As I sit 'virtually' thumbing through the albums of my past on YouTube.com I find myself following an interesting pattern – those tunes made all too familiar to me by way of 6th form 'ghetto blasters' of my past are now strewn across you-tube by uploaders all over the world – and I can't help but mentally revisit almost every 6th form party I ever attended through the memory of these songs.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing – but as I rejoice in the happiness of my past, looking through the wondrous annals of 1980's pop: Level 42, Erasure, Bronski Beat, Visage, Ultravox and, dare I say it, Curiosity Killed the Cat; I find my inner technologist briefly considering how all these pop videos have become 'related' on You-Tube.
The videos are linked because of the order in which other users have played them – caused by recollections of similar experiences to mine; which is a comforting thought as I pass into my 42nd year – there are other sad idiots like myself wasting time on a Saturday night having only just recovered from a massive 3 pints of Grolsch (such is the heavy-weight I am in the world of championship drinking) from the previous night (OK – there may have been a few glasses of wine too).
This may all be interesting enough to some (I doubt it), but then it occurred to me, on the upside, that there must, equally, be numerous people out there that have happily thrown a party and gathered their favourite 80's pop to play on a full screen projector and rejoiced en masse at songs that had more to say than your standard Danish/Norwegian pop band of the 1990's: I think, primarily, of 'Barbie Girl' which seems nowadays to have more in common with CBeebies 'Lazy Town' – yes we took the format and saw that it was fit for pre-school children audiences only; let’s face it, it’s Sawadee Krahp! Thankfully, I hear it’s becoming common knowledge that, if you speed date, “Did you buy 'I'm a Barbie Girl'” is a good time saving question to ask if you don't like the look of someone...
Anyway, I digress, which isn’t unusual for me, so back to the 80’s: as I thought more and more about those happy days of teenage pop bliss, cycling from party to party with my cheap Sony imitation personal tape player, with handlebar clutched in one hand and a small bottle of Captain Morgan clutched in the other, I started to imagine all those less than happy people ‘Fading to Grey’ as they were drunkenly propped up against a luxury flat wall, vodka bottle in one hand life in the other, pouring their heart out about how unhappy their lives are now they find themselves in the ‘future’ and no longer in the happy heady days of 1980’s innocence…
Ahh well, sod ‘em – at least I know why the videos are related…
