This is a slow read. Find a quiet corner, get the earphones (up the volume!). Take your time - follow a few of the links - there might be some lovely memories. Hierdie is vir my klasmaats, weermag-vriende, kollegas, en al die pélle uit ons tyd. Ook vir familie en geesgenote - en die generasies weerskante van ons - wat deel in die lieflike spektakel van 80's musiek.
Ons was gebore in die 1960’s. So twintig jaar na die wêreldoorlog. Ons is blykbaar deesdae die oudste Gen X‘s wat nog lewe. En Google sê ons generasie word ge-kenmerk deur onafhanklike, skeptiese denke, en “… the rise of MTV”.
(Klink soos die oumens in vanoggend se badkamer-spieël wat hierdie hierbo skryf… maar ek voel dan nog 18!)
Our teenage years erupted in the 1980’s. Coinciding with a spectacular revolution of pop and rock music.
Although… it often seemed to us that our music had always just…. been there. It was normal to have five memorable new hits every single week, yes!? Maybe we took it for granted. Perhaps we did not realise what we were living through. An amazing era of musical surprises and cutting edge creativity with every rebellious chord change.
In between Afrikaans language lessons in dusty classrooms, sweaty weekday afternoon school sports, and late-night loiterings through quiet streets to friends’ homes, Van Halen jumped violently from TV screens into our young minds. And he – like many others with big hair and extravagant clothing – stuck around. For months, years, decades. Initially on radio, vinyl and tapes. Later on our walkmans, phones, MTV, Youtube….
Owner of a Lonely Heart pushed us to get up and go… that little faster, a little harder. We played Eye of the Tiger and Baby Makes her Blue Jeans ridiculously loud at matric dances, and laid on the carpet with friends on our parents’ living room floor with heads inside our dads’ Pioneer speakers to properly catch the pumping base of Another One Bites the Dust. We listened aggressively to AC/DC’s Back In Black in an older brother’s car – out of range of the grownups. And we glued our eyes to Sledgehammer’s fruit salad video. We loved for the first time by the sounds of St Elmo’s Fire, and our classroom daydreams came to life with Centrefold:
My blood runs cold
My memory has just been sold
(Have a look at that video again… put it on loud – I dare you!)
Yeah man!! Was it John Cougar Mellencamp who sang:
Hold on to sixteen as long as you can
Changes coming around real soon…
Make us women and men?
We felt complicatedly tragic with the magnificent Careless Whisper, and mellowed our turbulent emotions with True. Deep late-night despair came with the chorus of Alone, and we made little private vows to ourselves with Every Breath You Take.
Did this tremendous wave of irreristable music start in the eighties, or did it originate earlier? Maybe it all started in the 70’s? Perhaps the 80’s had just been the crest of the limitless swell.
My earliest memory of being struck by the beauty of a song, was my dad carefully putting his Thorens turntable’s needle down onto Elvis’s Love Me Tender. I was playing with my dinky toys on the floor when the king’s voice stopped the clock for me for two minutes. I must have been 5 or 6.
As young children, on bright Saturday mornings Mrs Mills played her jolly piano in our house and took us to wonderful worlds Over The Rainbow, to where James Last and his brass bands were playing. And on rainy Sunday afternoons we fell asleep on the couch caressed by a mother’s blanket and The Carpenters:
Just like a long-lost friend
All the songs I loved so well
And some of us wondered why our father (he must have been about 40-something…) would sometimes go silent for a day or two and sleep a lot. And we would sit quietly with him in his garage as he slowly puffed on a Lexington and peered into the distance while listening to Jim Reeves’ Four Walls.
Yes. Maybe the good music started earlier, but just made a huge leap into our collective conscience in the late 70’s when Abba’s immaculately complex Chiquitita, the mystic Fernando, and bittersweet Knowing Me Knowing You emerged from snowy Sweden. And Pink Floyd opened our eyes and challenged our thinking. Or was it the huge surge of Stayin’ Alive, that prompted even our music teachers to allow us to sing songs from Saturday Night Fever during those boring school music periods.
