I was just talking about how someone from 1990 thought the '90s may have been, so I thought it'd be cool to apply that here too. Much like in that case, c. 1980 still had alot of '70s-like things. Even though some early new wave and synthesizer music was cropping up, there still was no MTV, very few if any video games, VCRs, etc.

I imagine a 1980 person would've still predicted Disco would die, but that the fashions wouldn't be too different. For music, probably synthesized singer songwriters like Christopher Cross, or REO Speedwagonish corporate rock.

Wow that's a tough one. I suspect more computers and perhaps robots doing jobs for them by the end of the decade.

*Bump* ;)

Actually I remember thinking back then that robots would soon be commonplace in most homes. But apart from that, someone from 1980 wouldn't think anything special about living in the '80s.

Wow that's a tough one. I suspect more computers and perhaps robots doing jobs for them by the end of the decade.


They were half right  ;)

I was just talking about how someone from 1990 thought the '90s may have been, so I thought it'd be cool to apply that here too. Much like in that case, c. 1980 still had alot of '70s-like things. Even though some early new wave and synthesizer music was cropping up, there still was no MTV, very few if any video games, VCRs, etc.

I imagine a 1980 person would've still predicted Disco would die, but that the fashions wouldn't be too different. For music, probably synthesized singer songwriters like Christopher Cross, or REO Speedwagonish corporate rock.


I agree. They already knew about the death of disco...probably, they thought that some new wave (like Squeeze, Blondie) would become popular, and that the corporate rock and A/C would dominate the decade as opposed to pop-wave, synthpop, and dance-pop.

In 1980 there were numerous people who lived on the land and read Mother Earth News, and thought the U.S. would mellow out and follow Alaska into decriminalization, herpes was the scariest thing about an ongoing sexual liberation, and organic food, windmills, solar panels and electric cars were the wave of the future. -- and everybody would just learn to get along.  They were right about organics which is mass market now, but in in just a few months everything else would around for them. 
Reagan took office and the first then-mysterious AIDS deaths reports started trickling in.  The assassination of John Lennon was also an emotional era ender for a lot of people who thought the changes started in the 60s would come to fruition in the 80s -- Strawberry Fields Forever.
For some old hippies, the first part of 1980 felt very different than the rest of the decade.  The ones who got active in politics told me all about the dreams that died.
For others, I think the dream died and the party began.