I don’t know if you’be been paying attention, but the 80s are cool again. Really super duper radical and totally gnarly!

The Spandex/Leggings alliance is celebrating somewhat of a return to the mainstream, the fashion community begrudgingly welcoming it from its trip to the island of fads-no-one-understood.

Eighties music came back, given the success of The Killers…INXS even decided to come back. Gratuitous power ballads are back, not needing to look farther than “Lips of an Angel”, “Hate Me Today” and every Nickelback song ever made. 80s media is being revamped left and right, with Rihanna using the beat from “Tainted Love”, to TMNT to the Transformers Movie.

What about the 90s?

It’s nowhere to be seen…yet.

There’s an unwritten rule that the decade immediately before is lame — laughable what-were-we-thinking kind of lame, and the one before that is powerfully hip. Think about it, the world is still laughing at boy bands, MC Hammer and Right Said Fred. But why?

The rise and fall of generations. The people large and in charge today (thirtysomethings) had their formative years in the 80s, so as sort of one big inside joke to each other they make everything a reference to their golden years.

These people are also today’s decision makers, and selling your wares by using nostalgia is usually a can’t-miss technique. So every ad on TV these days plays music by New Order, Flock of Seagulls, The Cure and so forth.

I can’t wait til next decade, because I’m not going to lie to you, I miss Ace of Base.