1983 in 2024
So that’s 41 years ago. 41 years from 1983 would be 1942 – these two things do not feel the same but I guess they are. When I started this thing I figured I’d just be able to ingest every single bit of important media from 1983 and sort, order and rank everything due to the technology available to me in 2024. Turns out it’s not so easy when you’re also trying to actually live in the present as well. So I think it’s more about impressions, feelings, highlights rather than an exhaustive list. Which I think also speaks to the sheer volume of awesome cultural shit which happened in 1983. So here goes…
The 1984 Grammys
I thought you said this was about 1983? Well yeah but The Grammys is in February so really celebrates 1983. By far the biggest story was Michael Jackson’s Thriller – which actually came out in 1982 so can see things getting fluid here… but just pick a random week in 1983 and there’s a 50% chance Thriller was No.1 so I’m confident in saying this was the album of the year.
Other notable bands on the night were The Police and The Eurythmics. Also I don’t think I’ve seen someone so genuinely happy to win an award as Irene Cara for the Flashdance soundtrack. Hadn’t realised she was in Fame as well.
Beyond The Grammys
Murmur (REM), Violent Femmes (Violent Femmes) and Speaking in Tongues (Talking Heads) are as timeless releases as you’ll find at the beginning of this decade.
With Let’s Dance (David Bowie), Synchronicity (The Police) and Madonna’s debut album you’ve got one of the classic years in pop music.
This is without mentioning Metallica’s debut (Kill em All), U2’s 3rd (and probably 3rd best) album in ‘War’ and New Order’s ‘Power, Corruption & Lies’ which was so good, Blue Monday only made it onto certain editions as an afterthought.
Rough count of absolute bangers in the UK top 50 that year: 16
Completely arbitrary rating of music in 1983: 8.5
Films
A lot of these films seemed more rooted in the 70’s than the 80’s. Trading Places really is a bit of a struggle these days. The Outsiders and Rumblefish have aged a bit better and share a lot in common — they’re both based on books by the same author and feature Matt Dillon & Diane Lane as well as a cameo appearance by Tom Waits. The Outsiders also have an absolute ton of other now famous actors early in their careers and of the two is the one I preferred — it feels like a combination of Stand By Me and West Side Story.
Other films absolutely felt very much of the 80’s. Valley Girl might have been ahead of it’s time if you think Clueless didn’t arrive until the mid-nineties. Wargames aged way better than I expected — the ideas behind AI and war dialing were portrayed really well and a lot of the characters were supposedly based on real-life peole that the writers had encountered (e.g. Falken for Stephen Hawkings). Videodrome was another one that absolutely felt of the eighties but man, this was a weird one.
There were a couple of films that didn’t really fit into any particular era though. The Big Chill could have been from the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s and had one of the most heavyweight casts out of anything that year. Great soundtrack too. Local Hero didn’t have too many big names outside of Burt Lancaster, and the soundtrack was essentially just segments and previews of the title track from Mark Knopfler scattered throughout. I don’t know what this would feel like if you’d never heard the music before but if you’ve ever been to St James Park as a youngster and seen Alan Shearer lead the Toon out onto the pitch then it gives the absolute FEELS.
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And then Scarface with it’s epic storyline in the spirit of the great gangster films but with the modern production and soundtrack seemed to straddle the two decades and remains probably the best film of the year for me.
Then there are the comedy (National Lampoon’s Vacation, The Meaning of Life) and action (Return of The Jedi, Superman, Octopussy) classics, not to mention the films you want to watch again but know they’re probably best left as the memories you have of them as a kid (BMX Bandits, Blue Thunder). Pretty good year for film!
Completely arbitrary rating of films in 1983: 7
Games
We weren’t quite at the golden age of either arcade or home consoles yet but were starting to see some interesting ideas. The original Mario arcade game and Donkey Kong 3 are probably the most well-known but Mappy and Elevator Action were the better and more interesting platform games I think, with the latter inspiring the classic Rolling Thunder.
One of the more innovating ideas was the LaserDisc release of Dragon’s Lair. Although the gameplay was extremely simplistic (essentially it’s a reaction game that dictates which bit of video plays next) the visuals were ahead of anything that you would see for at least the next decade so was hugely popular — so much so that a follow-up, ‘Space Ace’ was released the same year.
The two absolute standout games of the year though were Track and Field, and Spyhunter. The former inspiring many of the joystick decimating sports games that dominated the home computer / console market over the next few years, and the latter remaining as one of the best driving games of the decade.
Completely arbitrary rating of games in 1983: 6.5
Historical / Social Impact
I wanted to look into the major events of the year to see what else was going on and how they might have impacted culture, the world or my life. The biggest event in the UK that year was probably the Brinks-Mat robbery. It was significant not just due to the scale (at the time) of the heist but of the lasting impact that stretched not just across the UK’s criminal underworld but into public & financial institutions and national news headlines over the next decade. Most of the gold was never found and believed to have found it’s way back into the legitimate gold market over time.
Another significant event (though not widely known at the time for obvious reasons) was the Able Archer exercise — otherwise known as the NATO military exercise that almost triggered World War 3. Probably no-one will ever know for sure but the series ‘Deutschland 83’ puts a great dramatic spin on that period of time alongside a good soundtrack and is well worth a watch for some ’83 vibes.
Completely arbitrary rating of cultural & social impact to the world and my life: 6.5
Summary
This is the bit where I come up with an overall arbritary figure based on all of the other arbritary figures that I had. I couldn’t think of an appropriate method to weight historical & social impact vs a film, album or video game so I’m not going to try — near-nuclear war & Track and Field are weighted equally here.
Carefully crafted overall score for 1983: 7.1
