Something strange happened to the idea of “the 80s” over the last decade. After years of mockery and pastiche, a new crop of artists like Carly Rae Jepsen, M83, and the 1975, along with producers such as Ariel Rechtshaid and Jack Antonoff, have started using glistening synths and gated reverb to signify something completely divorced from excess and cocaine—inside the transcendent, ahistorical sonic bubble of a bygone era of pop, they construct a cloistered space in which to reflect.…
Something strange happened to the idea of “the 80s” over the last decade. After years of mockery and pastiche, a new crop of artists like Carly Rae Jepsen, M83, and the 1975, along with producers such as Ariel Rechtshaid and Jack Antonoff, have started using glistening synths and gated reverb to signify something completely divorced from excess and cocaine—inside the transcendent, ahistorical sonic bubble of a bygone era of pop, they construct a cloistered space in which to reflect.…