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| Blogs > lonelynights63 > Your traces on me |
Back to the future (
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Back to the future ( The clothes! The fluo colours! The neon colours! The fluo/neon colours! The shoulder pads ‒ «damn, they make those doors so narrow»! The acid wash jeans ‒ «why to wait for it to look old and worn - out when you can buy it looking old and worn - out but paying it as brand new of course?» (While Nick Kamen was making a name and a fortune for himself just by taking a bath with his jeans on...). The designer jeans, one of the stupidest inventions of the human kind! The<b> spandex </font></b>pants (if the lycra ones weren’t enough!). The ridiculously expensive sneakers ‒ in neon colours, no need to mention that! (Still worn only by rappers, fashions change very slowly in the world of hip-hop. Or just never...). The bat wing sweaters! And we will leave Goths aside because they were an altogether different chapter, a history totally all of their own! More specifically for women leggings, leg warmers (sometimes even on warm spring days...), pointy toed stiletto court shoes (in neon colours, should I keep repeating it?), prom dresses, off the shoulder (or just torn off) tee shirts («I know, I should have thrown it a long time ago but I can’t find the same anymore...») and of course that «Ι ‒ wear ‒ my ‒ lingerie ‒ as ‒ clothes» look (in certain cases and the exact opposite was happening...) started by that bloody Madonna video for «Like A Virgin» (by the way, Lolitas instead of real women anyone? There were plenty of them back then, the paedophiliac’s heaven…). Between this mess and the vintage grunge look of the early ‘90s (very short mini dress and jackboots with no stockings or socks whatsoever…) the latter definitely gets my vote as for…female elegance! No good news for men too with bomber jackets (Top Ass indeed my friend Tommy!), shell suits, mismatched neon ‒ what else? ‒ socks or that fucking styling of «I forgot to wash any shocks or I just don’t bother to buy some new pairs so I’ll just wear my moccasins without them even though we have a heat wave so...watch out people if I have to take off my shoes!» (Don Johnson, eternal damnation in the flames of sartorial hell that «Santa Barbara» was awaits you for that crime buddy!), Hawaiian shirts, «tropical» bermuda shorts and the loudest possible Armani suit worn with a tee or, if you were really desperate to make your presence felt, with only your macho chest complete of course with lots of hair and the obligatory, nice, plate ‒ sized medallion! The hair! For the bold and daring the «I just got out of the washing machine and then I was voluntarily electrocuted» look of people like A Flock Of Seagulls and Kajagoogoo (no, not even themselves want to remember such band names...). For the rest it was first of all the shape ‒ «I got my hairdresser very drunk, I woke him up very early the next day, gave him the scissors while he still had the hangover but I took it from him after he had done only the left side...He did a good job though, don’t you think?». The size ‒ «give me a crew cut but leave two very long wisps at the back, I don’t want my neck and back to get wet when it’s raining...». The volume ‒ mullets and poodle perms, nothing more needs to be said (those of the latter that belonged to the members of Bon Jovi were actually given to them by their leader’s father who happened to be a barber. Hmmm, some people can’t admit to the fact that they are commercial failures and to change jobs even belatedly...Maybe if that barber had done that he would had set a good example for his too!). The streaks, many of them and in even more colours (although I have to confess that I also have done that. But it was three whole years after the end of the ‘80s and in one and only colour, just a lighter shade of my natural one and not in green, pink and electric blue! Here you go, that’s honesty on behalf of a writer...). And of course...mousse! Too much of it...And for shorter hair the sticky thing called gel, even more of that...lots of it! As for the female equivalent of all those...think «Dynasty», think Krystle Carrington, think...big! Very big indeed! The accessories! The jelly bracelets! Any kind of bracelets in fact...Both around the hands and the feet. The oh ‒ so - wide («no, I didn’t have an operation, I just like them that way») belts with the nails! The really...colorful bandanas! (Glam metal? David Lee Roth? Poseurs? Poison? Right, stay like you are in your coffins…It’s no time for the convention of zombies yet!). The black eyeliner, often with as ‒ dark ‒ as - it ‒ got eye shadow, every day, all day, even in broad daylight...and both for women and men (and here I have to confess that I have commited another sin too, I have used both of them. But I was a Cure fan and we had the right to do that, get it? And no, I wasn’t a Goth!  There were Goths and there were Cure-heads, two completely different things! If not different species...). And of course the very huge shades that gave some kind of aloofness, a bit like «hello my fellow aliens»!Now take out the old pictures and look at them...Or look some of your classmates at the reunion because, believe it or not, some people are still like that! And the most unbelievable of all things is that they don’t find anything strange in that...The younger among you can just google the words ‘80s style, ‘80s fashion and anything related. Seen the evidence? Did you remember or get the idea? Now you can scream on top of your lungs ‒ like Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz famously said in «Apocalypse Now!» - «the horror! the horror!». Then take a deep breath and...start running, run as fast as you can, run for cover and don’t stop until you reach the nearby hills or something! There you are safe, you can take another breath, calm down and repeat to yourself many times and as loudly as you like «it’s over! It’s over! Since a long time ago...». Because if there was really a style police the ‘80s wouldn’t just be wanted by it. That decade would stand accused for serial crimes against the common taste, something like the...Hannibal Lecter of the world of fashion and the decent sense of aesthetic! That in the decade that even the clothes were displaying such vanity there was space for a presence with the gravity ‒ and gravitas - of Anita Baker is really a miracle. Just a secretary from Detroit till then she came with «Rapture», her second album (though many thought that it was her debut but there had been another one three years before which had gone unnoticed) in 1986 and literally took the world by (quiet...) storm. In more ways than one that woman was too much alike to the one and only Aretha Franklin at the latter’s heyday, the end of ‘60s ‒ beginning of ‘70s period. Like Franklin her background was not only in soul which obviously gave her the sensuality but also in gospel from which she acquired the deepness and the spirituality and also in jazz - and thanks to that she had a unique vocal versatility. But she