There is, of course, a current of anti-capitalist sentiment in mallwave
July 27, 2019 11:48 PM Subscribe
Speaking to the British magazine Drugstore Culture, Koenig says, “It’s a nostalgia for shopping trips with your mom when you were just a little kid, with tinny Madonna playing in the background. But the unease arises when that background noise becomes the only sound around, and gets your full attention. It can make you feel like you’re somewhere you don’t belong, like you’re locked in after hours. Some people also say it makes them feel like they’re in the apocalypse.” THE TEENS WHO LISTEN TO ‘MALLWAVE’ ARE NOSTALGIC FOR AN EXPERIENCE THEY’VE NEVER HAD (Mel) Music For Dead Malls (Zadig The Jasp)
I wonder if I can make any money doing ASMR videos where I talk about buying rain sticks at The Nature Store and eating those little rolled up sandwiches with the Scandinavian name, or what it was like when the Crate & Barrel opened.
posted by thelonius at 12:51 AM on July 28, 2019 [16 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 12:51 AM on July 28, 2019 [16 favorites]
You kids get off my mall!
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 2:00 AM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 2:00 AM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
I wonder if I can make any money doing ASMR videos...
For Sale: Water from the Mall Foutains
But seriously -does it feel like nostalgia-mining the past has gotten more intense in the last decade or so? Or has it always been like this and it just feels more acute because the original period is still in my living memory?
I know fashions tend to recur and revive, and some musical trends too. I mean, in the 80s, my circle of friends and I thought the late 60s were pretty cool. Maybe the internet just makes it seem more intense because it's concentrated. I mean, this is 20 years old: U.S. Dept. Of Retro Warns: 'We May Be Running Out Of Past'
posted by jquinby at 5:13 AM on July 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
For Sale: Water from the Mall Foutains
But seriously -does it feel like nostalgia-mining the past has gotten more intense in the last decade or so? Or has it always been like this and it just feels more acute because the original period is still in my living memory?
I know fashions tend to recur and revive, and some musical trends too. I mean, in the 80s, my circle of friends and I thought the late 60s were pretty cool. Maybe the internet just makes it seem more intense because it's concentrated. I mean, this is 20 years old: U.S. Dept. Of Retro Warns: 'We May Be Running Out Of Past'
posted by jquinby at 5:13 AM on July 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
According to writer Joe Koenig, this kind of feeling — a “nostalgia for a past you’ve never known” — is called anemoia. In his ongoing project, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, Koenig describes it as “the desire to wade into the blurred-edge sepia haze that hangs in the air between people who leer stoically into this dusty and dangerous future.”
Yup. I have an 11-year-old, as in born in this millennium, and her three favorite shirts are a vintage Van Halen T-shirt, an E.T. shirt, and a Star Wars 1977 hoodie. She told me yesterday that she's been listening to The Clash ("'Know Your Rights' is my favorite so far"). The other day she looked at a pair of jellies baby shoes and just sighed longingly. She lives in the future I imagined in my own childhood, and wants to go back in some fun, cultural, but extremely narrow way. Her wish to be cool and grown-up, paired with this half-sincere, half-parodic anemoia* is....disconcerting.
* (There's an anemoia/Animaniacs song to be written here, about grandma's concert Ts...)
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:41 AM on July 28, 2019 [13 favorites]
Yup. I have an 11-year-old, as in born in this millennium, and her three favorite shirts are a vintage Van Halen T-shirt, an E.T. shirt, and a Star Wars 1977 hoodie. She told me yesterday that she's been listening to The Clash ("'Know Your Rights' is my favorite so far"). The other day she looked at a pair of jellies baby shoes and just sighed longingly. She lives in the future I imagined in my own childhood, and wants to go back in some fun, cultural, but extremely narrow way. Her wish to be cool and grown-up, paired with this half-sincere, half-parodic anemoia* is....disconcerting.
* (There's an anemoia/Animaniacs song to be written here, about grandma's concert Ts...)
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:41 AM on July 28, 2019 [13 favorites]
Part of me wants so hard to start making up complete bullshit for younger people who want to experience nostalgia for stuff they've never done.
It's not that I want them to get off my lawn, but if this is where we're at referentially, I think I can do a lot better creatively than fake mall music.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 5:47 AM on July 28, 2019 [10 favorites]
It's not that I want them to get off my lawn, but if this is where we're at referentially, I think I can do a lot better creatively than fake mall music.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 5:47 AM on July 28, 2019 [10 favorites]
I was a kid in the '90s. We romanticized the '50s and '60s, eras we had not experienced. My best friend was alllll about the '50s, and -- because I actually read books and understood things, at least to some limited degree -- I was appalled at how he wanted to "go back" to a time when he would have fit in. I tried to explain that this time was very racist and homophobic and generally not great in the slightest, that all of the '50s stuff he loved could have gotten his ass kicked or worse in the actual 1950s, but he was having none of it. The time he wanted the 1950s to have been was much more important than the time the 1950s was.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:53 AM on July 28, 2019 [14 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:53 AM on July 28, 2019 [14 favorites]
But seriously -does it feel like nostalgia-mining the past has gotten more intense in the last decade or so? Or has it always been like this and it just feels more acute because the original period is still in my living memory?
