I've been working on the mix for the trip K and I are taking down south. The thought occured to me: good 80's music is the funnest shit to put on your radio and dance around your apartment to.
But then a second thought occured to me:
For a decade with such great dance music, did any good dance moves come out of the 80's?
If you watch typical 80's flicks, the dancing is just atrocious whereas the music kicks ass in the uniquely 80's way. The inverse is the case with 70's flicks according to most people, although I am a huge disco advocate so obviously I think that BOTH the dancing and the music are top notch. But 80's dancing? Horrible stuff. People are doing that tap one foot in front of the opposing foot, shift weight, repeat with opposite foot, shift weight, repeat thing. Not a fan. How could people not have just gone wild during "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun?" Shit, if youngsters found a way to dance to Nirvana less than ten years later, I take no excuses for 80's teenagers' inability to dance (well) to Cyndi.
Unfortunately, for the decade of my childhood and MTV's birth, the only dance move I could think of was the Running Man, which technically didn't even have its heyday until the early 90's. Oh, and the Moonwalk, of course, but that's not the type of dance you do in front of your mirror alone in your room to check out your mad skillz.
Not that I do that.
Do you guys remember the beginning to "In Living Color?" I so wanted to be a Fly Girl. That really, really didn't happen.
The early 80s were all about break dancing. It wasn't just for city kids. At my school dances in a small New England city, we all put on the parachute pants and mesh fingerless gloves and busted a move. Susie and Lynn were the best breakers at the school, so we'd form a circle around them and watch 'em do the spin on the back thing, the running in a circle with your hands on the floor thing, and the undulating arm wave thing.
Jonathan - so true. Breakdancing. But because it's making a comeback (big time) I sort of just associated it with now. But you're totally right - an original 80's trademark.
Thanks for the reassurance. I fucking love breakdancing.
The resurgence of breakdancing is one of the better things that's happened in our world lately. In fact, I approve of the entire 80s retro thing wholeheartedly. I'm sentimental.