As Christmas approaches and the Holiday Season continues, here's two possible gift ideas for your friend who loves '80s culture. One is a book called Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists And Songs That Defined The 1980s. Its a book that takes you on a memory trip back to the new wave era of the '80s. Each chapter of the book discusses a single well-known '80s song and the group that did it. Songs dealt with include "I Melt With You" by Modern English, "The Metro" by Berlin, "Girls On Film," by Duran Duran, and other similar beloved songs from the '80s.
This book just came out and it's really a wonderful trip back in time for the fan of '80s music, the groups that made the songs, and the times when it all occurred.
Here's a great companion book that came out about a year or two ago, called Talking To Girls About Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield. In the book, Sheffield gives a great account of growing up as a teen in the '80s decade. Ironically, this book is set up in a similar fashion to Mad World, in that each chapter is named after a specific '80s song which in some way connects with the youthful topic or incident that the chapter deals with. The real stories brought up in this book will bring up instant memories for those of us who grew in that era.
I think it says a lot about the '80s that both of these '80s related books are structured around specific songs . . . the '80s indeed were an era where memories seem most closely tied to specific songs, perhaps more so than other decades. It was indeed, the last great era of pop.