80s Attack

What better way to spend a beautiful, unseasonably cool Tucson morning than... sitting in the office finishing a report for unnamed taskmasters? Since this part of the process is fairly brainless (making pretty pictures of projectile points), and since nobody else is in here, I took the opportunity to finally listen to some CDs sent by a friend: five hours of the music from the years we were in high school.


Hohokam projectile point (A.D. 950-1100).

Unfortunately, we went to high school during the musically dark years of 1982-1985, in a rather socially conservative town where no one we knew had heard of Violent Femmes or Echo and the Bunnymen. Some of the stoners had a reggae band, but that was as far outside the mainstream as we ever ventured. So I popped the first disc in and promptly hopped on the 1982 Top 40 Nostalgia Express.

Who knew I was carrying so many Journey lyrics in some heretofore unaccessed part of my brain?All the words to "Gloria?" And Jenny 867-5309? Jaysis. You should hear how she talks about you you should hear what she says! Fuck! I can't get out of the house with my lunch and the right set of keys most days, but I can bloody well sing along with Huey Lewis and the News 25 years after the fact. Fuck, fuck.

Amazingly, there are some tracks on here I would still listen to. Joan Jett is still a righteous babe (even my 14-year-old son thinks she kicks ass enough for his band to cover her songs). I did once hear the bassist from Squirrel Bait (a Louisville band following the footsteps of Big Black and Husker Du that almost made it big) say that Huey Lewis at least never sold out and always played hard-driving rock 'n' roll.

Then there's the stuff that makes me say oh fuck even when no one is around to know I'm listening to it. Kenny Rogers? Did I really own his albums? That must have been someone else. Tainted Love? And I'm only halfway through the 1982 disc, giddily wondering what awaits on the next three.

UPDATED: Wow, 1983 was a really rough year musically.