Honestly I think this whole thing kicked off with the 50s nostalgia of the 70s. I'm not an anthropologist, but I think that was a cynical reactionary wave perpetrated by people who were too square for the 60s. I do though very vividly remember the manufactured 60s nostalgia Boomers unleashed on 80s kids you mention, and I felt like this was so pervasive and obviously pushed so hard that it was transparent and clumsy (a Monkees reunion tour??), which naturally led to Gen Xers unearthing 70s nostalgia in the 90s.
I feel like since the turn of the century, nostalgia has taken all new permutations. Even slightly before then, there was the mercifully brief swing revival of the late 90s, which should have been a warning of what was to come.
I don't think nostalgia mining by volume has been increasing—my experience was that 60s nostalgia in the 80s was the peak of nostalgia culture saturation—but it has moved from being just a marketing ploy, thanks in large part to meme culture. I mean we went from image macros of "only 90s kids will remember!" to entire music genres re-imagining a past that never existed. I guess this is how middle aged people felt during the Romantic Period or something.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 5:55 AM on July 28, 2019 [9 favorites]
Honestly I think this whole thing kicked off with the 50s nostalgia of the 70s. I'm not an anthropologist, but I think that was a cynical reactionary wave perpetrated by people who were too square for the 60s. I do though very vividly remember the manufactured 60s nostalgia Boomers unleashed on 80s kids you mention, and I felt like this was so pervasive and obviously pushed so hard that it was transparent and clumsy (a Monkees reunion tour??), which naturally led to Gen Xers unearthing 70s nostalgia in the 90s.
I feel like since the turn of the century, nostalgia has taken all new permutations. Even slightly before then, there was the mercifully brief swing revival of the late 90s, which should have been a warning of what was to come.
I don't think nostalgia mining by volume has been increasing—my experience was that 60s nostalgia in the 80s was the peak of nostalgia culture saturation—but it has moved from being just a marketing ploy, thanks in large part to meme culture. I mean we went from image macros of "only 90s kids will remember!" to entire music genres re-imagining a past that never existed. I guess this is how middle aged people felt during the Romantic Period or something.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 5:55 AM on July 28, 2019 [9 favorites]
I got dragged to an 80s night at a Toronto bar. 95% of the outfits were just thrown together from stuff seen in fashion magazines and music videos. No one looked completely sure about what they were doing - in other words, they nailed it.
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:02 AM on July 28, 2019 [26 favorites]
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:02 AM on July 28, 2019 [26 favorites]
There was less laziness in the 90’s? I was there. There wasn’t.
posted by Anne Neville at 6:09 AM on July 28, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by Anne Neville at 6:09 AM on July 28, 2019 [13 favorites]
But seriously -does it feel like nostalgia-mining the past has gotten more intense in the last decade or so? Or has it always been like this and it just feels more acute because the original period is still in my living memory?
As the future contracts and we hurtle toward a self-inflicted death of human civilization, it's much more pleasurable to look backward than forward.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:16 AM on July 28, 2019 [23 favorites]
As the future contracts and we hurtle toward a self-inflicted death of human civilization, it's much more pleasurable to look backward than forward.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:16 AM on July 28, 2019 [23 favorites]
I once was used as an authenticator for an 80's party by students that were in the BFA program I ran. They trooped into my office and wanted to make sure they got the details right.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 6:21 AM on July 28, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 6:21 AM on July 28, 2019 [10 favorites]
nostalgia-mining the past has gotten more intense
U.S. Dept. of Retro Warns: ‘We May Be Running Out Of Past’
"if current levels of U.S. retro consumption are allowed to continue unchecked, we may run entirely out of past by as soon as 2005."
...that article came out 22 years ago :)
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:22 AM on July 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
U.S. Dept. of Retro Warns: ‘We May Be Running Out Of Past’
"if current levels of U.S. retro consumption are allowed to continue unchecked, we may run entirely out of past by as soon as 2005."
...that article came out 22 years ago :)
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:22 AM on July 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
As far as this being new, the entire Romantic and Renaissance periods were fairly clear examples of anemoia.
posted by signal at 6:28 AM on July 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by signal at 6:28 AM on July 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
If you judge by the eighties nostalgia new wave/punk music was top 40 for the entire decade.
Reader, it was not. If it were not for one lonely radio station in Toronto (CFNY) and a strange friendship I had with a filipino immigrant kid who went to a different high school new wave would not have existed for me. It certainly didn't for many of my other peers. So those kids having nostalgia for a mall they never experienced are no different from the majority of people who have nostalgia for the cool things they ever actually did. Hell I was there at the leading edge of the Canadian new wave scene and I feel nostalgia for things I never experienced.
