How Has The 1980's Influenced Pop Culture

Rock and roll has largely impacted the music industry. The 60’s were the era of feel good music while the 70’s created the disco era. The 80’s called for something new and crazy all together, it was completely different and more complex from the past decades of rock and roll. The 80’s brought visual aspects to music. As a result, MTV aired the first music video ever made on August 1, 1981 which “killed the radio star”. This music video created a new trend for current musical artists and upcoming artists, it created a way for artists to express the meaning of the song. Music videos made radios an accessory mainly used for cars. MTV created a place where unknown and small time artists could become a household name. Some of these artists include

     In comparing the sixties and the nineties, my first thought was how much popular culture has changed since then and how different society is today. The strange thing is, the more I tried to differentiate between them, the more similarities I found. Both the sixties and the nineties were about youth, creativity, free-thinking, and expression. With the nineties coming to a close and the popularity of anything ?retro," I decided to compare the fashions, people, music, and issues that defined pop culture in the 1960?s and its influence on pop culture in the 1990?s.

One of the best known decades for music was the eighties. During this generation, there were a number of landmark events. This decade set a standard for music to evolve from for years to come.

Living the American dream was a part of the road to Suburbia. As soldiers were returning home from the wars, births were reaching record highs known as the baby boom. Just in the year 1957, a total of 4,308,000 babies were born.4 Desiring large families and great economic prosperity, the women’s role as mother and homemaker were built-up in movies and television and magazines. Ultimately, with additional “leisure time” at home, Americans bought televisions, nice record players, lawn mowers and other electronic products. Manufactures and advertising agencies jumped at the opportunity to profit on consumerism. “More and more, ad executives and designers turned to psychology to create new strategies for selling. Advertisers appealed to people’s desire for status and “belongingness” and strived to associate their products with those values.”5 The Baby Boomers that began the consumerism in the mid-1950’s socially altered the United States then and still do

The events that are affected by the 1980s decade was music, music has influenced the 1980s so much with Madonna and Michael Jackson. Madonnas hair was all the rage, big curly hair with ratted bangs as high as you could get them she was the queen of the 1980s her fashion influenced so much of the 1980s, girls were curling there bangs just like Madonna she was an icon everyone looked up to her.

Australian popular culture in the 1960s had multiple features, many of which were influenced by the social changes and counter culture at the time. The primary aspects of Australian popular culture in the 1960s were; music, fashion, film, sport and television.

The 80 's was an eye opener to a lot of new things, new music, new styles, new points of view on life and new technology. Music was a big hit for the 80 's and so was the technology. A home, family, job and fun was basically what everyone needed to live ahappy life. In the 80 's, people saw the American dream, as a simple task of success andthose years defined them. They were the generation in between differences and facing disagreement andnot turning our backs. The 80 's may have made them idealistic, but it 's idealism that will push themand be passed on to their children, the first children of the twenty-first century.

In a way, the popular culture of the 1980s reflected the era’s political conservatism. For many people, the symbol of the decade was the yuppie, which was a baby boomer with a college education, a well-paying job, and expensive taste. These new moneymakers were young, ambitious, and hardworking. Yuppies were more materialistic than their parents and grandparents had been and rewarded themselves with luxury cars and designer

MTV galloped through the '80s as a factor of musical taste, style and fashion. During the early '80s, the network helped introduce an entire stable of new music stars.

The transition from the multicultural era of the eighties to the postnetwork era of the nineties triggered abrupt changes in American media and culture. [6] From fashions to family life, relationships, and attitudes, many new cultural elements subsequently changed television portrayals of ordinary American culture within this time period. More specifically, the culture of the eighties is often characterized by the rise of MTV and megastars, techno music and club drugs, and popular fashions such as leather, leggings, and Ray Bans. Eighties culture can be described as the ‘bombdigity’ and nineties culture can be described as more toned down, moral, and ‘sweet’.

The 1980s was full of so many important events and extravagant sports. There are a variety of historic and sport events that influenced what was popular in that time period. The 80s was filled with new advancements in television broadcasting sports for women and many other important historical events.

This report is to inform you on the decade of the 1980s. People 's jobs, income, ideas, opinions changed so much from 1980 to 1989.

There is no other time like the 1980s. The 1980s was a decade of important cultural and political change. Music was punk and loud. Pop culture changed. Fashion was wild and over the top, with lots of makeup, accessories, and big funky hair. Sitcoms did incorporate a lot of these elements; however, sitcoms also addressed social issues and problems. Racism was one of the problems in sitcoms in the 1980s, and three shows that addressed racism were The Cosby Show, A Different World, and Diff’rent Strokes.

America during the 1980’s experienced a time of immense progression and prosperity. The 1980’s saw a boom in economic success because of the newly Reaganomics. MTV and music videos sparked a new wave pop culture for the youth and the many new TV stations opened up a whole new world for all generations. The leadership of the country saw positive steps forward from the past mistrust and failures of the presidents of old and this better leadership carried to country forward through the decade.

As America headed into the 1980s, two decades of social and political upheaval have left the nation rattled and the economy weakened. The Iran hostage crisis shook America's confidence and many looked for a new kind of leader to steer the country into the new decade. Ronald Reagan led America into a new era of prosperity leaving the soul-searching of the 60s and 70s behind. The nation was ready to enjoy itself and with plenty of new toys to play like VCRs and video games, Americans spent more time at home and soon something called cable TV would make it even harder to leave the living room. With the new innovation of the TV, one of the ideas for a channel was a marriage between music and television. This new idea for a channel devoted to something called music videos would end up revolutionizing and often scandalizing an industry that had no choice but to embrace the fact that music in the 1980s had to have a face with videos. By having these music videos, they would change the way we look at music and the way we look at the world. This cutting- edge idea was a new medium perfectly suited to a new generation and that idea was called, MTV. This leads to the question: How did MTV influence pop culture of the 1980’s? This topic is worthy of investigation because the coming of MTV has had a significant impact on the way people see pop culture. Before researching the topic, the writer had limited knowledge on MTV and only knew about the music itself. In the paper, the writer was