The more I look around at the young people (spit) that I work with, the more I feel befuddled and obsolete. There seems to be a worrying trend for young people to wear Espadrille shoes. The sort of shoes that when I was their age, I would exclusively see men aged at around 60-80 wearing when queuing for their weekly pension. The sort of shoe that Marks and Spencer used to specialise in for the older gentleman. Now the youth of today (spit) seem to be content to dress up as elderly gents, and not just content with the shoes either. The dapper youngster about town will have Espadrilles on his feet, silly foppish trousers (with turn-ups) a baggy cardigan - that in years gone by would have been a perfect home for some boiled sweets, a nice pipe and some rough shag and (if applicable) a pair of glasses that a chess champ circa 1986 would have been ashamed to wear. It is as if they have entered our world via an old man's wardrobe and have clothed themselves in his least favourite outfits.
It is getting ridiculous. I recently tried to buy a pair of trainers. I went into a trainer shop in Brighton and was greeted by Espadrilles or trainers that were made to look like Espadrilles. Hey. I don't want to wear Espadrilles. I would like to wear normal shoes please. If that wasn't annoying enough, the stereo in this shop was playing songs from the 80s that should not be heard. I asked for a pair of shoes in my size and while the young man (dressed in Espadrilles) went to get them, I had to listen to Robert Palmer. Robert Palmer? Have they gone raving mad? Why stop there? Why not put up pictures of Nicolae Ceauescu and really bring that decade home to us.
But, silly me. This is all apparently warranted because it falls under the back-slapping-scared-of-dying-and-change banner of "retro". A word I have grown to hate over the last decade. Thanks to "retro", we are subjected to endless references to the worst parts of the 1980s, a decade so bereft of invention that it beggars belief. The great parts of the 1980s seem to be ignored by the way. There was some extraordinary comedy and drama shown in this decade and some excellent films, but because it wasn't shiny or silly or dressed like a total arsehole, we seem to let it lie.
I am a firm believer that pretty much all music from 1980-1989 is bloody awful. Every artist I respect from the 1960s or 70s moved into the 80s and became immediately invalid and extraordinarily awful. It staggers me that people can listen back to that era and think it was anything other than a turd plugged into a reverb box.
It is only a matter of time now until the dreaded "retro" taps in to the 1990s and casts its horrible eyes over Grunge and the whole indie and Brit pop phenomenon - I am already seeing flyers for "90s discos" all over the place and feel exceedingly let down. It does make me wonder if "retro" is a worm that will eat it's own tail. After all, the 90s was the first "retro" decade in which people started going on and on about how great the 1970s were and went to endless "carwash" discos and wore comedy afro wigs. Will people in the next few years start getting all nostalgic for a decade in which people were nostalgic for a decade twenty years before? Will people in twenty years be nostalgic for a decade in which we were nostalgic for the 1980s? Where will it all end? In our welcome deaths, is the answer.
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| You poor old man!
Comment By: maureen, 09 May 2011, Rating: 5/5  |
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