Baby Boomer Boy: Suitable for Framing

Author's Note: It's not about me, it's about the message.

Random Retro Reviews of the 20th Century

Remnants of the 20th Century

A short documentary by Baby Boomer Boy about lost artifacts from the last century and the previous millennium. You can find these discarded items in flea markets, yard sales and garage sales throughout the civilized world.

Author's Note 12-2-11: I added a soundtrack to my original 2010 silent version, originally posted on 4-4-10. Hope you like it. I think it's much better with music.

Author's Note 11-07-13: This video was uploaded by Michael Casher to Blogger. You can't watch this video at YouTube because it does not exist there. That is another Google redirect which is nothing more than a lie to get you to watch other videos at YouTube instead of the uploaded video on this blog post. This new uploaded format at Blogger was introduced in November 2013 by Google without notice to anyone.

The 1980's Pop Music Tsunami

For me, Ronald Reagan, Reaganomics, peacetime prosperity (yep, even during a recession, you can still have a taste of the good life in America) weren't the only things worth remembering about the 1980's decade. That's right, I'm one of those people who thought Ronald Reagan was one of our best presidents. Get over it.

If it wasn't for the creative, memorable tsunami of original music that hit the American shores in the 1980s, I'd say Reagan was the best thing about the Eighties. But he had great company. Call them "New Wave" bands or "Romantics" or whatever you want to call them (let the experts label them), the rock bands, composers and singers of the 1980s took America's Pop Music Culture somewhere it had never been before and would likely never go again. From 1980 to 1990, pop musicians from all over the place showed people like me that the "wave of the future" didn't necessarily mean "bad news".

Just when I thought there were no new frontiers for "rock" musicians to explore with the electric guitar, keyboards or vocals, along came the (mostly) young musical talent of the 1980s and artists from the 1970s who showed us that they still had a lot to offer. Even hard rock went in new directions and hip-hop eclipsed soul and rhythm & blues with a new sound of its own. And jazz, that American original invention that almost defies vocal accompaniment, saw a whole new wave of new talent come ashore. For me, the 1980's pop music scene introduced a new music genre that almost defied labeling. The Eighties provided me with new "head music", new "driving music" and some new "dance music" that had all the earmarks of a generation that was celebrating not only life but the simple joy of making music.

Below is a list of memorable and very cool songs that really made me feel good about being (relatively) young and alive back then (I was 29 in 1980). Some of these songs are "New Wave" and some aren't. But they're all 1980's "Pop Music" and that's good enough for a guy like me who couldn't carry a tune of my own to save my life. I'll never stop loving the sounds these artists produced or the way they made me feel. I was more into their music than the way they looked or behaved in their personal lives. That meant very little to me. People who make courageous, awesome, insane, beautiful, cool and original music like they did certainly deserve a little retro credit. My hat is still off to them and this "Mix" is my tribute to the 1980s. Headphones are highly recommended.

1. Cars — Gary Numan (released in 1979 but hit U.S. Top 40 in 1980)

2. Call Me — Blondie (1980)

3. Rapture — Blondie (1981)

4. Once In A Lifetime — Talking Heads (1981)

5. Down Under — Men At Work (1981, ignore the 1982 on the video)

6. Super Freak — Rick James (1981)

7. Rock the Casbah — The Clash (1982)

8. Let It Whip — Dazz Band (1982)

9. I Melt With You — Modern English (1982)

10. New Religion — Duran Duran (1982)

11. She Blinded Me With Science — Thomas Dolby (1982)

12. I Ran (So Far Away) — A Flock of Seagulls (1982)

13. Electric Avenue — Eddy Grant (1983)

14. One Thing Leads To Another — The Fixx (1983)

15. Let's Dance — David Bowie (1983)

16. Hang On To Your Love — Sade (1984)

17. West End Girls — Pet Shop Boys (1984)

18. Take On Me — A-Ha (1985)

19. Everybody Wants To Rule The World — Tears For Fears (1985)

20. Material Girl — Madonna (1985)

21. Venus — Bananarama (1986)

22. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For — U2 (1987)

23. Just Like Heaven — The Cure (1987)

24. Kissing A Fool — George Michael (1988)

25. Love Shack — The B52s (1989)

P.S. I suggest you ignore the comments posted by You Tube viewers, who tend to misuse the video comment section at YouTube as an adult-oriented chat room and a space for hateful rhetoric that has no place in an enlightened culture. In far too many cases, they also disparage the music by attacking the personal lives of the artists. A lot of YouTube comments aren't fit for public viewing anyway. But YouTube allows anything and everything. Free speech and all that rot.

