During my formative years, my dad put in a valiant effort to make me a well-rounded music connoisseur. Variety streamed from anything with speakers, from They Might Be Giants to Led Zeppelin. My siblings and I knew well that triangle man hated particle man, and all that glitters is gold. My mom did her best to inspire a love for Def Leppard and Harry Connick Jr. They succeeded on some fronts, but I escaped my childhood with a deep, lifelong, unyielding hatred for 80’s music.
Maybe I would leave the porch light on if 80’s music would come and stay for a few nights and leave when it’s welcome wore out. Play for the party, then turn off when the baby is sleeping. I mean, there’s a reason the guest room mattress is uncomfortable, and it’s not so the music can make itself comfortable on the living room couch.
I write this as I sit on the couch next to my husband, who would slip on leather pants and grow a mullet if that was the price of admission for a time machine to the 80’s. As his like-minded fanatics often do, he is streaming YouTube video after YouTube video of fashion challenged old men who insist on swallowing the microphone while singing way higher than they should. Maybe it’s his fault. Maybe there really is quality music from FOUR DECADES AGO that wouldn’t make me want to pop a Tylenol and take a nap. But answer me this: if there really are so many priceless ballads out there, why are they hiding behind the same three Journey songs? It’s hard not to stop believing in their very existence.
Despite my opinions, I’ve tried to play nice. I know my feelings are just that: opinions. But today a line was crossed. I took my son, who was born this decade, to see the movie Frozen 2. We went expecting more from Elsa, and even heard tell that the writers gave Kristoff a song of his very own. I was pumped. I mean, “Reindeers Are Better Than People” was clearly the best song from the first Frozen installment. Little did I know that Kristoff’s song would be yet another attempt by an expired decade to invade my life yet again.
Hallucinations, pathetic posing against a tree, looking directly at the camera…Over the course of that song, my soul was slaughtered, resurrected, and slaughtered again three or four times. Unfortunately for viewers everywhere, the writers decided to shirk creative duties and simply throw a few 80’s songs into a blender and dump the resulting smoothie onto our tv screens. I Can’t Stop This Feeling of wishing I didn’t have to see three of Kristoff’s abandoned faces on the screen at once, and it was a Total (bummer) Eclipse of the Heart when I heard Sven actually speaking to Kristoff out of his own mouth. People smell better than reindeer, but maybe a reindeer could have written a more generation-appropriate song.
What is sacred? Is nothing off limits? Will my children be subject to the invasion as well?
80’s music, you had your decade. Stay in your lane. And if that’s too much to ask, feel free to get off at the next exit.
