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I\u2019ve been out of university and in the Real World for just over a year now, so I\u2019ve had fewer opportunities to flex the muscles of my inner wordsmith \u2013 however, I regret to inform the 3 of you who may read this, that the chance to flex once again has arrived. The light to the blue touch paper? Sonia\u2019s You\u2019ll Never Stop Me Loving You<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m pinpointing this song because it\u2019s a recent discovery by way of an old Top of the Pops repeat. I had no idea it existed, had never listened to Sonia, and suddenly all I listened to was Sonia<\/em>. You thought I was being mean about this song by my use of the \u201cYou\u2019ll never stop me from loving you\/It doesn\u2019t really matter what you put me through.\u201d Where is this message to be found in Beauvoir\u2019s The Second Sex<\/em>? Oh, right. Although, the whole song does strike a rather stalkerish note: \u201cWhen I know that you\u2019re alone\/I wander to your home\/And catch a glimpse or two.\u201d The only other example I can think of in this lyrical arena is Busted\u2019s That\u2019s What I Go To School For<\/em> – \u201cI climb a tree outside her home\/To make sure that she’s alone\/I see her in her underwear\/I can’t help but stop and stare.\u201d However, where Busted come across as laddish schoolboys, the idea of \u2018it doesn\u2019t really matter what you put me through\u2019 walks the line between lovestruck and faintly concerning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I know, I\u2019m being painfully self-righteous. I understand this is by no means the worst song to come out of the 80s regarding the perception of women (the entire back catalogue of M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce, anyone?) Indeed, there are many other songs with equally wet sentiments from the women of the 20th<\/sup> Century \u2013 Jennifer Rush\u2019s The Power of Love<\/em>, even Dolly Parton\u2019s Jolene<\/em>. I am not holding Sonia or any of these women up as the enemy of feminism – I\u2019d be a hypocrite if I was. It is simply interesting to notice how easily a questionable lyrical message can be overlooked by a catchy melody jammed with more synths than Gary Numan\u2019s garage in 1979. But then, how many pop songs can that argument apply to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not trying to get on a soapbox and rant about how 80s pop music undercut centuries of feminist struggle. That would have been a brilliant dissertation topic, but the bottom line is this: You\u2019ll Never Stop Me Loving You<\/em> was written by a group of 3 blokes in the 80s who knew their way around production and a decent melody. It\u2019s incredibly catchy, it\u2019s very upbeat, and most importantly, it\u2019s of its time. During these months of confusion, uncertainty and fear, it is completely harmless. It\u2019s escapist and light-hearted. It may be so cheesy that you feel ashamed of liking it, but I say this \u2013 put it on when you\u2019re making dinner or tidying your room. Allow yourself to fall for it, hook, line and synthesiser.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve been out of university and in the Real World for just over a year now, so I\u2019ve had fewer opportunities to flex the muscles of my inner wordsmith \u2013 however, I regret to inform the 3 of you who may read this, that the chance to flex once again has arrived. The light to … Continue reading Ruminations on 80s Trash<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":907,"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions\/907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
word \u2018trash\u2019 in the title of this post. Two things can be true at once. It is, in fact, utter<\/em> trash. Is it still great? Yes. By great, do I mean terrible? Also yes.
YNSMLY was part of the subsection of music borne out of the synthesised technicolour rainbow that was Stock, Aitken and Waterman\u2019s late 80s pop emporium. Such an empire was built on so much pop cheese that it could cause
gastrointestinal issues in anyone within a 5-mile radius. Don\u2019t believe me? Check out another Sonia offering \u2013 Someone Like You<\/em>. A far cry from the 21st<\/sup> century lamenting of Adele, its 80s counterpart is in fact a bouncy, bubble-gum tune about finding the Perfect Boy. This sense of naivety brings me back to the somewhat questionable message behind YNSMLY.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n