Bruce Springsteen probably said it best:
Glory days yeah goin back
Glory days aw he ain't never had
Glory days, glory days
posted by srboisvert at 6:33 AM on July 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
Reader, it was not. If it were not for one lonely radio station in Toronto (CFNY) and a strange friendship I had with a filipino immigrant kid who went to a different high school new wave would not have existed for me. It certainly didn't for many of my other peers. So those kids having nostalgia for a mall they never experienced are no different from the majority of people who have nostalgia for the cool things they ever actually did. Hell I was there at the leading edge of the Canadian new wave scene and I feel nostalgia for things I never experienced.
Bruce Springsteen probably said it best:
Glory days yeah goin back
Glory days aw he ain't never had
Glory days, glory days
posted by srboisvert at 6:33 AM on July 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
Reading through, thinking back to my generation’s version of Mallwave, it’s seems to be a universal process—a healthy one—of reaching an age where your brain is critically evaluating the world you live in. First thing you do is look back.
But if the process stalls there, and the same young people don’t eventually come to contextualize whatever era they’re romanticizing?
Then I get panicky and imagine a future, a few bygones down the road, where the species is just a trippy roadside attraction. Versus one that had the potential to be evolutionarily elegant.
posted by OlivesAndTurkishCoffee at 7:12 AM on July 28, 2019
But if the process stalls there, and the same young people don’t eventually come to contextualize whatever era they’re romanticizing?
Then I get panicky and imagine a future, a few bygones down the road, where the species is just a trippy roadside attraction. Versus one that had the potential to be evolutionarily elegant.
posted by OlivesAndTurkishCoffee at 7:12 AM on July 28, 2019
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Brooklynites
in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties.
...
and they're actually-
they're actually really nice!
but I was there.
posted by es_de_bah at 7:14 AM on July 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties.
...
and they're actually-
they're actually really nice!
but I was there.
posted by es_de_bah at 7:14 AM on July 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
im so old i remember when there was a future
posted by entropicamericana at 7:19 AM on July 28, 2019 [28 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 7:19 AM on July 28, 2019 [28 favorites]
We're moving right along on the 30-year nostalgia cycle (although I tend to see malls more as an artifact of the 80s than 90s, although of course they were present in both decades).
The relative volume of nostalgia has not changed, in my experience; its persistence has. On the Internet, everything hangs around.
posted by jscalzi at 7:26 AM on July 28, 2019 [9 favorites]
The relative volume of nostalgia has not changed, in my experience; its persistence has. On the Internet, everything hangs around.
posted by jscalzi at 7:26 AM on July 28, 2019 [9 favorites]
Reading through, thinking back to my generation’s version of Mallwave, it’s seems to be a universal process—a healthy one—of reaching an age where your brain is critically evaluating the world you live in. First thing you do is look back.
...and because you weren't there, you're looking back not at the actual thing but at how it was mediated through film, tv, and maybe even books. Where everywhere is affluent, where everyone is beautiful and has all their clothes custom-made, where everything is always lit perfectly, etc. I mean, I don't want to go to the early 60s, but I wouldn't mind hanging around at a cocktail party with Bertie Cooper and Joan Harris.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:43 AM on July 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
...and because you weren't there, you're looking back not at the actual thing but at how it was mediated through film, tv, and maybe even books. Where everywhere is affluent, where everyone is beautiful and has all their clothes custom-made, where everything is always lit perfectly, etc. I mean, I don't want to go to the early 60s, but I wouldn't mind hanging around at a cocktail party with Bertie Cooper and Joan Harris.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:43 AM on July 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
Honestly I think this whole thing kicked off with the 50s nostalgia of the 70s.
Believe me, it is one of the many charges that George Lucas will be facing at The Hague. While we think it is peculiar that despite all his other acts Al Capone went to the slammer for tax evasion, future generations will think the same way about American Graffiti.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:59 AM on July 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
Believe me, it is one of the many charges that George Lucas will be facing at The Hague. While we think it is peculiar that despite all his other acts Al Capone went to the slammer for tax evasion, future generations will think the same way about American Graffiti.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:59 AM on July 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
The 1989 without the specter of HIV or the threat of imminent nuclear war.
thousand yard stare across the food court
posted by nickggully at 8:01 AM on July 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
thousand yard stare across the food court
posted by nickggully at 8:01 AM on July 28, 2019 [7 favorites]
The Young People who listen to vaporwave and mallwave... do they do so ironically or unironically? Like do they really listen to it and talk about how great the music is and soundtrack their lives to it? Or is it some thing they throw on in the background and laugh about and then just leave it playing because hey, it's kind of chill?
posted by Nelson at 8:06 AM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Nelson at 8:06 AM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
I dream of cherry pies
Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies
You've got it, you've got it
We used to microwave
Now we just eat nuts and berries
You've got it, you've got it
This was a discount store
Now it's turned into a cornfield
You've got it, you've got it
I do miss the arcades, though.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:36 AM on July 28, 2019 [11 favorites]
Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies
You've got it, you've got it
We used to microwave
Now we just eat nuts and berries
You've got it, you've got it
This was a discount store
Now it's turned into a cornfield
You've got it, you've got it
I do miss the arcades, though.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:36 AM on July 28, 2019 [11 favorites]
the vaporwave aesthetic is supposed to be like retro-future, the vision from 1990 of a promised future that never actually came about. it's nostalgia for a time nobody actually lived in so the youths might as well embrace it.
