CD80: Yuppie Pop!

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all these songs do one thing and one thing only...and thats remind me of young go-getting braces-wearing city traders in a wine bar called The Dagmar or something similar, all admiring each other's fleur de lys cufflinks whilst discussing who's got the nicest saloon car...strangely this seems like a good thing:

Spandau Ballet 'Gold'
Heaven 17 'Temptation'
Belouis Some 'Imagination'
Style Council 'Long Hot Summer'
ABC 'The Look Of Love'
Level 42 'Something About You'
Hue & Cry 'Labour Of Love'
Eurythmics 'Miracle Of Love'
Swing Out Sister 'Breakout'
Duran Duran 'Skin Trade'
Blow Monkeys 'Digging Your Scene'
Prefab Sprout 'The King Of Rock n' Roll'
Hazell Dean 'Who's Leaving Who'
Bananarama 'Cruel Summer '89'
Brother Beyond 'Can You Keep A Secret'
Dusty Springfield 'Nothing Has Been Proved'
Pet Shop Boys 'So Hard'
Halo James 'Could've Told You So'
Tears For Fears 'Advice For The Young At Heart'
Lisa Stansfield 'Live Together'

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:33 (twenty-three years ago)

shit, forgot The Communards

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:36 (twenty-three years ago)

muzak for evil yuppie scum

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:39 (twenty-three years ago)

haha way to make pat kane cry!!

(i completely and totally disagree with the class generalisation at work here btw)

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:39 (twenty-three years ago)

"Imagination"..best for catwalk strutting.

― Fran, Friday, 10 January 2003 15:40 (twenty-three years ago)

me too...but whaddya gonna do?

i love at least half the tracks i listed btw...in case that wasnt obvious

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:40 (twenty-three years ago)

anyone who dislikes more than abt three records on that list is an idiot, which expands the defn of "evil yuppie scum" beyond normal tolerances, i fear

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:42 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm not keen on Hue and Cry or The Eurythmics, but otherwise it's all splendid stuff. What about Sade?

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:45 (twenty-three years ago)

what ABOUT Sade indeed

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:46 (twenty-three years ago)

i think she might actually be too classy for them...its only by accident that those yuppies realised how good the first 5 tracks are :)

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:47 (twenty-three years ago)

No it's because Sade was on Epic Records and therefore appeared on the WEA/CBS Hits compilations, as opposed to the Now cassettes from which stevem has clearly cribbed the above ;-)

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 10 January 2003 15:48 (twenty-three years ago)

'bout two thirds of the CD tracklist listed above is really schweet...but what I wanna know is: would Patrick Bateman approve? What about Michael J Fox's character from Family Ties?
Side issue: is it possible that "young go-getting braces-wearing city traders in a wine bar" secretly listened to Motley Crue and Accept back then when they thought nobody was looking?

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:49 (twenty-three years ago)

this is like alex in nyc's theory that the only people who can possibly have heard of the mc5 wear bear-pelts and carry spears

is it possible that "young go-getting braces-wearing city traders in a wine bar" openly listened to all kinds of different things, depending on where they came from and who their friends were, and that basing yr sociology on family ties makes you EVEN LESS CULTURALLY AWARE THAN PATRICK BATEMAN?

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 10 January 2003 15:58 (twenty-three years ago)

The ones with whom I worked at the time all seemed to listen to Frank Zappa.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 10 January 2003 16:00 (twenty-three years ago)

is it possible that "young go-getting braces-wearing city traders in a wine bar" openly listened to all kinds of different things,
I suspect they (ahem) "Pretended to Like" alot of stuff.

and that basing yr sociology on family ties makes you EVEN LESS CULTURALLY AWARE THAN PATRICK BATEMAN?
Why all the eeeevil, mark s. Its all a hypothetical question posed in fun. Besides, I knew a dude back in high school who was an "Alex Keaton" wannabe.
Subthread: G Gordon Gecko...whats on yer walkman?

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Friday, 10 January 2003 16:07 (twenty-three years ago)

the opening post is quite tongue-in-cheek of course, i just think its funny that i like a lot of those songs partly because i get this fixed vision in my head that actually becomes re-assuring as it inevitably has childhood connections

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 10 January 2003 16:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually, half of these songs remind me of playing with legos while watching MTV.

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Friday, 10 January 2003 16:11 (twenty-three years ago)

i'm not really fighting you custos, i just hate hate hate these kinds of social generalisations about largescale pop phenomena

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 10 January 2003 16:18 (twenty-three years ago)

the lego thing is so much more specific and interesting and informative!!

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 10 January 2003 16:19 (twenty-three years ago)

i'm not really fighting you custos, i just hate hate hate these kinds of social generalisations about largescale pop phenomena
Well, I couldn't think of another way to express the idea of "evil yuppie scum" without invoking either "Alex Keaton" or "G Gordon Gecko"
My Bad.

