I’ve recently gotten the feeling that there’s more recycling going on than actual creativity.  You need look no further than your local movie theatre for evidence of this.  What eighties movie  or television show will not be shamelessly remade for no real reason whatsoever?  I have just read an article about a Smurfs movie that is in production.  It’s not animated.  It stars Neil Patrick Harris.  As cool as I think NPH is, are the studio execs who greenlighted this cracked out?  Does this seem like a good idea to anyone?  Incidentally, I hated the new Clash of the Titans and if I were still living in America, I’d  watch the original any Sunday they played it on TNT.  And I won’t even consider a remake of Karate Kid sans Pat Morita, no matter how cute Will Smith’s kid may be.  And an A Team movie is a bad enough idea; but an A-Team movie without Mr. T? Blasphemy beyond comprehension!

On a recent shopping trip, I also noticed, much to my horror, that the worst of eighties fashion has regurgitated itself this Spring.  Neon colors were cool when I was twelve.  But then again, so were Generra Hypercolor shirts and that trend lasted about ten minutes.  Yes, I was appalled and made to feel really old (as in, “Am I too old to wear trendy stuff?  Is this what the kids are wearing now?  Is it time for Dockers chinos and boat shoes?) looking at what I can only describe as New Jersey eighties hair metal chic:  acid-washed jeans with peg legs, factory-faded jean jacket vests with the sleeves made to look ripped off, pastel flowered tunic blouses with tiny studded belts.  Save me.  Deliver me from.  FTW.

For some reason, I don’t get as annoyed when I think a band may be trying to recycle an eighties sound.  That could be because music was so damn fun in the eighties, was it not?  Around the world, too, and so many genres.  Before goth and shoegazer and Insane Clown Posse and all of that taking-itself-entirely-too-seriously music there was Dead or Alive, “You Spin Me Right Round”, for example.  We had that song on 45 and we’d blast that shit and turn our basement into a discotheque.  To this day, if I see it on a karaoke menu, I can’t resist it.  It has stood the test of time in a way that a fake-ass Mr.T will never.  If I sound bitter, imagine how Mr.T feels.  He’s still alive, you know, and probably could use some work.

George Lewis Jr, AKA Twin Shadow, may very well be a hipster.  I don’t know much about him because he has yet to truly blow up.  He does seem, however, to know the right people.  After cutting his teeth in Berlin, he’s come home to roost in Brooklyn, and you could do worse locale-wise as a budding musician.  And he’s another bedroom musician, mixing and arranging everything all on his lonesome.  But he has been signed to Terrible Records who will soon release his first full-length album with assistance from Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear’s sound man), and again, you could do worse.

Aric and I discussed this recently:  it’s time for synth lovers to come out of the closet.  We can come out into the light, embrace synth without irony and know true happiness.  Allow Twin Shadow to show you how.

Eighties rehash?  George Lewis Jr.: you’re doing it right.

Twin Shadow – Castles In The Snow

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Tara. and more Tara. she’ll soon become part of your daily habit.