that's why there's random Japanese text on everything, because in 1990 Japan was at the peak of the bubble, going to take over the world. likewise why malls with tile floors and potted ferns, a fundamentally 80s phenomenon, feature so strongly. and heavy use of synthesizers and Miami Vice pink. the CD-ROM format for PCs was standardized in 1989 -- so you get lots of crudely shaded 3D models bc the cutting edge at that time was multimedia CD-ROMs (Myst was under development).
posted by vogon_poet at 8:41 AM on July 28, 2019 [16 favorites]
that's why there's random Japanese text on everything, because in 1990 Japan was at the peak of the bubble, going to take over the world. likewise why malls with tile floors and potted ferns, a fundamentally 80s phenomenon, feature so strongly. and heavy use of synthesizers and Miami Vice pink. the CD-ROM format for PCs was standardized in 1989 -- so you get lots of crudely shaded 3D models bc the cutting edge at that time was multimedia CD-ROMs (Myst was under development).
posted by vogon_poet at 8:41 AM on July 28, 2019 [16 favorites]
also -- big aesthetic inspiration for vaporwave is the Green Hill Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog, released in 1991.
posted by vogon_poet at 8:43 AM on July 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by vogon_poet at 8:43 AM on July 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
Also see these classic and extremely vaporwave AT&T commercials.
posted by vogon_poet at 8:47 AM on July 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by vogon_poet at 8:47 AM on July 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
As someone born in 1982 whose second job was at a Sears in the Square One Mall in Saugus, MA, I find it really reassuring and inspiring that someone could take my anesthetic nadir and turn into something crackling with energy and critique. I feel like if Walter Benjamin were alive today he would basically be doing this. I just didn't realize that these were our arcades, as obvious as that should have been.
posted by Stilling Still Dreaming at 9:03 AM on July 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by Stilling Still Dreaming at 9:03 AM on July 28, 2019 [6 favorites]
This always happens. Every generation does it. The difference is that teenagers today occasionally manage to do something halfway interesting with their proxy nostalgia. In the '90s we mostly just bought ours pre-packaged.
posted by Mike Smith at 9:32 AM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Mike Smith at 9:32 AM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
This reminds me of how much I love hotel/casino muzak from old videogames. Although the music is much better, some of the Norwood Suite soundtrack scratched that itch...
posted by pinothefrog at 10:33 AM on July 28, 2019
posted by pinothefrog at 10:33 AM on July 28, 2019
those little rolled up sandwiches with the Scandinavian name
Does anyone know what I'm talking about? What was the name of the food court franchise? There was one in Lenox Square in Atlanta.
I googled and got a result to my own comment, which is always creepy AF.
posted by thelonius at 10:41 AM on July 28, 2019
Does anyone know what I'm talking about? What was the name of the food court franchise? There was one in Lenox Square in Atlanta.
I googled and got a result to my own comment, which is always creepy AF.
posted by thelonius at 10:41 AM on July 28, 2019
Olga's Kitchen?
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:21 AM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by fluttering hellfire at 11:21 AM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
no lol that would be one of the cheesier mall names ever, up with "The County Seat" and "Chess King"
posted by thelonius at 11:23 AM on July 28, 2019
posted by thelonius at 11:23 AM on July 28, 2019
New wave was a phrase that I remember from the 80s but we used it to describe what are now goths--kids who wore black and listened to The Cure. Really it was a catch-all for any kid who didn't like top 40/ country/metal.
Anyway, did you know that there are young dudes getting perms on their short sides/ long top cuts? My hair lady told me they did three last week and I was blown away. Perms? Really?
posted by emjaybee at 12:53 PM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
Anyway, did you know that there are young dudes getting perms on their short sides/ long top cuts? My hair lady told me they did three last week and I was blown away. Perms? Really?
posted by emjaybee at 12:53 PM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
the vaporwave aesthetic is supposed to be like retro-future, the vision from 1990 of a promised future that never actually came about.
And the "dead mall" aesthetic is basically, hey this didn't happen. It's nostalgia for a promised future that is aware that promised future never came about, and instead sunk into decay. If you pay attention to the comments - a high risk activity - one of the themes that pops up over and over is alienation. This music makes people feel lonely, a lot like these places did.
It's like, once the money is gone and the bustle of commercial activity has died off, you realize how empty it is. And the echoing, tinny music of the dead mall aesthetic evokes the emptiness of that future very well.
It isn't simple nostalgia for a "better" past.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:58 PM on July 28, 2019 [18 favorites]
And the "dead mall" aesthetic is basically, hey this didn't happen. It's nostalgia for a promised future that is aware that promised future never came about, and instead sunk into decay. If you pay attention to the comments - a high risk activity - one of the themes that pops up over and over is alienation. This music makes people feel lonely, a lot like these places did.
