Stuck in the '80s Podcast

Book of Love and the Synth-Pop Bands We Wish We’d Heard More From

Some ’80s bands sold millions of records. Some filled arenas. Some became so permanently embedded in pop culture that you can’t walk through a grocery store without hearing them over the frozen peas. And then there are the bands that somehow found us anyway. This week on Stuck in the ’80s, we’re celebrating Book of Love and a handful of other synth-pop bands that deserved a little more attention the first time around — and whose music might sound even better today. Our centerpiece is a conversation with Book of Love singer Susan Ottaviano. Book of Love arrived in the mid-’80s with a sound that never fit comfortably into one box. Were they synth-pop? New wave? Alternative? Dance? College rock? Maybe the fact that nobody could quite figure that out is one reason the music has aged so well. Susan talks with Spearsy about the band’s beginnings, the influence of groups such as The Cure and The Slits, the importance of New York’s music and art scene, and what Book of Love learned when they suddenly found themselves touring with Depeche Mode. There’s also a fascinating discussion about what happens to music decades after its original release. Songs get rediscovered. Movies and streaming introduce bands to people who weren’t alive the first time around. Music that once sounded like it belonged to a very specific moment can suddenly sound contemporary again. And then comes our favorite question: the Podcast Time Machine. If Susan could go back and change one moment in Book of Love history, what would she do? Her answer: Get a better lawyer. Ouch. She also considers another tantalizing bit of alternate ’80s history: What might have happened if Book of Love had ended up on Mute Records, the label famously associated with Depeche Mode? Susan also gives us an update on Book of Love’s future. This could be the band’s final full tour, although she says the group still plans to make more music. After the interview, Brad and Spearsy keep the synthesizers plugged in for five more bands from the second half of the ’80s that they wish more people had discovered. There’s Canada’s Kon Kan, whose “I Beg Your Pardon” brilliantly repurposed Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden” for the dance floor. Germany gives us Cetu Javu and Camouflage, two bands that inevitably drew comparisons to Depeche Mode. Australia contributes Boxcar, who had the unenviable task of bringing electronic music into a guitar-heavy pub-rock scene. And finally there’s Red Flag, whose story begins with brothers Chris and Mark Reynolds and takes a much sadder turn in the years that followed. Maybe that’s part of the fun of being Stuck in the ’80s after all these years. There are still bands to rediscover, songs that deserve another spin and stories we somehow missed the first time around. So dust off the synthesizer, apply an unreasonable amount of reverb and join us for Book of Love — and five more synth-pop bands we wish we’d heard more from. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Streets of Fire: Revisiting Our Tribute 15 Years Later

We all have that one movie from the ’80s. Maybe yours is Back to the Future. Maybe it’s The Breakfast Club, The Goonies or Say Anything. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the greatest movie ever made. It just has to be the movie that found you at exactly the right time and somehow never let go. For Steve, that movie has always been Streets of Fire. Walter Hill’s 1984 “rock & roll fable” gave us a strange and wonderful world of neon streets, roaring motorcycles, pounding music, Michael Paré, Diane Lane, Amy Madigan and a very young Willem Dafoe in one of the more memorable pairs of overalls in cinematic history. It wasn’t a box-office hit. It never became the franchise its creators once envisioned. But Streets of Fire found its audience over the years, becoming a cult favorite with a visual style and soundtrack that remain unmistakable more than four decades later. This week, we’re opening the Stuck in the ’80s archives and traveling back 15 years to revisit our original tribute to Streets of Fire, first released in 2011. And after you've taken that trip back with us, maybe ask yourself: What was your special movie of the ’80s? THE ’80s CRUISE Ready to stop merely talking about the ’80s and actually live them for a week? Join Stuck in the ’80s aboard The ’80s Cruise in 2027 for seven days of music, memories, trivia, questionable dancing and thousands of people who understand why the ’80s still matter this much to us. Use promo code STUCK when booking to receive $250 in onboard credit per cabin. Come sail with us. Because apparently spending 20-plus years talking about the ’80s still wasn't enough. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Paul Simon’s Graceland at 40: The Album That Changed Everything

