Monday Morning Music – YAZ

You do realize that the ’80s are to our children what the ’60s were to us? A fascinating period of ancient history that produced a lot of good music, and fashion that was both embarrassing and strangely inspiring. I don’t know how many Hong Kong boys I see around town these days dressed in their porkpie hats, capri jeans and plimsouls+no socks and I think: you probably don’t even know Dexy’s Midnight Runners!

I hear overalls are making a comeback btw.

My sister and I leaned more to the cocktail era of the late ’50s, early ’60s, not so much the hippie/Hendrix upheaval later in the decade. We wanted to look like Audrey Hepburn and sip drinks with a Cary Grant type to the music of Henry Mancini. Swap Audrey for Ann Margaret and you basically have ’80s era Belinda Carlisle. Of course there were tons of ’60s influences on ’80s music, from the beatnik pop of The (English) Beat to the typefaces on many a Go Go’s album cover to the entire oeuvre of The Style Council.

Now that EO is discovering ’80s music, I’ve enjoyed introducing her and YO to some key dance tracks, most notably “Situation” by Yaz. Or Yazoo if you like. I don’t know why this song hasn’t been covered, redone, remixed – celebrated!!! – by one of these dance-pop princesses. It’d be perfect for a young girl with a big voice. Over the years it’s shown up on a couple of midrange movie soundtracks, along with Yaz’s other big hit, “Don’t Go” (in which Teri Hatcher strips/dances to said song for a mullet-wearing Kurt Russell in the movie Tango & Cash. Cringe-worthy on so many levels.) However it doesn’t have the pop culture pervasiveness of a Simple Minds or Tears for Fears tune. It’s a shame really, since it has such a great groove and still sounds so fresh. Not bad for a song that came out in 1982.

The only ‘music’ video I could find is this bit of DIY moviemaking. Must be the YouTube equivalent of fan fiction. But enjoy the tune and tell your kids: “Situation” is an underrated gem.

Have a good week!