'80s fun

The recent anniversary of the original EDSA People Power revolution brought back memories of the eventful ‘80s. Most people associate the past with the music and the television of the era or the decade. I’ll take on TV of the ‘80s a little later, so let’s start with music, ‘although 80s music was really tied to TV. My music was an eclectic mix of OPM, George Benson, Michael Jackson and a crazy singer who hogged the new-fangled MTV channel with these famous lyrics:

I come home in the morning light,

 My mother says “When you gonna live your life right?”

 Oh, mother, dear,

 We’re not the fortunate ones,

 And girls,

 They wanna have fu-un.

 Oh, girls,

 Just wanna have fun.

Before Lady Gaga, there was Cyndi Lauper

The phone rings in the middle of the night,

 My father yells “What you gonna do with your life?”

 Oh, daddy dear,

 You know you’re still number one,

 But girls,

 They wanna have fu-un,

 Oh, girls, just wanna have

That’s all they really want.....

 Some fun....

Before Lady Gaga… before even Madonna, there was Cyndi Lauper. The multi-spectral singer was one of the most unique musical artists of the MTV generation. Launched in 1981, MTV revolutionized pop music with its format that combined new songs with videos to meld the visual with the aural. You not only had to sound good but you had to look good… or at least make good videos to be able to sell albums.

Mr. T. wore wacky in the ‘80s, but he did not sing or write songs like Cyndi.

Cyndi was tailor-made for the format. She swiftly knew how to take advantage of this to bring her talent to a public craving for fun after a turbulent ‘70s. Here in the Philippines our own turbulence was to catch up with us in the mid-‘80s. Cyndi’s songs Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and We are the World  blared on the radio in the weeks leading to People Power. Of course during the bloodless revolution we listened to Mambo Mambo Magsaysay instead of Lauper’s She Bop.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun was a favorite of mine because I loved Lauper’s videos and because I wanted to date girls who wanted to have fun. I had not had much luck or fun in the “dating fun girls” department in the ‘70s but my luck turned around in the ‘80s. Our luck as a nation turned in 1986, too, and this left us to enjoy the boob tube once again.

TV of the ‘80s was not just MTV, of course. Local TV had John and Marsha, and the start of magazine talk shows featuring female TV hosts. The popular programs from the US were the likes of Dynasty and Falcon Crest. These series had multiple stars and crazy plots. They were basically soaps aired at night.

For the macho crowd there was Magnum PI, The A-Team and Miami Vice later in the decade (No, I never bought pink shirts and white suits). Star Trek was gone but its cult following grew to force the TV networks to bring it back as Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Neil Patrick Harris as Doogie Hauser; he went on to a Broadway musical career before coming back to TV.

For light comedic fare the ‘80s brought us ALF (Alien Life Form), Who’s the Boss? and Doogie Hauser MD with a young Neil Patrick Harris. Early in the ‘80s, Bosom Buddies was a favorite. It gave the start to the career of Tom Hanks.

The career of Cyndi Lauper bloomed in the mid-‘80s starting with the album “She’s So Unusual.” With this she became the first female artist to cop four top-five singles from one album. Her hits from this album included Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, She Bop, All Through the Night and Time After Time. Lauper won Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards in 1985. She followed this up with True Colors, and the rest, they say, is history.

A popular show of the ‘80s was Dynasty, something that was toppled here in ‘86.

Cyndi has managed to sustain her career, releasing 11 albums, with the most recent being “Memphis Blues” which was Billboard’s biggest selling blues album of 2010 and was nominated in the Grammies. Her achievements cover over 40 singles. She sold over 50 million albums worldwide, a million DVDs and 20 million singles in her storied career. This makes her one of the top musical artists of all time.

We ended our ‘80s with our democracy back. The EDSA revolt, say many historians, helped push a movement for change in many communist countries including Russia and Germany. Cyndi Lauper ended the ‘80s (and started her ‘90s) by performing at the Berlin Wall. Lauper joined many other artists including Joni Mitchell, Paul Carrack, Bryan Adams, and Van Morrison. The concert was broadcast live and seen by over five million people worldwide. For that performance, Cyndi donned a schoolgirl outfit, giving a rousing performance to a crowd of over 300,000. The performance garnered a Grammy nomination and her songs and style since have served to inspire many artists, many of who went gaga over her music.

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Tom Hanks got his start in show business with the show Bosom Buddies.

Feedback is welcome. Please email the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com. Show your true colors and have fun with Cyndi Lauper next Saturday, March 17 at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. Tickets at outlets nationwide.