What Is The Worst Year In Pop History? And The Best?

I stopped watching it after it reached 1988. I just got the feeling that as the series got nearer to the present day, the selections didn't have such strong resonances, although the programme makers obviously tried to make them seem that they did. Some of the early Acid House footage was strangely other-worldly though.

I reviewed the 1981 programme for another website and thought it was absolutely fantastic precisely because it did seem genuinely resonant, magical, and distant from today. By 1989 most of those qualities had gone; everything just seemed so familiar. I shudder at the prospect of a 90s series this summer.

Also, as the decade went on, the imagery evoked became less pleasantly nostalgic, and more suggestive of an aggressive, go- getting attitude which can never seem so reassuring no matter how hard a programme like this tries. I didn't see most of the '88 programme, but I would suspect that it was the contrast with everything else in the mainstream which, by definition, dominated the show, which made the Acid House scenes seem so other-worldly, more than the historical distance.

If they are actually doing a 1990s retro series then bring it on. There is little that would expose the paucity of the nostalgia format more.

I cant see I love 1981 as being any cooler than I love 1989, sorry.

Wait until the nostalgia bugs have passed over, then check out what they didn't scavenge. It'll usually have been too crass, or too complex, or both. Either way, you win.

I'd agree with you, Tom, in the sense that nostalgia TV is the deadest of all ends, a fairly cheap and cynical means of filling 90 minutes, and if the forthcoming 90s series shows up the emptiness of this format, then so much the better. I'd dance on its grave, basically.

However, if the programme is well-made and well-produced and I find what is in it interesting and revealing and I quite like a lot of it, I can like the programme (while disliking the ideas behind it). I thought I Love 1981 was fantastic, lovingly-made television. But every one of Mark Morris's words on the format remain true.

There was an article in The Times to-day - various people talking about best years / worst years. It was kind of interesting.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14932-1956865,00.html

Has this thread been done on ILM elsewhere? I can't believe this faded out in 2001.

Apparantly it's based on a Radio 2 programme on January 2nd.

Oh yeah - mine would be best and worst both 1980 - Joy Division really hitting their stride and then Ian Curtis killing himself.

Having said that I think I'm missing the gist of the article. I think they're really thinking about bigger trends then one band. That's much more tricky.

"The disco explosion of 1978"? Isn't that kind of like the "Tarantino explosion of 1996"?

Oh, and the fact that 2005 is on the list and 2001 isn't = ha ha, people of Britain, you so crazy! (But I still luv u and yr Ricky Gervaises.)