Forty years ago, Paul Simon released one of the most unlikely blockbuster albums of the 1980s. Graceland arrived on Aug. 25, 1986, blending Simon’s unmistakable songwriting with South African rhythms, zydeco, gospel harmonies and a completely new way of building songs. The result was an album that sounded unlike almost anything else on the radio — and somehow became one of the defining records of the decade. In this episode of Stuck in the ’80s, we go track by track through Graceland, from “The Boy in the Bubble” and “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” to “You Can Call Me Al” and the title track. We also look at the album’s controversial origins during apartheid, the musicians who helped shape its sound, its Grammy-winning success and why it still feels so timeless 40 years later. Plus, we ask the bigger question: Where does Paul Simon rank among the greatest songwriters of our lifetime? And don’t forget: Stuck in the ’80s is sailing again with The ’80s Cruise. Join us at sea with some of the biggest stars of the decade, live music, trivia and plenty of ’80s insanity. Use promo code STUCK when booking to receive $250 in onboard cabin credit. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Those Crazy Movie and TV High Schools of the '80s

If you could go back and spend four years at any fictional high school from the ’80s, where would you enroll? Would you hang out with Spicoli at Ridgemont High? Serve Saturday detention with the Breakfast Club at Shermer High? Shoot hoops for Hickory? Learn the African Anteater Ritual at Crandall High? Or maybe you'd choose a school where there's absolutely no chance of being murdered by your classmates or attacked in your dreams. This week on Stuck in the ’80s, Steve and Brad are going back to school as we pick the fictional high schools of the 1980s we'd most like to attend — and the ones we'd avoid at all costs. There are plenty of tempting choices. There's Weemawee High from Square Pegs, where being popular might be difficult but there's always the possibility you'll score an invitation to Buffy's bar mitzvah and see Devo perform. There's Ridgemont High from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which was also the overwhelming favorite among our listeners. Sure, you might have to survive Mr. Hand's history class, but apparently you can have pizza delivered to class, visit a morgue on a field trip and spend the rest of your free time hanging around the mall. Then there's Hickory High from Hoosiers, where school spirit is off the charts and the enrollment is small enough that we might actually have a chance of making the basketball team. We also consider Rydell High from Grease 2, Crandall High from Can't Buy Me Love, Edwina Pearl High from Just One of the Guys and, of course, Shermer High, the center of the John Hughes universe. Shermer seems pretty appealing. Affluent Chicago suburb. Good education. Great house parties. Interesting classmates. Just don't get Saturday detention. Of course, not every fictional ’80s high school belongs on the recruiting brochure. We'd probably skip Ampipe High from All the Right Moves unless we're particularly excited about a future at the local steel mill. We're definitely staying away from Beaumont High from Footloose, where dancing is illegal and nearly every adult seems determined to make teenagers miserable. Then there's Westerburg High from Heathers, where the murder rate alone should probably affect its U.S. News ranking. And we're absolutely not enrolling at Springwood High from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Any school where falling asleep during algebra can result in your gruesome death is an immediate dealbreaker. Bunker Hill Military Academy from Taps isn't looking much better. It's about to close, the townies hate you and there's a reasonable chance Timothy Hutton is going to get everyone killed. Otherwise, lovely campus. We also share your picks, including votes for the schools from Square Pegs, Better Off Dead, Summer School, Three O'Clock High and the John Hughes movies. But Ridgemont? Ridgemont wins by a landslide. The High School Class We Wish We'd Had We also have a special interview this week with Todd Shriver and Shawn Curtis, two Indiana high school teachers who have somehow managed to create what might be our dream job. They teach a class about the 1980s. Todd and Shawn tell us how the class came about, what parts of the decade they cover and what today's high school students think about the music, movies, history and pop culture their parents grew up with. Even better, they've managed to bring the decade to life through an impressive collection of interviews with ’80s celebrities. Which leaves Steve with only one question: Where does he submit his résumé? Why We Never Really Forget High School There's a reason high school remains such a powerful setting for the movies and TV shows we grew up with. Those four years are when many of us first started dreaming about who we might someday become. It's where we found our people. Where many of us fell in love for the first time — and discovered heartbreak for the first time, too. It's where we were challenged academically, personally and sometimes morally. We made good decisions. We made terrible decisions. And somehow all of those experiences became little pieces of the adults we eventually turned into. And then there's the soundtrack. The songs and movies we discovered during high school never really leave us. Forty years later, one song can come on and suddenly you're not sitting in traffic anymore. You're 17 again. You're driving somebody's terrible first car. You're thinking about someone you had a crush on. You're remembering some completely ordinary Friday night that you had no idea you'd still be thinking about decades later. For four years, we were becoming ourselves. We just didn't know it yet. And if you were lucky enough to go to high school in the ’80s, at least you had one hell of a soundtrack while you figured it out. Join Us on The ’80s Cruise! Want to take your love of the ’80s out of the classroom and onto the high seas? Join Stuck in the ’80s on The ’80s Cruise, where we'll once again be sailing with an incredible lineup of ’80s artists and thousands of fellow fans of the decade. We'll be there hosting trivia, recording podcasts and enjoying a week when it's perfectly acceptable to dress like it's still 1985. When you book, use promo code STUCK and you'll receive $250 in onboard cabin credit. Class dismissed. See you at sea. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Classic Interview: MTV VJ Adam Curry on Madonna, Moscow and His Feud With Richard Marx