It's like, once the money is gone and the bustle of commercial activity has died off, you realize how empty it is. And the echoing, tinny music of the dead mall aesthetic evokes the emptiness of that future very well.
It isn't simple nostalgia for a "better" past.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:58 PM on July 28, 2019 [18 favorites]
Does anyone know what I'm talking about? What was the name of the food court franchise? There was one in Lenox Square in Atlanta.
This is driving me batshit. Hello, fellow Atlantan. Let me see if I can remember...I went there a bunch because it was something different.
posted by jquinby at 2:08 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
This is driving me batshit. Hello, fellow Atlantan. Let me see if I can remember...I went there a bunch because it was something different.
posted by jquinby at 2:08 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
HA! It was Havali! Maybe with some umlauts!
posted by jquinby at 2:10 PM on July 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by jquinby at 2:10 PM on July 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
The really weird thing is when the nostalgia phases stack up, when an era that you remember partially for nostalgia for an earlier era itself becomes the subject of nostalgia. Example: the seventies, in which you had American Graffiti, Happy Days, Grease, and Sha Na Na's variety show. It wasn't super-surprising that a lot of people in the seventies didn't want to be in the seventies; the front end still had the Vietnam War and Nixon, and things didn't improve an awful lot with the oil embargo and energy crisis, Patty Hearst being kidnapped and seemingly turned into a revolutionary bank robber, Son of Sam, the Peoples Temple massacre, etc. If they had to ignore the racism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-Communist paranoia of the fifties, well, no problem. And in the fullness of time, people grooved on bell bottoms, leisure suits, Afros, soft rock, and vans with wizards and naked women airbrushed on the side. No serial killers, apocalyptic cults, or the unmistakeable faltering of American exceptionalism there!
And so it is with mall nostalgia, as it's portrayed in the article, and which even the article's author falls prey to. ("the closest mall to his home, the Fayette Mall in Lexington, is so small that you could probably visit every store in under an hour." I'm not sure where they grew up--in big-city suburbs or near the Mall of America--but that describes almost every mall I've been to.) I mostly associate them with the eighties, which sure wasn't a peaceful time as I remember it.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:57 PM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
And so it is with mall nostalgia, as it's portrayed in the article, and which even the article's author falls prey to. ("the closest mall to his home, the Fayette Mall in Lexington, is so small that you could probably visit every store in under an hour." I'm not sure where they grew up--in big-city suburbs or near the Mall of America--but that describes almost every mall I've been to.) I mostly associate them with the eighties, which sure wasn't a peaceful time as I remember it.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:57 PM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I started watching some of the Midnight Television set, and it is great, but the 80s shots of mall verandas and food courts are what make it. It has to be seen as much as heard, maybe.
If these were the only cultural memories people had of the 80s, what might we take away? America seemed to have a love affair with:
• Neon
• Commercials
• Synthesizers bogged down with VHS capstan distortion, heavy reverb, and drum machines
• Futuristic Japanese consumer electronics
• Neon
• Shoulder pads and big Judith Light hair
• Spencer Gifts
• More neon
It is a world of plenty, for sure. Everyone is well off and well fed, everything is clean and shiny.
It's an ideal world — even in the Bladerunner-esque AT&T ads, the air is smoky and electricity shortages leave actors in the dark, but people are getting things done.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:10 PM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
If these were the only cultural memories people had of the 80s, what might we take away? America seemed to have a love affair with:
• Neon
• Commercials
• Synthesizers bogged down with VHS capstan distortion, heavy reverb, and drum machines
• Futuristic Japanese consumer electronics
• Neon
• Shoulder pads and big Judith Light hair
• Spencer Gifts
• More neon
It is a world of plenty, for sure. Everyone is well off and well fed, everything is clean and shiny.
It's an ideal world — even in the Bladerunner-esque AT&T ads, the air is smoky and electricity shortages leave actors in the dark, but people are getting things done.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:10 PM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
Zadig's 'Music for Dead Malls' is heavily soaked in reverb. Not something that dead malls need.
I guess that the name 'Music Evoking Memories of the Cozy Empty Headed Animal Food Trough Ambiance of Dead Malls" would be a *bit* too long.
A couple of days ago I was in an early mall of the species which is bleeding anchor stores like there's no tomorrow. Couldn't help but think of the thousands of gallons of gasoline that will stay in the ground. Or that will be spent driving to giant corporate-sponsored, taxpayer-funded sports stadia, instead.
And imagining a future where once again archeologists will fly over, peering through the jungle canopy with lidar and shrieking with delight 'I can't believe we couldn't see that from the ground!!" And speculating about the religion behind these temples.
posted by Twang at 3:46 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
I guess that the name 'Music Evoking Memories of the Cozy Empty Headed Animal Food Trough Ambiance of Dead Malls" would be a *bit* too long.
A couple of days ago I was in an early mall of the species which is bleeding anchor stores like there's no tomorrow. Couldn't help but think of the thousands of gallons of gasoline that will stay in the ground. Or that will be spent driving to giant corporate-sponsored, taxpayer-funded sports stadia, instead.