Ja – dalk het alles in die laat sewentigs begin. Met Hotel California, More Than a Feeling, en The Logical Song. Of met die manjifieke klanke van Christopher Cross se Sailing, of Dust In the Wind van Kansas? Of wat van Abba se dromerige I have a Dream. Of Against the Wind, van Bob Seger. Of nee wag: Imagine – John Lennon!
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one.
“Maar die laat sestigs dan?”, hoor ek iemand vra. Hey Jude, Whole Lotta Love, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Light My Fire, en Bowie se Space Oddity. Die lys gaan net aan en aan!
But wait! Now I know: it must have started when three of the top geniuses got together in the sixties and formed Cream: Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton and the best drummer of all time (yes!): Ginger Baker. Cream was incredibly innovative and was said to have influenced many other top bands who would follow: Led Zep, Queen, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, …
Or. Uuummm. Maybe it’s all about LYRICS!? Did the best lyrics not start in the sixties, with the great Bob Dylan:
Come gather around people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
around you have grown
Such are promises
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
and disregards the rest
Yes. A time when fragile youngsters – the Bee Gees were not even 20 – would put down words like this:
In the morning, when the moon is at it’s rest
you will find me, at the time I love the best
watching rainbows – play on sunlight
pools of water – iced from cold nights
Yes. Maybe this ground swell of magnificent poetic lyrics started in the 60’s and 70’s and went on to peak in the 80’s?
Ja – ook in Afrikaans – ons enigste Koos Doep: (ons eie Leonard Cohen?)
En ek gooi nog ‘n paar kole op die vuur
En die tafel en die laaikas
en alles wat eers vas was
versmelt tot blote skadu’s teen die muur
Jinne! So iemand kom sekerlik net een keer.
Maar tog – die 80’s se MUSIEK! Die onverwagse akkoorde. Die uitdagende nuwe klanke. Die onverskrokke musikante. Dit was sekerlik die tagtigs se groot triomf.
Selfs in ons afgesonderde hoekie in Suid-Afrika was daar herlewing vanuit die stowwerige papier-rose. Ons was op universiteit en kollege in ons tekkies sonder sokkies en regte faded blue jeans terwyl Koos Kombuis, Kerkorrel, Bernoldus Niemand en die Voëlvry-beweging appél namens ons aanteken: met stunning kwaliteit oorspronklike musiek. Sit Dit Af, Hillbrow, Energie, Snor City, BMW, Lisa se klavier,…
En woorde wat jongmens-oë prettig laat glinster:
Hy kom tot stilstand met remme wat skree
‘n Oom klim uit – hy sê ons moet nader tree
Hy gee nie om om ons ‘n lift te gee
Hy het sy ossewa woema gegee
En:
Almal wil ‘n huisie by die see hê
Almal hoop die struggle is verby
Almal sê die lewe is eers môre
Maar môre is te laat vir my
Maar ook – met manjifieke klavier:
En in die dorpe en die stede
Ly die mense honger
Kos is skaars en al het jy werk
Word jou geld al minder werd
(Ja! Uit die 80’s… veertig jaar gelede!)
Ongelukkig het Voëlvry se hoop beskaam – daar was net een Houtstok, en Afrikaanse musiek het bietjie rigting verloor. Dis jammer. Gelukkig darem vir enkele ongelooflike uitsonderings.
Maar ons het groot kampus-shows bygewoon van Mango Groove. En gesteier in die reuse-klank van ‘n live Juluka show… die Afrika-energie! Verwonderd geluister na Ladismith Black Mambazo en Hugh Masekela.
Yes. This was the time before the internet. Before cell phones, emails or whatsapp. Difficult to imagine. We peered at the world through the tiny pinholes of local radio, SABC TV and Springbok Hit Parade covered albums.
But the music filtered through. Mostly our only meaningful connection with the wider world. Music has no borders – especially during the 80’s.
We listened to Cat Stevens and Bruce Hornsby on our Walkmans when we started working on our careers. We rocked to Notorious as we scrubbed floors in army barracks. Some of our braver mates returned from border service with a tenseness of In The Air Tonight. We partied to the magical tunes of OMD, and we all had that one friend who had a set of huge speakers in his bedroom – with a modern CD deck from where he played the legendary Frampton Comes Alive album. And beautiful Elton John tracks.