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Friday, 10 January 2003 16:21 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't know a single song on the list! The band names (or at least seeing that many in one place) all made me physically tense up in revulsion. But I think that's more just a conditioned reflex from not liking this stuff in my less worldly childhood. I might like them OK if I heard them now provided they have good tunes and all.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 10 January 2003 16:29 (twenty-three years ago)

This thread has reminded me of one of those schizophrenic tapes i made as mentioned in sinkah's recent thread:

A. Bananarama - Deep Sea Skiving

B. D Bailey/J Zorn/G Lewis - Yankees

Both excellent summer listening in '83.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 10 January 2003 16:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Never mind Sade - a "Yuppie Pop" CD without a single track by Dire Straits?!?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 10 January 2003 16:54 (twenty-three years ago)

they're AOR stewart...SCOR even!

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 10 January 2003 17:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Jefferson Starship - "We Build This City"

― Adam Bruneau, Friday, 10 January 2003 18:29 (twenty-three years ago)

ack.

― Lord Custos Omega (Lord Custos Omega), Friday, 10 January 2003 18:37 (twenty-three years ago)

The ones with whom I worked at the time all seemed to listen to Frank Zappa.

Zappa... that's perfect. Is it even ironic anymore that Zappa is a yuppie fave?

― Aaron A., Friday, 10 January 2003 19:10 (twenty-three years ago)

No Simply Red?

― Daniel (dancity), Saturday, 11 January 2003 07:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Jackson Browne - Somebody's Baby

― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Saturday, 11 January 2003 08:05 (twenty-three years ago)

i'm not sure if theres enuogh saxaphone

― minna (minna), Saturday, 11 January 2003 08:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Zappa... that's perfect. Is it even ironic anymore that Zappa is a yuppie fave?

ahem. i work in an office full of yuppies, exactly none of whom like Frank Zappa (and a significant portion of same have never even heard a note of his music). and i can count on my one hand the # of people who liked/heard Zappa when in the not-too-distant past i spent 3 years of my life at a place where yuppies-in-training were corraled.

then again, i've been accused of being a yuppie myself.

― Tad (llamasfur), Saturday, 11 January 2003 09:19 (twenty-three years ago)

You've all failed to mention Blue Mercedes and their odes to all things yup', See Want Must Have and I Want To Be Your Property. As far as I remember they were marketed as a yuppie band.

Add Carmel - More, More, More, Mel & Kim - Respectabauuul and The Reynolds Girls - I'd Rather Jack (Than Fleetwood Mac) to the original list also. Or don't.

― Macattack (Macattack), Sunday, 12 January 2003 22:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Where's the Depeche Mode? I thought they'd be obvious.

-Matt, whose grabbing hands just can't get enough

― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Sunday, 12 January 2003 22:56 (twenty-three years ago)

three weeks pass...

I remember about 10 years ago Belouis Some - Imagination was played everynight. Dont remember that video on The Chart Show.

― Craig, Saturday, 8 February 2003 16:44 (twenty-three years ago)

The soundtrack to Bright Lights, Big City has some Depeche Mode. That movie has a lot of the yuppie sound:
http://us.imdb.com/Soundtracks?0094799

― A Nairn (moretap), Sunday, 9 February 2003 04:14 (twenty-three years ago)

four years pass...

I wandered randomly into Banana Republic on Prince Street in NYC today and they were blasting Swing Out Sister like it was the last pop group on earth. Retro yuppie nostalgia anyone?

― burt_stanton, Wednesday, 12 December 2007 05:20 (eighteen years ago)

Why isn't "Avalon" by Roxy Music mentioned in the above thread? Sounds like the ultimate yuppie track to me.

― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 12 December 2007 09:17 (eighteen years ago)

yuppie as 80's try hard trendy - in touch with at least some pulse geir.

― Finnegan, Wednesday, 12 December 2007 11:34 (eighteen years ago)

this is like alex in nyc's theory that the only people who can possibly have heard of the mc5 wear bear-pelts and carry spears

Bahahahahahahahahahahaha. just found this now.

― Alex in NYC, Wednesday, 12 December 2007 14:14 (eighteen years ago)

Kinda related, -- I'd say that Squeeze fit the bill here (certainly post-"Tempted").

― Alex in NYC, Wednesday, 12 December 2007 14:15 (eighteen years ago)

five months pass...

oh no, now that I'm getting older i'm starting to appreciate the joys of Roxy Music - Avalon over the scum fuc punk of my earlier years. Is this ... growing up?

― burt_stanton, Saturday, 17 May 2008 21:06 (eighteen years ago)

I got into Avalon and general scum fuc punk at around the same time so the question is moot.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 17 May 2008 21:18 (eighteen years ago)

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