As far as I'm concerned, music is music and none of these artists single-handedly ran our world culture into the ground. By the same token, when I like a song that doesn't necessarily mean that I like anything else about the artist. Sometimes I even dislike them. But that isn't the point of this post.

My music posts at Blogger are about the music and the musical talent of the artists and nothing more. Except for Petula Clark, who was my older woman schoolboy celebrity crush in the 1960s — she and Julie Andrews, but that's another story — and whose voice and compositions I really liked. So, if you have a problem with any of the artists I showcased here, that's your problem, not mine.

Millennium Madness

In 1999 most of the world suddenly went stupid and people began to delude themselves that they were in the last year of the current millennium. Not only that, they thought they were in the last year of the 20th Century. But nothing could have been further from the truth.

Time is measured on Earth with the decimal system. It takes ten years to make up a decade, not nine, and it takes one hundred years to make up a century, not 99 years. By the same token, 999 years do not a millennium make. A millennium is made up of 1000 years.

January 1, 1901 to December 31, 1910 was the first decade of the 20th Century. 1900 was the last year of the 19th Century, not the first year of the 20th Century, just the same way the year 2000 was the last year of the 20th Century and not the first year of the 21st Century.

It's all about multiples of ten. You have ten fingers. Count out a decade on them, then a century if you need to. If you need to count to 1000 on your fingers to understand how a millennium actually works then there's really no reason for you to read any further.

I would venture to guess that Hollywood played a major role in confusing people about the year 2000, making them throw out not only what they'd been taught in elementary school arithmetic and high school math, but their commonsense too. Movies about the new millennium were a dime a dozen in 1999 and in the year 2000, most of them dealing with the arrival or the departure of Satanic beings on planet Earth and a cape-and-sword battle for truth, the American way and the girl next door, because that's what sells tickets at the box office more than anything else. Romantic fantasy.

Another fantasy was the year 2000 being billed as the dreaded Y2K, a year that would fall flat on its face as soon as it arrived. When the year 2000 failed to bring with it the collapse of worldwide cyber technology, it confirmed the biggest computer hoax of all time and not the first year of some mysterious New World Order. But, thanks to Hollywood and its insatiable need to make tons of money off brainless people, the 21st Century and the new millennium came in on January 1, 2000.

For the couple dozen of us who knew better, however, the new millennium unceremoniously showed its face on January 1, 2001. And on January 1, 2011 the second decade of the 21st Century will just as quietly show its new face. But if you want any peace in your life, don't tell anyone.

Holiday Wishes from the 20th Century

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

20th Century Decades in 10 Words Each

1900s – Like the Gay Nineties but with more cars than horses.

1910s – Except for the Great War, it was the 1900s again.

1920s – Moguls made money while workers drank, fornicated and celebrated peace.

1930s – Americans lost everything they had because of stock market speculators.

1940s – Men fought World War II while women did everything else.

1950s – People made babies by the bushel while Detroit made cars.

1960s – The Beatles, Hippies and Vietnam put the kibosh on America.

1970s – People forgot how to dress properly but no one cared.

1980s – People didn't wear enough clothing but no one cared again.

1990s – Angry youths terrorized the world with electric guitars and drums.

The Clinton Administration in 50 Words or Less

With Bill and Hillary Clinton in the White House, the last eight years of the 20th Century were banner years for the U.S. There were no wars, gasoline and housing was affordable and there were plenty of jobs to go around. These are facts that most Americans have completely forgotten.

Author's Note: 3-23-14: So what? Even a baby boomer like me can be fooled.