Tag: music
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One Cent Record Clubs and Predatory Discovery
What’s the value of music when your life is falling apart? How did that “ten albums for a penny” deal really work? And could a kid’s mail-order music club from the 1980s have predicted today’s subscription trap? In the summer of 1983, I was a wreck. My grandfather pulled into a RadioShack parking lot and…
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Love My Way: The Psychedelic Furs and the Marimba That Woke Me Up
What if one song could tell you it was okay to exist exactly as you are? What if it came from a group of straight guys who decided silence wasn’t an option? And what if that song , of all things, started with a marimba? Let’s talk about “Love My Way” by the Psychedelic Furs!…
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Surviving the Cold War (Again): A Gen Xer’s Guide
If you were a Gen X kid, you remember the Cold War and may be having a familiar feeling right now. Global tension you didn’t fully understand but could feel. We didn’t learn about the Cold War from history books. We learned it from Sting songs, Stallone movies, and being told by our teachers that…
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Gloria Estefan Taught Us How to Come Out of the Dark
Gloria Estefan is a Fem Friday icon. I’ve got Pat Green to thank for helping me remember just how iconic she really is. I asked him if he had ever considered writing about her. He said he had a rough draft and notes on her-as well as other women from the 80s. I asked him…
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Jill Sobule: Social Legacy Far Beyond One Hit
I was scrolling my Insta on May 1st when I saw my favorite human and Go-Go, Jane Weidlin post in grief that it did not feel real. What didn’t feel real? Jill Sobule passed at age 66. I felt the breath escape my lungs and a wave of emotion hit. She’s one of those icons…
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Phil Collins and the Long Long Way to Go Now
Is the world too hard to handle? Do we need to face the suffering? What happens when we turn off empathy? Phil Collins’ “Long Long Way to Go” is a punch to the gut, a reminder of the world I came of age in and how it shaped us. Whenever I hear that haunting chorus,…
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Hearts of Glass With the Heartbeat of Blondie
The news hit me hard and this was hard to write: Clem Burke, the drummer of Blondie, died at age 70 after a private battle with cancer. We’ve lost not just a drummer, but the beat of my youth. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Blondie’s songs were the soundtrack of my coming-of-age. Today,…
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How to Celebrate National Retro Day
Happy National Retro Day! We talk about healthy and unhealthy nostalgia at Gen X Watch often. Today is the day to have fun with nostalgia, lean into it, and have a little bit of fun. Why Does National Retro Day Exist? In 2018 Hermelinda A. Aguilar and Robert and Tina Duran founded national retro day.…
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Joy Division and the New Order of the 80’s!
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation announced its 2025 nominees for the Hall of Fame! In the list as one nominee is Joy Division/New Order. This is a bittersweet moment in musical history that not everyone knows about. In Gen X Watch, columnist Jeremy Ritch has written about the importance of not being…
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Hearts of Glass Living in the Real World
Hearts of Glass living in the Real World is almost here! It is the first YA novel in the Hearts of Glass series! 3 books and a series of short stories in an expanded universe based on the Fem Fridays we have written about here at Gen X Watch! It is unique and we need…
Recent Posts
- Nostalgia and the Beautiful Return to Pain
- One Cent Record Clubs and Predatory Discovery
- Em Dashes and Witch Hunts With New Literary Inquisitors
- Love My Way: The Psychedelic Furs and the Marimba That Woke Me Up
- When Free Speech Fought Back in 1985
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Comments
Thanks for the tour through the bittersweet… Obviously, for everyone that trip back is going to be different even though…
Wow, this article is so well-written! I really enjoyed how you highlighted Tina’s race as a factor that prevented her…