Mostly due to sanctions and censorship, we missed out on the whole Live Aid thing of 1985 – where Queen delivered what is to this day still considered the greatest live rock performance in history.
But somehow – on our tapes, CDs, radios and Walkmans – we got the music. Our biggest allies were the likes of David Gresham, Mark Pilgram, Barney Simon, Karl Kikillus and Alex Jay. On Springbok Radio, 702, LM Radio, Radio 5 and Pop Shop they brought us the latest and greatest explosions of sound and rockness.
We taped and listened to the earthy sounds from the American Heartland and Tom Petty. Often on the long open road Mark Knopfler with his dobro guitar took us on a journey of the heart with the delicate Romeo and Juliet:
All I do is kiss you
through the bars of a rhyme
Julie, I’d do the stars with you,
but there aint time
And John Mellencamp guided us through the same valley, but barefoot and with no streetlights, with Jack and Diane:
Oh yeah, life goes on
Long after the thrill of living has gone
From all over the world the wonderful music came. Bryan Adams, Shania Twain from Canada. From down under Men at Work, INXS, Midnight Oil, Crowded House. Nena, Rammstein and Alphaville from Germany. Roxette, Abba, Europe and Aha from Scandinavia. They just kept coming.
Not even mentioning the English! Or the Irish! And the Scotts!
These days – as we grudgingly grow older – we sometimes discover our children hopping back to the music of our time – listening to it in their rooms and on their ear pods. Why? Because they heard us playing it when they were younger? Or because it’s interesting?
Yes – time is slowly and relentlessly creeping up on us. Most of us have lost our parents by now… the missing never really goes away. We often think of them in The Living Years:
I know that I’m a prisoner
to all my father held so dear
I know that I’m a hostage
to all his hopes and fears
and we long for a dad’s security and advice with Joe Cocker:
“N’oubliez Jamais”, I heard my father say
Every generation has it’s way
With time, we slowly started realizing again that we lived in the era of phenomenal geniuses: Elvis, Micheal Jackson and Freddie Mercury.
We now also come to appreciate Landslide a little differently, it starts to hit a little harder:
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I’m getting older too
Ja… deesdae luister ons heelwat na dooie mense se musiek. Elke nou-en-hoor ons die nuus van nog ‘n ikoon van ouds wat finaal vertrek het. En oor die interwebs moet ons magteloos toekyk hoe ons helde met kieries en plooie en rasper-stemme ouer raak. Maar tog – vir ons sal hulle altyd jonk wees… Forever Young.
Daar is pogings tot herlewing – met hulle kinders wat opkom en die aangebore talent toon, maar ons weet nie hoe volhoubaar nie. Die 90’s en 2000’s het hier-en-daar opwindende nuwe musiek-dinge opgelewer… ‘n paar juwele. Maar het dit die diepte en skaal van ons tyd?
Die 80’s was seker maar net een keer. Ons was seker maar net gelukkig. Die musiek en songs was ons teater, ons dagdrome, ons struggles en fights. Ons Shakespeare. Ons poetry – dikwels in motion.
Die musiek was ons s’n. En is steeds ons s’n. Die sound track van ons tyd.
Glory Days, né:
“And I hope when I get old
I don’t sit around thinking about it
But I probably will”
This well-known statue of Mercury in Switzerland is still growing in popularity after 30 years. Visitors from all over the world increasingly travel to Montreux to spend a moment below this triumphant monument overlooking Lake Geneva. And pay homage to the music. To probably THE greatest frontman and voice artist of our time.
But – I think this is more than just a statue. It is more than Freddie Mercury, or Queen.It also serves as a symbol. A symbol of our generation. For our generation.
A symbol of the glorious music we had.
Of a spectacular era we shared.
Of a tremendous gift the universe offered us.
And we took it! Embraced it. Triumphantly.
Deel asb wat JY dink.
En watter songs roer JOU memories?
Fred Roux Januarie 2026
49 comments On Eighties music
Freddie , hierdie stuk van jou is MAGIC!! Sal dit hou en oor en oor en oor lees en luister! Jy vat SO goed vas dit wat ons beleef, gevoel, amper vergeet het maar nou, forever more onthou. DANKIE!!
