Awesome 1980s

Back in 1986, the iconic “digital” character Max Headroom (actor Matt Frewer) would interview various celebs on his short-lived talk show. In this classic gem, he spoke with actor Rutger Hauer, who was at the peak of his career after memorable roles in Blade Runner and Ladyhawke.

(Spoilers, Gore) Stranger Things creators Ross and Matt Duffer sat down with Wired to walk through some of the many references to 1980s science fiction, horror, and adventure movies peppered throughout the series. While some, like E.T. and Alien, are obvious, others, like Altered States are a little more subtly integrated.

If you grew up in the ’70s or ’80s, there’s not much more iconic than the box art from classic Atari games. Authors Robert V. Conte and Tim Lapetino explore the history of videogaming’s great forefather, and the artists and creative process behind these now classic works.

What might the iPhone have been like had it followed in the footsteps of Apple’s 1980s industrial design? Future Punk envisions just that – along with a colorful 1990s take as well. Funny thing is, Apple did design a concept phone in the 1980s.

It’s been 40 years since the Sony Walkman first came on the scene, and since been supplanted by CDs, MP3s, and streaming. But if you’re craving that old cassette tape sound, NINM Lab’s portable player/recorder has Bluetooth 5.0, so you can wirelessly send its sounds to a speaker or headphones. Sadly it’s not stereo.

Musicians Jack Hues and Nick Feldman, better known as Wang Chung teamed up with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra to record new, symphonic versions of their biggest hit songs, and we think they sound even better than the originals. They even shot new music videos for Everybody Have Fun Tonight and Dance Hall Days.

Some songs lend themselves better than others to being played by Paweł Zadrożniak’s Floppotron – a band made up of old mechanical computer hardware. We can think of no better fit than the synth-heavy, robotic sounds of Gary Numan’s 1979 hit Cars.

Techmoan dug up another relic of unusual tech from the 1980s, a boombox from Japanese electronics company National that sported not one or two tape decks, but three. It’s basically the “this one goes to 11” of cassette players. Also, once he cracked it open to perform some repairs, he discovered a mechanical nightmare.

Video game nerds, sit back, relax, and enjoy Dave Freeman’s hour-long commercial break featuring dozens of TV ads for classic games from Pac-Man to Space Invaders from the Atari 2600 to the Intellivision. The Toys ‘R’ Us music almost made us cry.

Musician Clemens Wenners‘ YouTube channel is loaded up with impressive cover versions of tracks from the 1970s and 1980s, accompanied by perfectly selected analog synthesizers and other period-accurate instruments. Tracks include The Bee Gees Nights on Broadway, The Cars’ Drive, and Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight.

Do you love classic ’80s music? Many of the songs of the era relied heavily on Yamaha’s vaunted DX7 synthesizer, which was the first mainstream synth to use FM synthesis, creating a variety of uniquely textured sounds, like the ones in Power DX7’s medley.

Gervais Merryweather describes his animated short as a “love letter to the 1980s,” and we think he nailed it. From the kids in the video arcade, to the giant hairdos, and TV store window displays. What pushes it over the edge is the synthwave soundtrack by Mitch Murder.

The New Order tune Blue Monday isn’t exactly contemporary – it’s nearly 40 years old. BBC Arts’ Orkestra Obsolete took it back even further, envisioning what the track might have sounded like had it been recorded in 1933, using instruments that were in favor at the time.

Diablo meets 1980’s suburbia and a sweet synthwave soundtrack in Kingdom of Night. This retro action RPG has you slaying demons in your neighborhood. Choose from three specializations, each with three classes. Coming to PC, Xbox One, PS4 and Switch.

Musician and producer Andy Rehfeldt transformed the 1980s classic I Ran (So Far Away), leaving the original vocals intact, and then re-recording the instrumentals with his own original hard rock arrangement. He should do a whole new wave album like this.

Everyone’s a super hero… everyone’s a Captain Kirk. ’80s kids will get a kick out of musician Seb Skelly’s all-brass rendition of Nena’s bi-lingual hit track 99 Luftballoons aka 99 Red Balloons here in the states.

If voice assistants like Siri had existed back in the ’80s, they might have had a slightly different user experience than we’re used to today. Squirrel Monkey imagines what life might have been like if Siri shipped on a 3.5″ floppy and downloaded answers via a 1200 baud modem.

After filling our eyes and ears with some of Queen’s most epic performances of the 1970s, the official Queen channel is back with a reel of the band’s best moments in the decade of Pac-Man and big hair. Despite the controversy, we never thought adding synths hurt their sound.

A wonderful time capsule of the early 1980s, this fantastically cheesy promo clip for the Magnavox Magnavision VH-8000 Laser Video Disc Player featured a mustachioed Leonard Nimoy as the curious consumer as he learned about the player from a talking light-up rock.

Techmoan shows off some more more awesomely weird retro tech. The Roland MT-80S was a compact music player that played back MIDI files using songs stored on a 3.5 inch floppy disk. Since it was designed for learning music, it also packed a digital metronome.

While the song’s sound is distinctively 1980s, the music video for I DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME’s track Do It All the Time looks like it was created by Kraftwerk back in the late 1970s. Even if they got their dates a little wrong, the track is a serious earworm.

Musician AaronGrooves puts a seriously shiney new coat of paint onto the theme music from the 1980s arcade game Pac-Man, playing the classic 8-bit tune on xylophone, drums, ukulele, cowbell, and a loop machine.

Musician and vocalist Morrissey applies his trademark sad wail to The Pretenders 1982 hit Back on the Chain Gang, offering up a delicious mindmeld of two iconic 1980s sounds. The song appears as a bonus track on the upcoming deluxe edition of Low in High School.