A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was a little music elitist that felt Japanese musicians like Gackt were the epitome of genius, creativity, and expression through music. Needless to say, I very quickly realized I was a bit off (especially with the Gackt part). Moving from artist to artist throughout the years in my journey to find the best musical sounds for my own tastes, I made my way from eastern Asia all the way back to English speaking countries in 2009 when I ~mysteriously~ ended up with two newly released CDs with similar sounds: Foot of the Mountain by Norwegian superstars a-ha, and Hands by British electropop/synthpop artist Little Boots. I don’t really know what exactly compelled me to get these CDs: perhaps it was some divine intervention kind of thing that people go on and on about. However it happened, I’m sure glad it did. The similar-but-different sounds of both a-ha and Little Boots were extremely reminiscent of 1980s pop music around the world (which a-ha was originally a part of, dontcha know) but were still relevant and modern for the new millennium. After I played the two CDs a few hundred times, I moved on to other artists with high degrees of 1980s influences such as La Roux and Marina & the Diamonds. It was only then that I noticed a little trend appearing: somehow I was gravitating toward music that sounded like it was from the ’80s! Gasp! Shocking, right? For me it was a shock because I have always made my dislike for thing in the 1980s so clear to myself and others. The fashion, the music, the movies, the politics: everything about the ’80s was a joke. Or at least I thought. Now, though, I have realized the 1980s were not so bad after all, and in fact they produced some quite amazing things that have changed the world and my own life forever! Amazing!

Let’s take a closer look at exactly what made the 1980s not so bad after all. Some of these things most people will know, and others some people might not. Either way, they are all excruciatingly important to my argument, so pay attention:

1980: Pac-Man¹. That’s all that was important, really.
1981: Tohui The Panda², Josh Groban³, and Benjamin Thomas Barnes⁴ are all born in this single year. Epic win.
1982: Emoticons and CDs/CD players are created. Hooray! ⌂̺͛ᴖ̲̿ᴥ̲̿ᴖ̺͛⌂
1983: The GNU Project starts up and Hikaru Utada⁵ is born.
1984: The Apple Macintosh computer and individual Band-Aids are introduced to the world. Plus it was 1984: dystopian society FTW!
1985: a-ha releases their debut album, Hunting High and Low, that produced the hit “Take on Me”. Glory is bestowed upon the world.
1986: Two words: Top Gun⁶. Although the Legend of Zelda games were probably a bit more successful in the long run, amirite?
1987: Final Fantasy⁷? Prozac⁸ in the USA? William Peter Moseley⁹? What more could a person want?!
1988: Me! Oh, and Anna Popplewell¹⁰.
1989: Epic Communism fail = EPIC WIN.

So really, I must admit my emotional defeat and permit the 1980s to revel in all their glory. They deserve it. I never really appreciated all the fantastical and beautiful things the 1980s gave the world that are still extremely relevant today (for the most part). My hate for the 1980s was extremely unjustified, and therefore I am truly grateful that I have now been enlightened as to why those 10 short years were in fact far more awesome than I ever could have fathomed. Hallelujah!

Listen…I mean it! There’s nothing that he’s worthy of: he’s just another playa playing in the name of love! The Backstreet Boys said so, so you know it has to be true, right? Well, if you don’t believe that, let me prove it to you in some various ways.

I have been on the grandest “New Millennium” pop music kick in the last few days than I have ever experienced since probably the year 2002. Although I was in my early teens in 2002 – and age most people associate with bad and/or trendy pop music adoration – I stopped listening and paying attention to the vast majority of all popular music in the United States back then. I didn’t like the music that was coming out on top of the charts and taking over the radio airwaves, so I just stopped paying attention. In the long run, I have continued to do that even to now in the year 2010. I like what I like no matter where on the planet it is from. So, really, to me the most recent American pop music I am familiar with is the hoard of stuff from the New Millennium in and around the year 2000. We’re talking Backstreet Boys, Mandy Moore, Britney Spears, NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, Kylie Minogue, and even back to the Spice Girls. Those artists were the biggest phenomenons of my adolescence, and even though they are all mostly still around in the music industry, none of them have been recreated by another act since the new millennium. Nowadays most people look back at the Backstreet Boys, the Spice Girls, and so on as being cookie-cutter, mass-produced, unoriginal, tacky musical groups that were simply for sales and entertaining young girls. You know what? I disagree. Oh yes. Big time.

Lyrically, most of those groups/artists were not the most awesome. I will admit that right off the bat. At that point in the lives of the fans who adored those artists, though, lyrics were one of the least important things possible. When I was 10 years old, lyrics were irrelevant almost entirely. It was the overall feel and vibe from the music – each song and every album – that was what I cared about and related to. I was a fanatical Backstreet Boys fangirl because of one member who was the definition of what I found attractive (and still do, oddly enough, but that is another post entirely) so I had more than just the music to obsess over. The other artists of the time, though, I wasn’t physically attracted to but yet I still adored their music. Looking back at why I enjoyed the music so much now all these years later, it’s pretty obvious to me what it was about these artists and the entire genre that hooked me in so hard.

Every damn song, whether it was a romantic ballad or some upbeat dance track that was choreographed to high hell, exuded with fun. Nothing was ever extraordinarily serious in the music, or at least overtly that way. If a song or album had serious overtones, that was all they were. Nothing was blatantly depressing and whatnot because the music was always meant to make the listener feel better in some way regardless of the topic. The point was to make someone feel good via a form of entertainment. In the end, it wasn’t just entertainment for people like myself who grew up with the phenomenon of 1 million albums sold in a single day by an artist. It was entertainment, sure, but it was also an escape for a few minutes into a totally other world that was ultimately something positive and uplifting.

Listening to music from the new millennium – now a decade old at the least – is so overwhelmingly nostalgic, but it’s also oddly even more fun than I ever could have remembered it. It’s been 10+ years since these songs came out, but hearing them now is almost like experiencing them for the first time all over again. It’s glorious! I highly recommend every single person go and find old music from way back when: it will give you quite a lot of insight into why you liked the music in the first place and how it shaped memories of your past, I guarantee it!