WOW en weer WOW.
Ja hierdie het seker bietjie navorsing geverg.
Die een era vloei so lekker glad in die volgende een in.
En skielik click ek. Jy is ook ʼn Freddie.
Ek sê nog altyd daai man het die ongelooflikste talent gehad.
En sy naamgenoot ook.
Drie paragrawe in en ek wil soek na my leg warmers en Flashdance hard luister en dans!
Wow! Brought back a few I had forgotten.
Amazing how the music of the time shaped our memories.
Brilliantly written.
Thanks for sharing.
Shaped our memories!
For sure.
Vir Johan: Karma Chameleon, Culture Club (Boy George)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmcA9LIIXWw
Ja!! Hy’t dit oor en oor en oor gespeel
Pragtig dankie
What a music journey you have taken us on Freddie.
And yes music is the heartbeat of every generation but will every generation have icons like ours? I don’t think so.
We “Simply had the best”❤️
❤️
Sjoe, jy vat die wese van die 80’s vas. Van jongmens-wees. Van die belang van kultuurinvloed. Van generasie-samehorigheid. Van vele en vele meer.
Ja, wat ‘n ryke tyd, eintlik al vanaf die 1950s, en in sommige genres (jazz, blues), nog vroeër. In my jare was die Rolling Stones en die Beatles vroeê toonaangewers, met o.a. Cream, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple en Black Sabbath effe later. Maar uit Bulawayo was daar die Otis Waygood Blues Band, en uit Durban Freedom’s Children.
Die 1960’s en vroeê 1970’s was ‘n tyd van baie sterk idealisme. Ek voel daardie idealisme tot vandag!
Interessant. Van die name wat jy noem bietjie buite my beperkte dampkring. Ek sal hulle opkyk.
Idealisme!! Ja! Dis die woord!!
And not just the leg warmers, the immense freedom and variety of expression and styles and genres – the 80’s was just an explosion of colour and sound and individuality. Disco and lycra and big hair and leather and spikes, pop and metal and synth and glam rock, black and blue and neon pink and glitter – everything was ‘normal’, and we thought this mad abandon was just the way it should be. What a time to be young!
❤️
Mad abandon 😊
Dan is daar natuurlik die beste album van die dekade – The Joshua Tree van U2.
What a time to be young! Did we know how lucky we were? Or are? As the music still lives in us.
Freddie, Cuz, you have a way with words. You paint a wonderful picture.
I have a few songs that always give me a lump in my throat!
But Nothing compares to you by Sinead, even though it is a cover is hands down my favourite.
Thanks for taking me back and showing me, once again, how blessed I am.
Lovely ❤️
All time SA favourite is Paradise Road, by Joy! What voices!
Yup!
Jy slaat die spyker op die kop met jou skrywe. 80’s musiek het my lewe gedefine. Ek het van al my tapes en lp’s ontslae geraak oor die jare maar sit nog met ‘n gros CD’s in ‘n boks wat ooral saamtrek. Het lankal nie meer ‘n CD player nie. My grootste playlist op spotify is 80’s favourites.
Ek het ‘n paar gaan bysit na jou skrywe
Ek dink so baie aan Pokkels…
❤️
Ek het baie biografieë van Led Zep en die “band mates”. Een van my fav bands of all time❤️
Becoming Led Zeppelin https://share.google/djwuQ7w1yrBLXNhab
I was fortunate enough to have stayed at the Freddie Mercury Hotel in Montreux Switzerland.
Freddie, what an incredible piece.
You’ve managed to capture not just the music, but the feeling of growing up in that era — the colour, the chaos, the innocence, the rebellion, and the soundtrack that stitched it all together. Reading this felt like paging through an old photo album where every picture has its own song attached.
What struck me most is how you wove the decades together — the 60s, 70s, 80s — showing how each wave of music shaped the next. It reminded me how lucky we were to grow up in a time when creativity exploded in every direction, and how those songs still sit quietly in the background of our lives, waiting for the right moment to hit us in the chest again.
A few songs always get me:
• “Nothing Compares 2 U” — still stops me in my tracks.
