If you needed to sum up the year that was 1984 in a single image, you could do a lot worse than this page…

…taken from a holiday season flyer from K-Mart.

1984 was a transitional year in many respects, the moment when the last vestiges of the previous decade’s malaise were dispelled in favor of the glossy superficiality popularly associated with the “Eighties.” Reagan’s economic policies — based on the principles of deficits, degregulation, and defense spending — gave birth to a bubble of prosperity and consumer spending (which we’re currently neck-deep in the consquences of). The triumphalist spectacles of the Los Angeles Summer Olympics and the 1984 presidential election — an overwhelming victory for Reagan — marked a new era of optimistic arrogance masked as patriotism.

The Pastel Era, the Age of the Yuppie, the Big 80s — whatever you choose to call it, it was a decisive break from the pessimism that preceded it…even if the celebratory mood had an unmistakable “Masque of the Red Death” character to it.

1984 was the year when my apocalyptic anxieties reached their fever pitch. The Reagan administration’s confrontational approach to Cold War diplomacy and the escalation to the arms race had been festering in my (and the public’s) subconscious since the man assumed office, but it was in 1984 that the crystalization of those anxieties manifested in the mass media but large. The hoopla surrounding The Day After, in which armageddon was portrayed as a special-effects b-movie extravaganza, was the most famous example, but there were many others as well –frequent UHF airings of Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove, Scholastic book club reprints of On the Beach and Alas, Babylon, even the Teutonic pop cheese of “99 Luftballoons.”

For me, the final catalyst was Reagan’s relection, which had my twelve year old self utterly convinced that doomsday was mere moments away, and for several sleepless weeks the sound of a siren or a jet passing overhead would induce intense feelings of panic. But, hey, we “won” the Cold War, so no harm done.

Pop music, at least the form of it that reaches the masses, also underwent a sea change during 1984. The runaway popularity of the music video format turned out to be a massive boon to the many and varied acts lumped under the musically meaningless banner of “New Wave.” MTV needed content, these bands had the lion’s share of it, and so what had been poised to follow in glam rock’s footsteps as a foreign novelty with a small domestic following became a mainstream pop phenomenon.

It didn’t last, of course. It was only a matter of time before the novelty faded and the format became incorporated as an essential marketing device by which even the poster child for blue collar “authenticity” could be reduced to a gyrating buffoon and a calculated cluster of video-savvy acts assumed chart dominance. (The art-directed visual language of the format also spilled over into other forms of media around this time — such as Miami Vice and Flashdance — and would go on to become the most representative example of the 80s aesthetic.)

Also, pop charts, like any other imperfect (and corruptable) manifestation of direct democracy, tend to reward inoffensive banalities.

See what I mean? (You’ll also notice the complete absence of any rap or hip-hop, surprising only because breakdancing and the associated musical styles were huge amongst the schoolyard set at the time, even in the whiter than white suburb of Woburn. It would take the Beasties and Aerosmith’s dalliance with Run DMC to turn that into record sales. Funny, that.)

I witnessed 1984 through the eyes of a tweener who himself was in transition, from grammar school to junior high, from a small North Woburn apartment to a duplex outside the city center. While nostalgia can’t cut through the riot of terrible pop songs, fashions, and anxieties I’d just as soon forget, the cultural historian in me can’t help returning to that era to contemplate those very things.

Recommended listening: Public Image Limited – The Order of Death (from This Is What You Want…This Is What You Get, 1984)

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The year that was, summed up in two lines of chilling simplicity.

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