Tim: Here’s a synthy track for you, and, well, have you seen Stranger Things?
Tom: No: it’s not really my sort of show.
Tim: Fair enough. There is reasoning for my question, though – have a listen, then I’ll explain.
Tim: Thing is, I’ve a hunch that people’s feelings for this may somewhat mirror their attitudes to the TV show. “You like 80s stuff? Well then here’s the song for you!”
Tom: And if you think that the majority of songs from the 80s were a bit rubbish, same as the majority of songs from any decade, and that the only reason we look back at the 80s with such nostalgia is that all the terrible music has been forgotten in hindsight, and that all the retro 80s bars and radio stations play from essentially a list of a few hundred tracks at most…
Tim: Well, look at you cutting all the bullshit right down to size. I don’t know, I may be being too cynical here – God knows it wouldn’t be the first time – but given that this is a fair break from her previous tracks, I can’t shake the idea that someone thought “hey, 80s nostalgia really is massive right now, isn’t it? I’m having A LOT of that”.
Tom: Right. But 80s nostalgia has always been massive. We’ve had so many resurgences of it.
Tim: True. But specifically in this instance: there’s a line on her website, that says “Bonus points if you can tell me what inspired the song.” I’d say the answer is blindingly obvious, and perhaps someone else thought “hang on, we’re gonna get flak for this? Let’s call it inspiration rather than ‘bandwagon we totally jumped on’.”
It’s good, mind. Just very, very derivative.