The 80s: Was The Decade That Made Us?

Into –, subculture, refer to quote • Fashion, specifically between the 1950s and 1980s, played an extremely essential role in the construction of people’s identities and was often or not a way of expressing somebody’s personality and perhaps their current feelings. • Subcultures, especially post world war two, formed as individuals felt as though they were not part of the mainstream, consensual society. Fashion and style was very important to these subcultures as their alternative or quirky sense of style allowed them to be set apart from everybody else. • As time went on these stereotypical styles evoked certain ideologies and their fashion sense provided ‘outsiders’ with almost a ‘shortcut to meaning’ (Richard Dyer, 1979) of what the subcultures stood for, what their values were, and

There were many styles that people were able to work with. First off, one of the most common styles was the retro style. Retro was, in a way, inspired by disco. Americans would often wear flares, which were types of jeans where the legs got bigger and “flared” out towards the bottom of the foot (CITATION, #). This proves that retro was just one of the major fashion statements in the 1980s. Another style that Americans tried out was the Glamour style. This fashion included top of the line designers like CoCo Chanel, Versace, and Oscar de la Renta. These designers made a significant impact on the glamorous lifestyle. Glamorous was over the top, but in a fashionable or unique way that people like to dress (CITATION, #). People would wear skirts with a huge puffball at the bottom of it, or switch it up to a nice tight fitting pencil skirt. The economy was a huge factor. Obviously people wanted the best of the best, but the economy was not doing that well (CITATION, #). There were some bad things about the agriculture. Since the United States is just coming out of a recession, they were working on rebuilding businesses in the city so they could expand their business and try to earn back some of the money they lost. This proves that at this point in the 80s, life was not so glamorous because people had to worry about earning back the assets that they lost along with businesses. The farm economy was

It’s hard to talk about music today without bringing up music from the eighties. Some of the artists today got their ideas and musical talent from watching their idols from that decade. For example, Usher credits his dancing and musical talent from Michael

    The 1980’s was a time of prosperity throughout America. From the Calendar that went from January 1st to December 31st to the increase of jobs. This decade was full of good changes socially, economically, and politically.

Although the two decades were different in themselves, there is still a parallel running between the two. Both were times of change, with popular culture culminated for the newly recognised youth, each decade had their own brand of pop music, and their own brand of teenagers.

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.

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.

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 seventies is often seen as a lost decade, merged between the optimistic sixties and the opportunistic eighties. Bruce J. Schulman argues, in his book titled, “The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture”, that this period ignores changes brought by the 1970s. This period brought changes in the economy, shifts in culture, politics, race, family and religious values. The United States faced many transformations that helped shape our country to this day. Schulman begins to explain his thesis, “The Seventies transformed American economic and cultural life as much as, if not more than, the revolutions in manners and morals of the 1920s and the 1960s.” The information that I will present will summarize the changes that affected the United

Baggy pants sideways flat bill hats oversized clothing to skinny jeans and named brands. Culture around is forever changing one way to see this is through fashion and the group that has the most influence on this is in the music industry more specifically the rap and hip hop industry. The influence of Rap and Hip Hop on the world primarily in the U.S. not only impacts the music industry but culture ,and peoples perspective on fashion throughout the decades. The culture of rap and hip hop originated in Harlem New York birthed in urban areas with a lot of different perspectives from looking out and in. In the early 80s the grandparents of all this were B boys they brought the street where fashion to the market with wearing name brand clothing

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

Scarface is a crime-drama film that is famously known for being one of the most violent and profanes films during its time of release. Focusing on the rise of Tony Montana (Al Pacino) on the criminal ladder and becoming more psychotic as his career as the leader of his drug empire progresses, leading to his eventual downfall. Directed by Brian de Palma, written by Oliver Stone and with performance of the cast with the lead Al Pacino, Scarface became a cult classic among the masses.

In the 70’s pop graced the ears of millions of people with bands such as Abba, the Jackson five and Simon and the Garfunkel. These bands planned to take music to a different place by exploring the use of synthesizers which were bought from Germany into The U.K. Following the hippie movement of the 60’s many music styles developed further and moved on . The 70’s adopted a trend of relaxing music , dance music and rock music was also the defining genre of the 70’s. Pop is catchy, upbeat, and predominantly deals with adolescent themes of love, lust and drunkenness.

Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney Houston are examples of pop stars that were influenced by MTV. The stars started to set trends and fans started to follow. The trends include, fashion, culture, and language. Even though the MTV helped the pop stars to rise, there are also many other reasons that the pop stars became a role model. Their talent, ability to take advantage of their fame and public interest, and the company’s ability to market, were the major elements of helping them to escalate to fame (“The Music of the 1980s”).