Whatsup

The 1980's were a time of great excitement an energy in the world: America had elected
its one time Hollywood hero Ronald Reagan to the Whitehouse. Britain saw its first
female Prime Minister come to power, the first personal computer entered the marked
place and as always the face of popular music was changing. In the era of the
dynamic entrepreneur the world's consciousness was infact becoming more environmentally
and socially aware and nowhere was this more reflected than in the arena
of music. Indeed more than one and a half billion people in over 160 countries tuned
in on 7 July 1986 to watch the biggest rock show ever staged - Live Aid, a charity
event that will never be forgotten.

The 1970's had left us with a heritage of wide ranging musical styles, such as Glam Rock,
Heavy Metal, Reggea and Disco and these genres were not totally abondoned with
the turn of a new decade. The echoes of Reggae, wich had achieved international
recognition through artist such as Bob Marlay, were to be heard in Musical Youth's
smash hit "Pass The Dutchie" wich achived the coveted number 1 position in eight
European countries. Likewise Heavy Metal found its voice in the dynamic Alice
Cooper, whose career reached its pinnacle in 1989 with the chart topping song
"Poison". The irony is that Alice(real name Vincent), famous for his demonic look and
outrageous stage shows is infact the son of a preacher.

From the mixed up scene that was Punk a young Englishman named Stuart Goddard
emerged who would achieve fame under his new name -Adam Ant. Like his rock
predecessors Adam was not afraid of making strong visual statements: indeed he
relished the opportunity to recreate himself as a pirate for his 1981 album "Prince Charming,"
from wich the number 1 hit "Goody Two Shoes" is taking. Television Was as
flamboyant with the wild excesses of Dynasty and Dallas where the world tuned in to
find out who shot J.R.

Another group of individuals also keen on playing with extravagant images were Spandou
Ballet. A band boldly setting ther own "New Romantic" style and like many of their
contemporaries they were also keen to embrace the new electric sounds being produced
by modern synthesizers. One need only to listen to the production on Nik Kershaw's
"Wouldn't It Be Good" to hear how influential this new form of sound was becoming.

Teenage icons were still as prevalant as ever: infact when Bobby Brown made a personal
appearance at a record store in Oxford Street, London, so many fans turned up that the
street had to be closed off. The fans also turned out in force to congratulate Boris
Becker as he became the youngest men's winner at Wimbledon aged just seventeen. A
liitle more decorum was shown towards Kim Wilde, doughter of Marty Wilde the 50's UK
hit maker, whose increasingly glamorous image led her fans to nickname her
"The Bardot Of Rock." In 1988 Kim had her biggest hit with the song "You Came" wich
reached number 3 in UK and number 1 in Germany where it stayed in the charts for
over 23 weeks.

The 1980's were a decade of great change and even greater music.

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