which were either too mechanical or derivative. As for Canada...well, Men Without Hats were equally forgettable. I would say we were music snobs but we were never selfish in sharing and preaching the best and the worst of eighties music.