And imagining a future where once again archeologists will fly over, peering through the jungle canopy with lidar and shrieking with delight 'I can't believe we couldn't see that from the ground!!" And speculating about the religion behind these temples.
posted by Twang at 3:46 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
American hauntology, then?
I was just about to mention hauntology, and the dream for a future that didn’t happen
posted by The Whelk at 3:49 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
I was just about to mention hauntology, and the dream for a future that didn’t happen
posted by The Whelk at 3:49 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
The "nostalgic for an experience you never had" is why Velvet Goldmine is my favorite movie.
posted by Delia at 4:00 PM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Delia at 4:00 PM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
In reading this thread, an idea occurred to me that would make for an interesting short story idea/Twilight Zone episode/SyFy channel type thing:
What if we DO run out of nostalgia? And one day someone invents time travel so we all start getting nostalgic and/or referential about possible futures that never happened? NukeExchangewave, or Matriarchywave or something simlar?
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 4:27 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
What if we DO run out of nostalgia? And one day someone invents time travel so we all start getting nostalgic and/or referential about possible futures that never happened? NukeExchangewave, or Matriarchywave or something simlar?
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 4:27 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
referential about possible futures that never happened?
...semiotic ghosts of the Gernsback Continuum...
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:40 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
...semiotic ghosts of the Gernsback Continuum...
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:40 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
If there's one single image that could sum up the eighties, it's this scene from St. Elmo's Fire, itself a quintessentially eighties movie--made by and starring people who, as far as I can tell, didn't graduate college themselves, about recent graduates facing post-college life--that features a giant Billy Idol mural with custom neon accents.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:41 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:41 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
What if we DO run out of nostalgia?
Then we can turn against the past in a spirit of robust anti-nostalgia. I dont mean just futurism, but also a retrospective that casts the past in such a light where you end up relieved not to be living in it anymore. I think Everything Is Terrible, for example, does this job really well.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 5:58 PM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
Then we can turn against the past in a spirit of robust anti-nostalgia. I dont mean just futurism, but also a retrospective that casts the past in such a light where you end up relieved not to be living in it anymore. I think Everything Is Terrible, for example, does this job really well.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 5:58 PM on July 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
I just now realized that even though I was aware of it (that Man In Motion song was inescapable), I have never seen St. Elmo’s Fire, and that any time anyone mentioned it I thought they were talking about Streets of Fire.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:33 PM on July 28, 2019
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:33 PM on July 28, 2019
Oh man I used to think I hated mall music, but you know what's worse? I was in a nearly-dead mall once and could figure out for the longest time what was so... creepy and oppressive about it. Then I realized: there was no mall music.
All this music makes me anticipate the inevitable "your call is important to us..."
posted by ctmf at 6:40 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
All this music makes me anticipate the inevitable "your call is important to us..."
posted by ctmf at 6:40 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
What if we DO run out of nostalgia?
It could happen. Right now the good people of Los Angeles are freaking out because the building Amoeba Music is currently in might get torn down. This is a building that is younger than both the war in Afghanistan and the Harry Potter movie franchise. A building that, if it were a person, it couldn't even buy cigarettes for another 3 years. Yet, some people are practically pissing themselves in sadness that such a historic human achievement might have to pack up and move down the street a few blocks.
posted by sideshow at 6:57 PM on July 28, 2019
It could happen. Right now the good people of Los Angeles are freaking out because the building Amoeba Music is currently in might get torn down. This is a building that is younger than both the war in Afghanistan and the Harry Potter movie franchise. A building that, if it were a person, it couldn't even buy cigarettes for another 3 years. Yet, some people are practically pissing themselves in sadness that such a historic human achievement might have to pack up and move down the street a few blocks.
posted by sideshow at 6:57 PM on July 28, 2019
The worst mall music of all: the Muzak instrumental of 12 Days of Christmas. Try getting through an 8 hour shift at Cinnabun with that piping directly into your brain.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:08 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:08 PM on July 28, 2019 [1 favorite]
Forget mallwave, just listen to old K-mart tapes complete with PA announcements.
posted by thebots at 7:18 PM on July 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by thebots at 7:18 PM on July 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
I listen to TONS of vapowave mixes when i'm up all night, working on stuff. It's the perfect mindset. No screeching cable news, no commercials, no yammering YouTube bros, no reality TV, just... peace.
Vaporwave remixes of Weather Channel music are completely LIT, yo!
posted by Chronorin at 7:54 PM on July 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
Vaporwave remixes of Weather Channel music are completely LIT, yo!
posted by Chronorin at 7:54 PM on July 28, 2019 [3 favorites]
Also, if these hour-long vaporwave mixes are too sedate for you, no pop band has ever captured this aesthetic better than The Midnight, aka Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle. They are, for me, the single most important band of this era.
