Retromania: Pop culture's Addiction to its Own Past. (New Simon Reynolds book).

For me the eighties ran 1983-1992 really.

You need Clinton in the White House for the proper 90s.

True words DL For the record I assumed you meant circa '91, but yes, mid-90s did have a more positive collective spin in world affairs and pop culture I suppose. I guess the nineties revival we're seeing right now is more the era Ned just mentioned. Brother feel a little like a Britpop pre-cum - a premature attempt to revive something that's still too recent to get truly misty eyed about. But that '88-93 period feels much more like a foreign country these days.

the late 90s never ended

he is kidding himself if he thinks in 2021 there wont be 2oth anniversary remastered sets of white blood cells and is this it! everyone knows theyre coming. im surprised they arent already here for the 10th anniversary, seeing how quickly things get elevated to classic status (alicia keys' debut already has the multi-disc remaster treatment), but im sure oasis, and pulp (well theyve already had the deluxe edition releases) and blur etc will all get their 'THE MOMENT THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING' rereleases. it doesnt matter if it really did do that or not (nevermind has a better case than the others ive mentioned) but rock critics/label people etc will never shy away from good old hyperbole. im sure in 20 years SR wouldnt entirely baulk himself if he had to write about how ariel pink changed everything.

one of the interesting things about the mammoth archive of c20 media available to us now is that parents no longer are stuck with whatever's on TV at the moment. i.e. my son is watching old episodes of sesame street (because i like them) instead of the night garden or teletubbies (which i don't like at all)

I grew up in the late 70s and early 80s, but what I remember watching on TV was old episodes of the Three Stooges or sixties sitcoms like I Dream of Jeannie or My Favorite Martian, ie stuff made 10 or 20 years before, effectively from a different pop cultural period. A little too much is made of this idea that this is the first generation to be obsessed with its immediate past. Just because we have more choice about what in the past we can access doesn't necessarily mean that we're doing it more than before.

^ Yeah, the Retromania idea doesn't seem to apply to TV very well. As you say, the American TV menu has always been jam-packed with old material; I would argue even moreso in the 1970s/80s than now. And in some ways the programs of today are more radical, more boundary-pushing, than they've ever been before. However, I remember watching such shows as "Gilligan's Island" and "The Beverly Hillbillies" without having a clear sense of what period of the past they came from. TV was just a big fantasyland floating in timeless space. Whereas with music it was and is pretty easy to realize when you're listening to something old, and I think SR is onto something when he suggests that people nowadays are much less embarrassed about listening to 30-40 year old music and consequently less demanding of newness from the purveyors of popular music.

i hear what you guys are saying but those early sesame streets aren't the "immediate past", they're... 40 years old. !! when i was little the earliest stuff they showed on TV was "i love lucy", which was only half as far back

It's obvious when you're watching something that's more than 10yrs old, the clothes, haircuts and picture quality scream "old!"

There's a whole bunch of seventies haircuts occurring in real life right now.

normally i'd agree with you but i think TV shows/music videos/etc from the late 90s haven't become naff yet (though we may have had this discussion elsewhere)

xpost it's a comeback i've looked forward to!! those big feathered charlie's angels cuts

what i want to know is... when's this going to come back?

http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/241183760-1e8b99b6bd.jpg

my mom refused to let me have one, but now i'm grown up! i can do whatever i want!

I'm shuddering with dread anticipating the undercut revival.

Oh God Tracer, haircut of nightmares ::shivers::

It was always the most annoying, bullying kids who had that tail hanging down their necks. Reptilians imho. Die.

Undercuts: Where did these come from? I don't remember any actual celebrities or tastemakers rocking this haircut and yet every boy - EVERY BOY at my school had one, like a uniform. We've lost something, etc....

That rat-tail thing is still de rigeur in rural towns in Southern France.

Undercuts: Where did these come from? I don't remember any actual celebrities or tastemakers rocking this haircut and yet every boy - EVERY BOY at my school had one, like a uniform. We've lost something, etc....

Dude, footballers.

ah good point. i always underrate the sartorial power these people have.

I had an undercut :(

It's obvious when you're watching something that's more than 10yrs old, the clothes, haircuts and picture quality scream "old!"

― Matt DC, Thursday, 25 August 2011

Is this true? Picture quality is a big thing in making something look old, but thats dependant on the quality used at the time

Friends looks "old!"
I don't think X-Files looks much different than now

Stuff from 88-94 looks old right now, generally. Those early Friends credits look very old fashioned but are now moving into the kitsch/retro realm.

I wonder if we don't unconsciously edit out the retro aspects of periods when we look back at them. A bit like, if you see a movie set in 1981 for example, the soundtrack will all be 1981 songs, when in the actual 1981 there were oldies radio stations and the like and you'd probably be hearing as much old music as new. I can think of plenty of retro stuff from my late 70s childhood that would never get any play in a modern recreation of that era. And that editing process means we're more likely to consider our era as being more retro than previous ones.

