I’ve been sliding back down that 80s advertising rabbit hole on YouTube again. It got me thinking.
We have been going through something of an 80s revival in the past few years (kicked off by the likes of Stranger Things). And when we see people embracing this aesthetic it’s generally very bright. Lots of neon. Pinks and blues. A loud colourful electronic synth-wave utopia.
As a guy who grew up through the early 80s, reader? I have some bad news for you…
Folks, forget the neon. Forget the pinks and blues.
I don’t think I can adequately convey just how Brown the early 80s was. And Beige. Seriously, looking back at 80s film and TV you would be forgiven for wondering if blue had been removed from the colour palette entirely. Plenty Red. Plenty Green. Very little blue.
And certainly never *bright* blue. Where you *had* neon signs they were mostly red or green.
Brown. Grey. Green. Red.
Very occasionally? Navy blue.
80s Britain was the colour palette over a painfully overcast day.
Part of what added a lot of the brown into that colour palette? Was wood panelling. Everywhere. Even TVs and radios were covered in the stuff.
And yes, there was a fair bit of electronic synth driven music. But pop culture wise? 80s Britain had lot of two tone. A lot of reggae. A lot of Ska. A lot of bluesy pretentious saxophone driven music. And good god, spare us all from all the Stock, Aitken and Waterman…
It was a lot more diverse than people seem to be remembering it.
When you thinking of crackly VHS film grain and bright neon? That’s really the early 90s. Not so much the 80s at all.
ThatMarkRoberts