There comes a time in every alternative rock enthusiast’s life when they go 80s. And by this, I do not mean dressing like Patrick Bateman or reading about Milton Friedman. The alternative rock enthusiast replaces this with The 1975, if they even like Matty Healy or another band I don’t know much about it here.
What I mean by this is getting into 80s music. This came from two things: first, my mom and First Wave1. She lived through the 80s, so I’ll trust her opinions on the tunes. After all, she did teach me the joys of singing “Rio” by Duran Duran going up OR down a highway, and also telling me, then a high school grunge enthusiast, about the time she saw Nirvana when they played in Cleveland. She also is one of the first people to tell me about new music, such as the National’s latest two albums.
The second is TikTok. All hail the algorithm for making “Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” by the Smiths my defacto tune when yearning—these days it’s to be done with my thesis, but I’ve also used it for general romantic yearning as well—. It took a matter of time for me to ask my mom and a friend of mine, who loves 80s music, to find the right “mixtape” (a playlist on YouTube music, because I like their interface better than Spotify). In the words of Depeche Mode, “All I ever wanted, all I ever needed, is here”2.
