I interrupt my usually scheduled retro blogging just 'cause I had to do a post about this guy. Burton Crane, a 77 year old auditioning on America's Got Talent.
Heres to another great musical artist recently passed, Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees. He succumbed after a struggle with cancer. His brother, Maurice passed in 2003. The last Bee Gee, Barry, remains with us.
The Bee Gees had a long, amazing musical career beginning in the '60s, hitting a major peak in the late '70s, and continuing with further successes in the '80s and later decades.
Above is one of the trio's '80s songs, "One" which was a big comeback hit for them in the United States in 1989.
Here's a very memorable '80s song, that also is very much a reminder of the history and politics of that era: "99 Luftballons" by German singer Nena. The song came out in German in 1983, followed by an English version in 1984.
The song is a protest song about the fear of nuclear war, which was often present in the midst of the Cold War. The Cold War, the sometimes tense competition between capitalist democracy and communism, was a fact of life since the late '40s, until the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 (with the Soviet Union falling shortly after in 1991).
The early '80s saw an uptick in the tensions between East and West, as both superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) installed new nuclear missiles in Europe. According to Wikipedia:
While at a June 1982 concert by the Rolling Stones in West Berlin,
Nena's guitarist Carlo Karges noticed that balloons were being
released. As he watched them move toward the horizon, he noticed
them shifting and changing shapes, where they looked like strange
spacecraft (referred to in the German lyrics as a "UFO"). He thought
about what might happen if they floated over the Berlin Wall to
the Soviet sector.
Both the English and German versions tell about two children who
buy 99 balloons at a toy shop and release them into the air, where
faulty East German radar equipment registers the balloons as
incoming weapons. The government immediately put their troops on
red alert and scrambles fighter jets to intercept, which ultimately
triggers anuclear war between East and West. In the apocalyptic
aftermath, the song's narrator stands in the rubble of the city and
finds a single remaining balloon. Thinking of someone, she then
lets the balloon go. The music was composed by Uwe
Fahrenkrog-Petersen, the keyboardist of Nena's band, while
Karges wrote the original German lyrics.
In the United States, the song was released in both German and English language versions, and I remember my friends and I would sometimes talk about which version sounded better. The German one always won hands down.
Google recently honored artist Keith Haring (1958-1990) with a Google Doodle to celebrate the anniversary of the late artist's birthday. Heres the doodle. If you were around during the 1980s, you may have become familiar with the works of Haring, who designed, among other things, the cover art for the multi-artist album A Very Special Christmas.
Haring became well known for his vibrant artwork often containing stylized images of people, frequently presented in the form of murals. According to his bio, he became interested in art at an early age, drawing inspiration from the works of Walt Disney and Dr. Suess. Further,
In addition to being impressed by the innovation and energy
of his contemporaries, Haring was also inspired by the work of
Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Alechinsky, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin and
Robert Henri’s manifesto The Art Spirit, which asserted the
fundamental independence of the artist. With these influences
Haring was able to push his own youthful impulses toward a singular
kind of graphic expression based on the primacy of the line. Also drawn
to the public and participatory nature of Christo’s work, in
particular "Running Fence," and by Andy Warhol’s unique fusion of
art and life, Haring was determined to devote his career to
creating a truly public art.
Haring's signature was the "radiant child." In the early '80s, Haring became a fixture in the burgeoning underground New York art scene.
Here's one from the glam metal side of '80s music: "Turn Up The Radio" by Autograph. A cool sci-fi-ish video, which I remember well from back in 1984, when it came out.
I'm working hard, you're working too We do it every day For every minute I have to work I need a minute of play
Day in, day out, all week long Things go better with rock The only time I turn it down Is when I'm sleepin' it off
Turn up the radio I need the music, gimme some more Turn up the tape machine I wanna feel it and you know what I mean
Speaking of computers, here's a classic Apple computer commercial from 1984. This commercial, also named "1984" which ran during the Super Bowl that year, introduced the breakthrough Apple Macintosh computer. According to Wikipedia:
In one interpretation of the commercial, "1984" used the unnamed
heroine to represent the coming of the Macintosh (indicated by her
white tank top with a cubist picture of Apple’sMacintosh computer on
it) as a means of saving humanity from "conformity" (Big Brother).
These images were an allusion to George Orwell's noted novel,
Nineteen Eighty-Four, which described a dystopian future ruled by
a televised "Big Brother". The rows of marching minions have direct
cinematic parallels with those in the opening scenes of the
classic dystopian film Metropolis.
The commercial was directed by acclaimed director Ridley Scott.
