A week ago my wife Paula and I went to an 80s part in Catete (an old part of Rio de Janeiro) together with some of her friends. At the beginning of the evening the DJ played US and UK music (and even Roxette who are Swedish), but at a certain point he switched to Brazilian music from the 80s - and then I really feel like a gringo :)
As soon as the intro was playing people would scream and the dance floor got flooded, while I would try to recognize the song (Paula has subjected me to a lot of local music), and then they started singing along. The music he played has no memories attached to them for me, while they got a misty look in their eyes of teenage flashbacks - sort of how I would feel if he had played Tainted Love by Soft Cell.
The last evenings I've been reading a book I gave Paula some time ago, called Almanaque Anos 80 It even has its own community on Orkut. The book has a chapter on music, so when I read it last night I decided to listen to some of the golden oldies today.
At the moment I'm blasting the office with 80s music:
- Close to you
The Cure - Build
The Housemartins - Broken Wings
Mr. Mister - Oh l'amour
Erasure - Alive and Kicking
Simple Minds - Kiss
Prince - 99 Luftballons
Nena
While watching the old music videos above, I made an interesting discovery.
Nena, who I thought was very beautiful when I was a teenager,
looks very much like my wife! I'll let you be the judge of the likeness:
