Reflections on attending “80’s Video Dance Attack” At The Domino Room

How come people who “dress up 80’s” never look like anyone looked in the 80’s?

“Safety Dance” may be the most joyous, happy-inducing song ever.

Footloose is a movie about dancing, but the theme song is not very good to dance to.  Ironic?  Yes.

People have bad taste.  The VJ opened up to requests, and shortly thereafter we went from mainstream English Ska (Madness, English Beat), to horrible crap (“Push It,” “Can’t Touch This”).

In the middle of our street...

You can’t not be a music snob, if that’s who you are.  I’m just not dancing to Salt N Pepa and MC Hammer.  That’s just the way it is.

People at 80’s Video Dance Attack aren’t that interested in explanations that certain commercial rap songs came out in 1990, point of fact, and, no, they also shouldn’t be enjoyed ironically because they’re just so awful.  And even if they had come out sooner – which they didn’t – they’re not what we mean when we say “80’s music.”

I apparently am still scarred from my youth of people scrunching their noses at my music and saying “What IS this?”, because I refused to put in requests of my own, out of dread of the public shaming that would ensue.  It’s a public dance party, it’s reasonable to keep it mainstream.  I accept that.

Music videos were so great before people learned how to make music videos.  Just total abandon, purely fun.   Men At Work videos could cure severe depression.

Anyone who says it's NOT tricky to rock a rhyme that's right on time is just lying.

Hey, Penn & Teller are in Run DMC’s “It’s Tricky” video.  Cool.

Sweet God, The Cure was creepy.  The “Boy’s Don’t Cry” video is mostly just 3 kids lip-syncing the song yet it’s like what Kafka would’ve dreamt about after he’d eaten a whole pizza by himself.  And had a fever.

The guy from Dead or Alive is the most awesomely gay man who ever lived.  I’m a little surprised the Queen of England didn’t step down, arguing that he deserved the title far more than she.

Oh that’s right, Prince was really awesome once, wasn’t he.

Wow, I know the words to a lot of 80’s songs.  A lot.  No, seriously… a lot.

Just leave poor A Flock of Seagulls alone.  Haven’t they been picked on enough?  Like they were any more absurd than any other 80’s keyboard band.

Guys who are afraid to dance look far more stupid than they would if they did, in fact, dance.

“Love Shack”? Seriously?  How many great B-52 songs are there, and you play “Love Shack”?  Sorry.  Ahem.  I accept other people’s flawed taste in music.

Pat Benatar was just really sexy.

Very little positive things were happening in the late 80’s, music-wise.  It’s interesting even to hear Billy Idol in the earlier 80’s (“Rebel Yell” = growling, Steve Vai shredding his guitar, Mssr. Idol dressed like he’s in the fashion district of The Road Warrior, sexuality oozing around the stage) then in the later 80’s (“Mony Mony” = Hey, this’ll be a big hit!  Sounds kind of crazy, doesn’t it?)

What the hell is going on in the “Blue Monday” video?  I mean, what the hell is going on?  Was that… was that a carrot?

This is the least absurd, arbitrary image in the entirety of the "Blue Monday" video

If you reach an age at which the music of your youth becomes fashionable again, and you spend several hours dancing exuberantly to said music, your body will ache in all kinds of exciting new ways the next day.