They have four albums out -- Days of Thunder, Endless Summer, Noctural, and Kids. All of them are incredible. I push this band on everyone I know in real life... with some success, actually.
posted by Chronorin at 7:59 PM on July 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
They have four albums out -- Days of Thunder, Endless Summer, Noctural, and Kids. All of them are incredible. I push this band on everyone I know in real life... with some success, actually.
posted by Chronorin at 7:59 PM on July 28, 2019 [8 favorites]
Honestly I think this whole thing kicked off with the 50s nostalgia of the 70s.
Nah, it's older'n that. True, the word became well-known in the early 70s (check the February '71 "Nostalgia" issue of LIFE magazine) but "Bonnie and Clyde" had ushered in some 20s nostagia a few years earlier. At that time, in the 1960s, looking back there was a lot of Gay 90s-early 20th Century-Ragtime stuff going on, like The Great Race, "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines", etc. and it seems to me the 1950s were the peak of a couple decades of Wild West nostalgia, after which Westerns went from being common to a rarity. In other words, 'Twas ever thus.
posted by Rash at 8:51 PM on July 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
Nah, it's older'n that. True, the word became well-known in the early 70s (check the February '71 "Nostalgia" issue of LIFE magazine) but "Bonnie and Clyde" had ushered in some 20s nostagia a few years earlier. At that time, in the 1960s, looking back there was a lot of Gay 90s-early 20th Century-Ragtime stuff going on, like The Great Race, "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines", etc. and it seems to me the 1950s were the peak of a couple decades of Wild West nostalgia, after which Westerns went from being common to a rarity. In other words, 'Twas ever thus.
posted by Rash at 8:51 PM on July 28, 2019 [4 favorites]
OMFG those K-Mart tapes! They are legit and awesome.
Vaporwave is great. I'm a huge Vektroid fan. It is a much more interesting re-interpretation of 80's and 90's cultural tropes than Stranger Things or any other attempt to milk the aging GenX market. True, everything was not purple and hazy and warbly and synth-drenched then. Those malls could be depressing AF. I worked in a Sears and it made part of my soul die. But they were also places of wonder, gilded by the endless possibilities youth attributes to every situation, no matter how dull or benign.
More to the point, the world is pretty shitty right now, so if kids on the internet want to rhapsodize nostalgic for a time when third wave feminism was on the rise, hip hop was in its "Golden Age" and the Twin Towers were still standing, good on them. I don't GAF it they weren't there to experience it - has anyone at a RenFair ever been to the Middle Ages? I didn't think so. Our history and culture is theirs to recontextualize and make new again. Especially and particularly the scraps of capitalist enterprises past.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:08 PM on July 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
Vaporwave is great. I'm a huge Vektroid fan. It is a much more interesting re-interpretation of 80's and 90's cultural tropes than Stranger Things or any other attempt to milk the aging GenX market. True, everything was not purple and hazy and warbly and synth-drenched then. Those malls could be depressing AF. I worked in a Sears and it made part of my soul die. But they were also places of wonder, gilded by the endless possibilities youth attributes to every situation, no matter how dull or benign.
More to the point, the world is pretty shitty right now, so if kids on the internet want to rhapsodize nostalgic for a time when third wave feminism was on the rise, hip hop was in its "Golden Age" and the Twin Towers were still standing, good on them. I don't GAF it they weren't there to experience it - has anyone at a RenFair ever been to the Middle Ages? I didn't think so. Our history and culture is theirs to recontextualize and make new again. Especially and particularly the scraps of capitalist enterprises past.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:08 PM on July 28, 2019 [5 favorites]
Dropping a link for (IMHO) the greatest assemblage of vaporwave/mallwave/American hauntology ever assembled: MEMOREX by Smash TV.
posted by theartandsound at 6:35 AM on July 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by theartandsound at 6:35 AM on July 29, 2019 [4 favorites]
> More to the point, the world is pretty shitty right now, so if kids on the internet want to rhapsodize nostalgic for a time when third wave feminism was on the rise, hip hop was in its "Golden Age" and the Twin Towers were still standing, good on them
What strikes me now about a lot of "golden age" hip-hop is how fundamentally *optimistic* a lot of it is, even the angry political stuff like Public Enemy. The Native Tongues groups and Beastie Boys (first album aside) are practically hippies. I loved the last Tribe Called Quest album, but damn...when you compare the tone of it to their earlier albums it's the epitome of youthful idealism curdling into middle-aged disillusionment.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:47 AM on July 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
What strikes me now about a lot of "golden age" hip-hop is how fundamentally *optimistic* a lot of it is, even the angry political stuff like Public Enemy. The Native Tongues groups and Beastie Boys (first album aside) are practically hippies. I loved the last Tribe Called Quest album, but damn...when you compare the tone of it to their earlier albums it's the epitome of youthful idealism curdling into middle-aged disillusionment.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:47 AM on July 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I have never seen St. Elmo’s Fire, and that any time anyone mentioned it I thought they were talking about Streets of Fire.
