I would have to say that the eighties is one of the
most diverse samplings of music in recent history. Though a majority of the music conveyed a party like lifestyle,
there is a darker more edgy aspect to some of the music. It isn’t all romanticism and worldly views,
though it was the time of Amnesty International, Band AID and USA
for Africa. At one point The New Wave moment turned dark and
Nihilistic. It was like waking up in bed with several unidentifiable bodies
after a night of doing lines of coke off of a stripper’s ass. Remember, this was the decade that AIDS
came to the forefront of the nation but the decadent life style still marched
on. So what’s Nihilism? The term nihilism is a general mood of
despair at a perceived pointlessness of existence that one may develop upon
realizing there are no necessary norms, rules, or laws. In a larger sense, it argues that life is
without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. Moral nihilists assert
that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values
are abstractly contrived. The eighties
were full of these songs, masquerading as pop tunes. I’m not saying that the artists listed here have that objective,
but I think that all art, including music, is a reflection of contemporary
moral views.
Playlist for Livin In Nihilism
1. Missing Persons – “Words”(1981)
Though Dale Bozzio (vocals) was named
Boston’s Playboy Club Bunny of the Year in 1975, it was a chance meeting with Frank
Zappa that took her career to another level. Seeing potential in Dale, Zappa hired her to voice the part of
Mary in his rock opera, “Joe's Garage.”
In that role she promoted Zappa’s views towards the Roman Catholic
Church, sexuality, and the culture of rock bands. In 1980, Dale co-founded the new wave band Missing Persons with
former Zappa musicians Warren Cuccurullo and Terry Bozzio. The odd thing about this song is that so
many people are distracted by her stage persona (i.e. her fetish fashion and
‘squeak’ vocals) that they never really listen to the words of this song. Granted, interpretation of an artist’s
lyrics is up to the individual, but I feel like no one really listens
anymore. Music is more style over
substance and it ceases to convey anything more than just a soundtrack to our
lives.
2. Berlin – “Sex (I'm A...)”(1982)
If Terry Nunn (vocals) had passed the
audition for the movie “Star Wars,” for the role of Princes Leia, the
eighties musical landscape would have been very different. This song is their first hit, though banned
by radio stations for it’s lyrical content, and is the jumping off point for
the band’s success. The idea of sexual
role-play is not new, but this song is a great example on how we can
arbitrarily define ourselves regardless of what is considered the status
quo. At the time the music industry
thought "new and exciting" meant upbeat guitar-oriented skinny-tie
power pop bands with male lead singers and did not understand Berlin’s Synth
rock sound with their downcast subject matter.
They went on to be one of the pinnacle bands of the era with
compositions such as “The Metro,” “No More Words,” and the international
hit “Take My Breath Away” from the motion picture “Top Gun.”
3. Frankie Goes To Hollywood – “Relax”(1983)
The group's name derived from a page from The New
Yorker magazine, featuring the headline "Frankie Goes to Hollywood"
and a picture of Frank Sinatra, although the magazine page Johnson
referred to was actually a pop art poster by Guy Peellaert. Holly Johnson (vocals), Paul
Rutherford (vocals, keyboards), Peter Gill (drums, percussion), Mark
O'Toole (bass guitar), and Brian Nash (guitar) became cultural icons
in this decade of decadence. You
couldn’t turn the corner at the local mall without seeing one of the group’s “Frankie
Says Relax” t-shirts. I’m not sure
if the fashionistas at the time really understood the seedy nature of the
lyrics that are conveyed in this song.
The Caligula Club aspect of this video (This is the banned version,
though other videos of this song exist) I have personally witnessed in dance
clubs over the years. This is the song
that really gets the debauchery going out on the dance
floor.
4. Pet Shop Boys – “West End Girls”(1984)
This English electronic dance music duo consisting
of Neil Tennant (vocals, keyboards and occasional guitar) and Chris
Lowe (keyboards), shot strait to the top of the pop charts with this
Nihilistic song. The lyrics focus on class, and inner-city pressure, and were
inspired by T.S. Eliot's poem “The Waste Land.” In this ten-year span there were several
movies (i.e. “Pretty In Pink”, “The Breakfast Club” and
“Valley Girl” to name a few) designed to showcase that contrasting social
groups can find common ground. This
song doesn’t do that. It’s basically a
‘fuck all’ attitude and comes across almost languid in its stance on casual sex
in the midst of social norms. There is
no romance lost in the lyrics, “You've got a heart of glass or a heart of
stone, Just you wait 'til I get you home, We've got no future, we've got no
past, Here today, built to last, In every city, in every nation, From Lake
Geneva to the Finland station, (How far have you been?)” The anonymous nature of East End Boys and
West End Girls and their perceive class standing, gives little sympathy to any
relationship lasting longer than one night.
The rules are defined by the social pressures and not societal norms.
5.
Wang Chung – “To Live and Die in L.A.”(1985)
In the decade where this group proclaimed the manta
“Everybody have fun tonight, Everybody Wang Chung tonight,” they
composed the title song for this movie that has a darker connotation. Core members Nick Feldman (Bass
guitar, guitar, keyboards, and Vocals) and Jack Hues (Vocals, Guitar,
Keyboards, and Piano) were originally known as Huang Chung, which
translates roughly as "perfect pitch" -- although later, on American
Bandstand, they claimed it was the sound a guitar made. They revised the band name to Wang Chung,
which means "Yellow Bell" in Chinese and is the first note in
the Chinese classical music scale, because too many people were referred to
them as Hung Chung. The lyrics, “I
wonder why I live alone here, I wonder why we spend these nights together, Is
this the room I'll live my life forever, I wonder why in L.A., to live and die
in L.A”, really conveys the hopelessness of a life that is devoid of any
purpose or meaning. It’s a far cry from
a party mentality.
6. The Bangles-“Hazy Shade Of Winter”(1987)
This is a remake of the Simon & Garfunkel song
(original 1966) for the movie “Less Than Zero” based off Bret Easton
Ellis' novel of the same name. The
Bangles version of the song is a departure from the original as it has a
harder-edged rock interpretation and removes most of the original bridge
section. The lyrics from the original
composition evoke the passage of the seasons and focuses on the gloominess of
winter, but this version has implications of drug abuse and aimlessness when
fused with the subject matter of the movie.
Most of the characters in the Novel, as well as the movie, are devoid of
any self worth as they watch the wonder years of high school fade away. This is one of my favorite books because of
Ellis’s ability to convey emptiness in an arena of excess. It goes to show you that even those destined
for greatness can lose themselves to decadence.
7. New Order – "True Faith"(1987)
This band, formed out of the ashes of Joy
Division after the suicide Ian Curtis (lead vocalist), has an
enigmatic veil surrounding its members, as they rarely grant interviews or
appear in promotional materials. They
are a staple of the underground techno dance circuit as new generations are
exposed to their music. There are many
interpretations of this song, but the one that keeps cropping up is about drug
addiction. “That's the price that we all pay, Our valued
destiny comes to nothing, I can't tell you where we're going, I guess there's
just no way of knowing,” is a lyric that has a Nihilistic tone, but maybe
there is a positive aspect in all of this.
The future is unknown, and if we spend all of our time considering what
is yet to be, we loose the time in which we live.
Bonus Video:
Romeo Void – “Never Say Never” (1984)
Most people know this as the “Might like you
better if we slept together” song.
Interpretations are open for discussion.
