From the gender-bending antics of Eurythmics and Culture Club, to the propulsive synthpop of Depeche Mode, New Order, and the Human League, was there ever, asks Mark Simpson, a more spectacular time for pop? In 1983, the year that McDonald’s introduced Chicken McNuggets and the second Cold War was at… Read More »1983: The High Summer of (Synth-)Pop
By Mark Simpson IN THE EARLY YEARS of the 1980s, stretch jeans were all the rage. Stretch jeans and The Human League’s Dare. Both were revolutionary but practical and, when wrapped around youth, snugly-smugly invincible. I was sweet sixteen when Dare was released in 1981 and it confirmed all the psychoses of teenagerdom. We… Read More »Stretch Jeans & Synthpop: The Human League’s ‘Dare’
Inevitably Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, which I went to see last night, was Gladiator crossed with Kingdom of Heaven – but with the embarrassing mistake of Orlando Bloom dead-headed. Though actually I found myself missing Bloom’s lightweight charms. Robin Hood is even more boring and pretentious than both of Scott’s… Read More »How Ridley Scott invented the 1980s
Mark Simpson on director John Hughes’ pristine legacy (Arena Hommes Plus, Winter 2009) So here’s the pitch: A Hollywood teen movie in which nothing happens. All day. In a school library. Introduced by a pretentious quote from David Bowie’s ‘Changes’. No? OK, how about this: A boy bunks off High… Read More »Don’t Mess With the Bull Young Man, You’ll Get the Horns
Every now and then, you will need a friend for… Love Reaction A distinctly not-for-profit tribute to the late great Divine, dance genius Bobby O, synth-scallywags New Order, and my American writer pal and former alt-pop star Steve Zeeland, recorded late-night in his living-room in Bremerton, WA a couple of years… Read More »Love Reaction: (Steve Zeeland Made Me Do it)