Yeah, films set in London in 1977 will more likely 'accidentally' have fashions and soundtrack based around 1978-1980 than 1975.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG5JNFjlup4

I wonder if we don't unconsciously edit out the retro aspects of periods when we look back at them. A bit like, if you see a movie set in 1981 for example, the soundtrack will all be 1981 songs, when in the actual 1981 there were oldies radio stations and the like and you'd probably be hearing as much old music as new. I can think of plenty of retro stuff from my late 70s childhood that would never get any play in a modern recreation of that era. And that editing process means we're more likely to consider our era as being more retro than previous ones.

― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, 25 August 2011 11:32 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

Shane Meadows said he was conscious of this when filming This Is England '86 and deliberately threw in songs from before that year - particularly things from a couple of years before and twenty years before (the character role are all ageing/ex mods and skinheads so '60s Northern Soul and rocksteady obviously feature here).

If you watch the old quiz shows on Challenge TV on freeview, seeing contestants in clothes that scream "80s!" is a pretty sure sign that the show was filmed in the 90s.

What screams "old" about the scene from the deer hunter? the car?

http://www.rrr.org.au/assets/man_who_fell.jpg

I think a lot of films, or TV, that were intended to be contemporary or futuristic date quickly, anything historical less so. But there are production details that can affect that obviously. But "retro" strikes me as a weird and slippery concept in drama, even more so than in music.

Something like House Of Cards from circa early '90s strikes me as incredibly quaint (the drama is still brilliant though).

I think a lot of films, or TV, that were intended to be contemporary or futuristic date quickly

retrofuturism! we all know about the odd '70s ideas about UFOs and aliens that seem retro because that's not really how it panned out, i was just thinking the other day how the digital computer voices and r&b videos set in spaceships that were plentiful around the turn of the century might become the new updated retrofuturism

Yeah, films set in London in 1977 will more likely 'accidentally' have fashions and soundtrack based around 1978-1980 than 1975.
Spike Lee's Summer of Sam is a US equivalent of this syndrome. They usually don't get the cars right in this type of movie. One of the things I miss most about the 1970s is all the cool cars from the 1960s that were still on the road.

This is why the TV show "Look Around You" works so well in its mashing together of 60s, 70s and 80s British TV imagery - they never tell you exactly when the show is supposedly set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR8qtxts1jY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgAp5aqUhXw&feature=related

one more, only cos i like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNzHwP9qcOU&feature=related

Was there ever a video for "Mackadaynuu" or whatever it was called?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwyuB8QKzBI

Undercuts: Where did these come from? I don't remember any actual celebrities or tastemakers rocking this haircut and yet every boy - EVERY BOY at my school had one, like a uniform. We've lost something, etc....

Yeah, two of my best mates in school had them. It was a matter of great debate between us as to whether Kurt Cobain had one or not, even to the point of watching a tape of the video of Smells Like Teen Spirit on slo mo (that bit where hes trashing his guitar) and looking at his hair flailing. I dont think he had one, despite my mates insistence.

lovely.

exactly how I thought it'd look. (xposT)

Undercuts: Where did these come from?

Thompson Twins?

If you watch the old quiz shows on Challenge TV on freeview, seeing contestants in clothes that scream "80s!" is a pretty sure sign that the show was filmed in the 90s.

― ledge, Thursday, 25 August 2011 10:59 (2 hours ago)

ha, yeah playing 'guess the year' in those late-night sessions of watching Challenge TV we'd always be about five years early.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Undercut.jpg

wikipedia really bringing the good stuff here. i've never heard the term undercut before, is there a particular distinction between it and bowl cut?

i've never heard the term undercut before, is there a particular distinction between it and bowl cut?

It's shaved underneath the floppy bit. I had one between 94-6, but the top bit was longer, almost chin-length, and it was so I could tie my hair up and put it under my Sea Cadets hat. So much of that sentence is making me convulse in self-loathing.

A bowl cut was more, well, bowl shaped. There was a slight distinction between an undercut and a step in that the undercut was shaved sometimes right up to the top of the head with hair hanging over it. Step was a poor-man's undercut in that it was simply shaved into the head. Often kids would grow their hair while maintaining the shaved-under bit. Bit hard to explain this, but there were differences

http://freyajane.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/undercut.jpg
http://magnetiquemtl.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/witz-topfschnitt.jpg
http://thehindsightletters.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/hairstyle1.jpg

To be worn with Spliffy jeans

okay, makes sense. round my way they all just came under the umbrella of bowl.

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTO0EMi7-9Vpe9tBRgWxCyUVZ6bAh5rUkXFUAel0w6pPxjdU0Mb

I liked the recent Zomby interview in Wire where he starts romanticising early-90s street fashion.

http://www.tradereadingorder.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/green-lantern-guy-gardner.jpg

Haircut thread is number one on ILE right now.