MAGAZINE

Why the ’80s don’t want to end

Headphones on, a cassette in your pocket, a film rented for the weekend: the 1980s invented habits we still repeat today in other forms. Forty years later, series, hits and video games keep returning to that neon-lit decade. Why does that particular decade refuse to fade away?

It all begins with a small blue-and-silver device. On July 1, 1979, Sony launched the Walkman TPS-L2 in Japan, a cassette player that fits in the hand. For the first time, music stopped being a piece of living-room furniture: it walked with us in the street, on the bus, on the subway. The 1980s would be the decade of headphones, when everyone put together a personal soundtrack amid the crowd. That tiny gesture, slipping in a cassette and pressing play, changed our relationship with sound long before digital players and streaming.

Meanwhile, radio broke free. In France, the state held a monopoly over the airwaves, and pirate stations broadcast in secret; after the 1981 election, the law of November 9, 1981 authorized private local radio and threw the FM band wide open. Within months, hundreds of stations sprang up, including NRJ, founded that same year. Around the world, FM became a playground for new voices, niche music and cult presenters. Turning on the radio, searching for a frequency, stumbling on an unfamiliar song: that was the discovery algorithm of the time, imperfect and wonderful.

At home, another revolution hums beneath the television. Sony launched Betamax in 1975, JVC answered with VHS in 1976, and over the course of the 1980s the VCR moved into households. Now you could record a film, watch it again, lend it out: TV programming stopped being a fixed appointment. A place that has since disappeared grew up around this machine: the video rental store, with its shelves of garish covers, advice across the counter and late fees. Choosing a film on Friday night became a family outing, and no streaming platform has truly replaced that ritual.

On August 1, 1981, a new American cable channel aired its very first music video: “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. MTV was born, along with the idea that music could be watched. Videos became little films: in 1983, Michael Jackson turned “Thriller,” from the album released in late 1982, into a nearly fourteen-minute short film directed by John Landis. The decade made global stars through image as well as sound, from Madonna to Prince, and established a visual grammar of neon, shoulder pads and studio haze that today’s pop still quotes with relish.

We also have to imagine the joyful racket of the arcades. After “Space Invaders” (1978), Namco’s “Pac-Man” devoured the planet in 1980, and Nintendo’s “Donkey Kong” set a moustachioed carpenter jumping in 1981—the future Mario. We played standing up, coin in hand, surrounded by onlookers; the high score appeared as three initials, local and fleeting glory. The golden age of arcades laid the foundations for an industry that grew enormous, and its pixels, bleeps and cabinets live on today in retro bars and in the aesthetic of many independent games.

Because the 1980s keep coming back. In 2016, Netflix’s series “Stranger Things” took millions of viewers back to a small American town in 1983, bicycles and walkie-talkies included. The music followed: the synthwave wave, driven in part by French artist Kavinsky, whose “Nightcall” (2010) lit up the film “Drive” in 2011, brought the synthesizers of the era back to life. In 2019, The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” fully embraced that sound and became one of the biggest global hits of the streaming era. Cinema joined in too, from “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) to the new “Ghostbusters” sequels.

What does this persistent nostalgia say about us? The 1980s were the last decade before the internet: no instant messaging, no social networks, just a handful of channels and stations. With no infinite choice, memories were shared: everyone had seen the same video, hummed the same theme tune, waited for the same show. This shared culture, almost dissolved in the age of personalized recommendations, gives those memories their particular sweetness. And the loveliest part is that these worlds haven’t vanished: somewhere, right now, a radio station is still playing those songs, a channel is showing those images again, and all it takes to return is to tune in.

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