• “Paradise Road” — goosebumps every time.
• And anything from Dire Straits, because Mark Knopfler’s guitar feels like home.
Thank you for taking us back, and for reminding us that the music wasn’t just entertainment — it was identity, comfort, rebellion, and memory all at once. What a time to be young.
Love jou comments, Leon.
“… a time when creativity exploded in every direction, and how those songs still sit quietly in the background of our lives, waiting for the right moment to hit us in the chest again.”
Wooohooo!
❤️
,… lekker tye en mooi musiek
Thanks Fred, what a good read!…
Even though I listen to a lot of current music and follow younger musicians, I often feel the art of good song writing gets lost in all the noise. I think as much as we owe it to our children to listen to their music preferences, we owe it to them to expose them to what went before. D 💫
Ou Freddy boy was n legend. Goeie musiek.
Ek dink sy beste was Barcelona.
Africa- Toto ;
Down under- Men at work;
Living on prayer- Bon Jovi … om net n paar te noem, dan Queen, Michael Jakson, ,Cindy Lauper se songs
Mooi man!! What a trip down memory lane. Ek gaan n playlisy maak van al daai songs wat jy noem!
….we remember!
Wow Freddie.
Jy het alles baie netjies saamgevat.
Well done
Wat van Eurythmics, Soft Cell, Foreigner!
En wie onthou Abacab van Genesis? Ek was 13, ek het nog nooit gehoor van ‘n elektriese kitaar nie, en kon nie verstaan wat maak hierdie vreemde en wonderlike klank nie. Selfde met Juke Box Hero. Ek was meegesleur deur die onbekende exciting sounds!
Oeee jinne! Abacab was rof! Geen manier mens kan dit sag luister nie. Kliphard! Daai bas-lyn moet geVOEL word – veral as hy daar onder gaan draai. Met Collins se perfekte snaardrom-punktuasie.
I was in the army 82-84 and the first few songs I saw in this article used to fill our bungalow ! Thanks for the memories.
Some of my favourite music and ‘ek het lekker saam gesing’! Police, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Seger and of course Cat Stevens as well. Some goose flesh moments 😂! Peter’s number one of course being Queen & Freddie Mercury. A real treat!
❤️
Sjoe! Dit is ONGELOOFLIK! …. I will be 16 till I die! (Ek weet dis eintlik 18, maar toe was ek al getroud en nie meer in die skool nie!)(wat so by the way die beste tyd van my lewe was!! Dankie vir almal wat daarin gedeel het. Nou raak ek heel nostalgies🤗🤗🤗
Stunning skryfwerk!!!
Sjoe Freddie, dis n meesterstuk wat jy geskryf het! Ek het groot gunstelinge hier raak gelees.
Dankie Fred.
Bring baie ‘memories’ en emosies terug!
Briljant geskryf met soveel korrekte detail.
Liewe land, Freddie. Dit was underdaad n tyd van nuwe singles – elke maand. Ek onthou die 45 rm so goed. Pop Shop video’s wat religiously oogeneem is. En jy is reg, dit het baie te doen met voorlopermusiek in ons ouerhuise. Min TV en baie musiek. Punk Parties in die garage. Ek het hie lank gekweek aan my “stertjie-sliertjie in my nek. En vir die vakansie dit pienk gedye met mecurochrome. Sexy verby.
Love dit 😁❤️
Love dit ❤️😁
Jislaaik.! Dankie vir die mooi skrywe Fred! Het my ver teruggeneem. Na half verligte parties, discos in Kaapse agterstrate waar ons tot die vroeoggendure geboogie het. En later op soek na n oop restaurant vir brekfis. … En dan die kasette! Penne wat afgerolde tape moet probeer terugdraai sodat ons verder kan luister en verder wikkel en op die dashboard dromme speel. Dankie vir die memories .
Ek onthou hoe ons daar in die verre NoordKaap nie veel blootstelling gehad het nie. Maar ons het agtergekom mens kan saans 702 opvang op kortgolf. Baie opwindend! Ek het heelwat 80’s songs die eerste keer gehoor met die gefluit en suis van kortgolf as agtergrond!
❤️