also had something that Franklin lacked or just didn’t bother to explore that much, she was writing a large part of her material or she was contributing to that. And finally she had the ability to accompany herself on the piano more than well, exactly like Aretha... Technically she was a pure alto unlike the very bright mezzo - soprano that Aretha was in her younger years (which actually means something like Franklin’s lower register). But she also shared with her the easiness to hit the higher notes with all the speed, sharpness and accuracy of a...missile, something that only the greatest sopranos have! «Rapture» was followed by a few other albums with considerable success though even before the middle of the ‘90s her impact started to fade until a little later she disappeared from the public view. She resurfaced at the beginning of ‘00s but with poor results and today she just survives, mostly through the live jazz circuit of the East Coast and with her records still to be counted on a single number. It’s really a pity because if that woman had appeared ten years later she would had given to any Mary J Blige a very good run for her money and today she would be much more than just prominent. One way or another she could have really been an Aretha Franklin for the ‘80s...Why that didn’t happen? But very simply because it was the...’80s, nobody needed then even good old Aretha not a second, younger version of her! Or they just believed that... The real hit off «Rapture» was «Sweet Love» and it really is not bad at all, having too been written ‒ partially at least ‒ by her (which means that it is more than possible that you are going to see it here on some Friday). But I always preferred the second most known song off that record, the not exactly title song but anyway the one which gave the title to the album and that is «Caught Up In The Rapture». I don’t know why...Maybe it’s because I think that Garry Glenn’s music (using the technique of the two separate choruses which we have to say that are really the essence of the song because the verses are rather weak) is a little better while Dianne Quander’s lyrics ‒ another proof really that there should be a law that the words for such kind of love songs should be written only by women, only them probably can feel as deep that kind of emotion as for being capable to communicate it so well...- are not particularly original of course but at least go a step further than just the array of clichés of «Sweet Love». Both are just soul ballads but «Caught Up In The Rapture» has that extra something that makes it a better vehicle for Baker’s voice, giving it more room to move. From then on everything really is up to that voice...And nothing more is really needed when you possess an instrument of such power and clarity and with unlimited capabilities but also you know ‒ so much like Aretha again...- instinctively what to do with it, how to use it in the best possible way to get the maximum of results. In this case this voice is let loose to sweep everything away like an aural typhoon, soaring between notes with a phrasing which is just impeccable, nailing every note with exemplary precision but also with emotion oozing out of every syllable though not trying at all and of course without even a hint of pretension and that’s why it is not even in the slightest sugary... Just raw emotion like a true force of nature, soul at its best, soul like it has to be and even its very name implies that, soul of the kind Queen ‘Retha, Otis, Sam and Marvin carved and shaped out of the lust of the body, the longing of the heart and the yearning of the ‒ real this time! ‒ soul and taught it to the next generations. Only her vocalizing in the intro and before the second verse or the masterful and at the same time smooth as the finest velvet way she takes over the main chorus, when she manages to squeeze countless colours and moods in one and single note, carries so much sensuality that could make the Shakiras and the Fergies of today so ashamed as to run and lock themselves in their ludicrously expensive studios together with their two ‒ thousand ‒ bucks ‒ a ‒ day producers and their vocal coaches in a desperate attempt to recreate it. No use though, they just can’t do it in a million years and as much as they try... No offence really to those girls, they are alright, they put on a good show and I quite like hearing some of their songs when I’m having fun at some place. But on another level...I’m afraid that they just don’t cut it. They can only move or rather be masturbation fodder (themselves much more than their songs...) to sixteen year old boys. On the other hand people like Anita Baker are first of all addressing adults. Adults who can very well tell the difference between «cuming» and «making love» just like they know that the latter is always an activity that involves two consenting adults together...Because this is a fundamental difference that there is always in life and of course it exists and between the people that are in this site. It’s only those adults who can really understand the kind of the turbulent and transcending inner elation that Anita implies when she sings «Nothing else can compare/When I feel the magic of you» and of course to actually feel it...like I wish to happen to you this weekend if you are one of them! When we met I always knew I would feel the magic for you On my mind constantly In my arms is where you should be I love you here by me baby You let my love fly free I want you in my life for all time Caught up in the rapture of love Nothing else can compare When I feel the magic of you We stand side by side Till the storms of life pass us by Light my life, warm my heart Say tonight will be just the start I love you here by me baby You let my love fly free I want you in my life for all time Caught up in the rapture of love Nothing else can compare When I feel the magic of you The feeling's always new Caught up in the rapture of you I love you here by me baby You let my love fly free I want you in my life for all time Caught up in the rapture of love Caught up in the rapture of love...  Just me but with all the ego left at the door... |
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7/18/2008 3:23 am |
buddy with your post you just reminded me all the bad taste of that decade, especially in clothes...i thought that time, that some passers by when i was sitting in my cafe drinking my beers were there for me just to amuse me... and in fact they did so by just not doing anything else but wearing all these funny clothes...and the best of all was that they were feeling so good about it ...i really thinking it now more clearly i believe that i couldnt ever hate such a decade which offer to me so much laugh.... by the way, very nice linesclown in the shadows
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7/18/2008 6:11 am |
Yes, i mean the song and i thought you understood my perfect english till now clown in the shadows
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nicely wrapped up.
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