Streets of Fire... God, what a crazy movie.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:45 AM on July 29, 2019
Streets of Fire... God, what a crazy movie.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:45 AM on July 29, 2019
Mister Moofoo: " I have never seen St. Elmo’s Fire,"
It's basically Reality Bites switching out the indie rock parts for saxophone solos and Winona Ryder for Demi Moore.
posted by signal at 8:30 AM on July 29, 2019
It's basically Reality Bites switching out the indie rock parts for saxophone solos and Winona Ryder for Demi Moore.
posted by signal at 8:30 AM on July 29, 2019
no pop band has ever captured this aesthetic better than The Midnight, aka Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle. They are, for me, the single most important band of this era.
I fucking LOVE The Midnight, and was hurrying through the thread so I could post about them!! It takes something special to so perfectly mine such a particular vein of retro music and yet still sound current and new. They brilliantly work themes of memory, nostalgia, and lost youth into their lyrics - so for middle-aged me, hearing these great songs about memories in a sound that itself is such a memory, is like a total double whammy.
I mean just look what happens when someone takes a Midnight song and mashes it with video clips from The Breakfast Club.
posted by dnash at 9:08 AM on July 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I fucking LOVE The Midnight, and was hurrying through the thread so I could post about them!! It takes something special to so perfectly mine such a particular vein of retro music and yet still sound current and new. They brilliantly work themes of memory, nostalgia, and lost youth into their lyrics - so for middle-aged me, hearing these great songs about memories in a sound that itself is such a memory, is like a total double whammy.
I mean just look what happens when someone takes a Midnight song and mashes it with video clips from The Breakfast Club.
posted by dnash at 9:08 AM on July 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
no pop band has ever captured this aesthetic better than The Midnight, aka Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle. They are, for me, the single most important band of this era.
I've never heard of The Midnight and I shall take a listen to them so my opinion may change, but for me dollars to donuts the best aural articulator of this aesthetic is John Maus. Both WE MUST BECOME THE PITILESS CENSORS OF OURSELVES and SCREEN MEMORIES are perfect records, and track can and have been used to back representative clips of the era.
posted by theartandsound at 10:39 AM on July 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
I've never heard of The Midnight and I shall take a listen to them so my opinion may change, but for me dollars to donuts the best aural articulator of this aesthetic is John Maus. Both WE MUST BECOME THE PITILESS CENSORS OF OURSELVES and SCREEN MEMORIES are perfect records, and track can and have been used to back representative clips of the era.
posted by theartandsound at 10:39 AM on July 29, 2019 [1 favorite]
American hauntology, then?
posted by Grangousier
The PKE meter is fully extended and buzzing wildly, sure looks to me like it's the ghosts of futures lost come by to say hi.
This Zoomer isn't all that keen on the vaporwave, love the new wave, but was ecstatic to hear a leftist podcast make the case that PC music is on that hauntology bent, because that's the popular, widely accessible "party" music round these parts.
posted by Acid Communist at 12:54 PM on July 29, 2019
posted by Grangousier
The PKE meter is fully extended and buzzing wildly, sure looks to me like it's the ghosts of futures lost come by to say hi.
This Zoomer isn't all that keen on the vaporwave, love the new wave, but was ecstatic to hear a leftist podcast make the case that PC music is on that hauntology bent, because that's the popular, widely accessible "party" music round these parts.
posted by Acid Communist at 12:54 PM on July 29, 2019
I have never seen St. Elmo’s Fire, and that any time anyone mentioned it I thought they were talking about Streets of Fire.
Well, both "Saint" and "Street" get abbreviated to "St." so there is that. Likewise "Dr." can stand for either "Doctor" or "Drive." There is a stretch of the former N. 3rd Street in Milwaukee now named N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Because reasons, I have heard literally hundreds of people giving street directions to navigate Milwaukee, and an alarming number of people unfamiliar with the city calling it "Drive Martin Luther King Drive," which I think was an artifact of that brief craze in the mid-sixties for casting civil rights leaders in road rally movies.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:27 PM on July 29, 2019
Well, both "Saint" and "Street" get abbreviated to "St." so there is that. Likewise "Dr." can stand for either "Doctor" or "Drive." There is a stretch of the former N. 3rd Street in Milwaukee now named N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Because reasons, I have heard literally hundreds of people giving street directions to navigate Milwaukee, and an alarming number of people unfamiliar with the city calling it "Drive Martin Luther King Drive," which I think was an artifact of that brief craze in the mid-sixties for casting civil rights leaders in road rally movies.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:27 PM on July 29, 2019
theartandsound,
Thanks for tuning me into John Maus -- i really love what i'm hearing right now.
^__^
The Midnight are a bit different. Their music isn't a perfect recreation of the '80, it's more like pop music from an alternate version of the world where the '80s never ended. So many of their songs are about wistfully looking back at the past from... like, an anime-colored future that didn't happen for us.
posted by Chronorin at 1:51 AM on July 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
Thanks for tuning me into John Maus -- i really love what i'm hearing right now.
^__^
The Midnight are a bit different. Their music isn't a perfect recreation of the '80, it's more like pop music from an alternate version of the world where the '80s never ended. So many of their songs are about wistfully looking back at the past from... like, an anime-colored future that didn't happen for us.
posted by Chronorin at 1:51 AM on July 30, 2019 [2 favorites]
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