When Stuck in the ’80s was just getting started, we somehow convinced Adam Curry to talk to us. This was our second-ever celebrity interview, and Curry came armed with exactly the kind of stories we hoped an MTV VJ would have. Madonna. Sebastian Bach. Moscow. Richard Marx. And that's just for starters. In this classic Stuck in the ’80s interview, former MTV VJ Adam Curry takes us behind the scenes of Music Television during its glory years and shares some wonderfully strange stories from life at the center of ’80s and early ’90s pop culture. Adam Curry and the Glory Days of MTV Curry joined MTV in 1987, arriving when the network was still one of the most powerful forces in music. For young fans, MTV VJs had one of the greatest jobs imaginable. They introduced videos, interviewed rock stars, traveled the world and seemingly had unlimited access to the artists the rest of us only saw on television. Curry became one of the network's most recognizable personalities, hosting Headbangers Ball and other MTV programs while interviewing some of the biggest stars in music. And occasionally things got weird. Adam Curry, Sebastian Bach and Red Square One of Curry's more surreal MTV adventures involved traveling to the Soviet Union and visiting Red Square in Moscow with Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach. Just consider that sentence for a moment. An MTV VJ and the lead singer of Skid Row wandering around Moscow as the Cold War was winding down. The ’80s really did produce some strange combinations. Curry takes us inside that adventure and recalls what it was like experiencing a historic moment while working for a network that had become synonymous with American youth culture. Appearing With Madonna in Truth or Dare Curry also found himself in the orbit of Madonna, eventually appearing in her 1991 documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare. Yes, 1991 is technically outside our jurisdiction. We're allowing it. The landmark documentary offered an unusually intimate look at Madonna during her Blond Ambition tour, and Curry shares the story of how he ended up making an appearance. Adam Curry vs. Richard Marx And then there's Richard Marx. Curry and Marx had a very public disagreement — the kind of feud that was considerably harder to conduct before social media gave celebrities the ability to argue with each other 24 hours a day. What started it? How serious did it get? And what happened when the MTV VJ and the “Right Here Waiting” singer found themselves on opposite sides of a very public fight? Curry tells the story. From MTV VJ to Podcasting Pioneer There's another reason this interview holds a special place in Stuck in the ’80s history. By the time we talked with Curry, he had become one of the key figures in the early development of podcasting. That made him a particularly appropriate guest for a little podcast that had only recently begun trying to figure out this strange new medium itself. Nearly two decades later, we're still here. So is podcasting. And we're still amazed that for our second celebrity interview, we got an MTV VJ to tell us about hanging out in Red Square with Sebastian Bach. We probably should have quit while we were ahead. Join the Stuck in the ’80s Patreon Want more classic interviews, bonus content and other trips back into our favorite decade? Join the Stuck in the ’80s Patreon and help us keep the show going. Join Us on The ’80s Cruise Want to spend a week surrounded by ’80s music, stars and fellow fans? Join Stuck in the ’80s aboard The ’80s Cruise for live music, trivia, podcasts and plenty of other decade-inspired fun at sea. Use promo code STUCK when booking to receive $250 in onboard credit. No trip to Red Square required. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.