I recently curated the music for a birthday party where a fair portion of the playlist was taken from songs originally released in 1987 (with a side order of 1983, 1984, and a few old favorites for good measure). As a result of this, I spent a fair bit of the last few weeks listening to music from this era, and it struck me how similar 1987 and 2017 were, both in the types of music that were popular (at least to me) and also in some of what was going on in the news. 1987 was an election year too, with The Housemartins and The Blow Monkeys (amongst others) singing about the need to change a right wing female PM for something more socialist. There were also great records from The Wedding Present, Pixies, Sonic Youth, New Order, The Fall, The Cure, Depeche Mode, and the swansong from The Smiths (as well as several of their best singles). 1987 was angry, dissatisfied, and just under half of the country wanted a change, but that change didn’t come for another few years.
Fast forward to 2017 and it’s another election year. The way we buy and consume music is almost unrecognisable, but I do note with interest that my vinyl buying habit is roughly equivalent to how it was 30 years ago, and that I’ve bought records by many of my 1987 favourites over the last year or so. I still buy lots of new music, but it seems that like Twin Peaks, Slowdive, Wire and a certain brand of gum, the things I liked then are definitely coming back in style. Which can only be a good thing.