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View this email online by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when the BAFTA nominations weren't wild about Barbie. It was the week when Richard Simmons still just wanted to be left alone. And it was the week when it was hard to know exactly what to make of J.Lo. (Lots more at the news quiz.) Let's get to it. The songs you've heard over and over, but rarely by choice It started with the fact that I really need to stick to a budget, and it ended with "Never Surrender" by Corey Hart. I was going through a major review of spending and savings this week, just sitting in the living room on my laptop, with the dog snoozing on his bed because it's been much too cold to go outside. It was too quiet in the house for a tedious bout of record-keeping. I'd recently resolved an issue with my satellite radio subscription, so it was at the top of my mind, and I went to look at stations. I've learned from riding a Peloton bike that sometimes, I will thrive in '80s-based music environments (I was born in 1970), so I went in that direction. One channel was called "'80s Chillpill." George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley of pop duo Wham! in 1983. Rogers/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images I would describe its vibe as "slow songs for an eighth grade dance," but that's only because I was in eighth grade at about the right time. "Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO Speedwagon. "Careless Whisper" by Wham!. "Holding Back The Years" by Simply Red. "Lost in Love" by Air Supply. That Kenny G song that I never had any idea was called "Songbird." "Glory Of Love" by Peter Cetera, from The Karate Kid Part II, which probably constitutes the greatest cultural footprint of The Karate Kid Part II. The UB40 cover of "Red Red Wine." More than one Kenny Rogers duet: "Islands in the Stream" with Dolly Parton and "We've Got Tonight" with Sheena Easton. (If you are from Philadelphia, I would describe the whole thing as "the softer side of WSTW," which is a pretty sick burn, take my word for it.) I don't think I owned any of these records -- or, as they would have actually been, cassettes. (I may have owned the Air Supply. Sue me.) Some I liked and some I didn't, but there's not one that I'd ever have mentioned if asked to list my favorite songs of the '80s. And yet, the nostalgia that kicked in was so particular. It's a consequence of radio listening, I think; at that time, I certainly spent some time listening to music that I owned, but that was a very limited library, so the rest of the time, I listened to the radio. (It wasn't until probably the middle of the decade that watching MTV began to serve this same function.) It didn't really matter whether I liked "Can't Fight This Feeling" or not; I listened to it over and over and over, much as people do now with their very favorite songs. Top 40 was relentless (and, you'll notice, rather white), so if that was the direction you went, as it was for me, you heard what you heard and you didn't customize the experience. And, for the record, radio was more genuinely local; this was before the entire structure changed in the 1990s. I wonder sometimes what the current version of this kind of nostalgia is. Obviously, people who are the age now that I was then will have these pangs about something, but it can be hard to know what. It's not as if it's always Top 40 songs for me. The other week, I was singing to myself a jingle from the Van Scoy jewelry stores. It dates back to at least the early '80s, and it starts, "I'm a lucky girl, hooray, oh boy!" Because, of course, she has a diamond from Van Scoy. I always found this music extremely annoying, but now, if you sing it, I will fully belt along. (And I am not alone. I had no idea, but this delighted me.) It's the same thing with the music from Action News in Philadelphia. "Move closer to your world, my friends! Take a little bit of tiiiiiime!" Back then, was this music important to me? Of course not; it was the theme song to the news. But now, it seems that it's one of the most beloved bits of cultural currency from people who grew up around Philly at the time. It makes me suspect that what we tend to refer to as nostalgia, which is officially defined as something along the lines of a painful longing for a time in the past, is really two things. One is a longing for the things we loved themselves: the vacation spots we went to, the friends' houses we played at, the book series we devoured, the best meals we ate at home with our families. But the other is more of a gut-punch reaction to hearing (or seeing, or smelling) something that is bound up with a segment of our lives -- here, my adolescence and teenager-hood, the development of my adult personality, the development of my taste, the time when I worried less about the world in spite of all the good reasons to have done so. Perhaps that's the appeal of '80s Chillpill. Perhaps because I was rarely hearing these songs by choice, they are stapled indifferently to the widest variety of memories: being sad, happy, bored, frantic, lonely, with friends, in the car, in my room, studying, reading, hanging out. Doing things that were meaningless, but doing them in good company. I remember one of my friends at a slumber party lying across her bed on her back so her head hung upside down, looking at a poster on her wall, and saying, "Did you know that Duran Duran spelled backwards is Narud Narud?" My brain has held tightly to that; its insignificance, in and of itself, is irrelevant. I'm not remembering Narud Narud; I'm remembering the friends, the slumber party. In the same way, when a switch inside me flips during "Never Surrender," I'm not having a painful longing for the song. I'm having a painful longing for versions of myself and my life -- and all the people in it -- that don't exist anymore. Newsletter continues after sponsor message We Recommend I mentioned it in last week's newsletter, but I thought American Nightmare on Netflix was really good. It's a sensational and weird story, but there's absolutely a serious point to the series when it comes to the operation of law enforcement. The Criminal podcast (which you should be listening to) has a great two-parter about the same case. The soundtrack album from the Mean Girls movie (of the musical) is out now. While not all of the songs work, the ones that do are a treat, and the orchestrations are very interesting, particularly compared to how they were done on stage. I loved reading Andrew Limbong's piece about Christina Applegate's appearance at the Emmys. She's great and funny, and she handled a potentially challenging situation so well. Listen to the Podcast Sponsor-Free Support your favorite pop culture junkies AND listen without sponsor interruptions with a subscription to Pop Culture Happy Hour+! Learn more and sign up at plus.npr.org/happy. Learn More What We Did This Week Ebon Moss-Bachrach, left, Ayo Edebiri, Jeremy Allen White at the Emmys. Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Sometimes, as a critic, you have to speak the truth of a film as you experienced it, whether your opinion is in the minority or not. This is what I learned when I talked to Ronald Young, Jr. and Shar Jossell about the Kevin Hart heist movie Lift. I wrote a little about the Emmys on Monday night and talked with Juana Summers on All Things Considered. And of course, as we tend to do, Glen and I stayed up late to chat about them. Thanks, as always, to our producers, who stay up later than we do so you can have that show in the morning. Everybody loves Bluey, and it's back, so we revisited Stephen's conversation with Kathryn VanArendonk and Amil Niazi. Glen, Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, and Shea Vassar talked about the new Marvel series Echo. And Stephen and Aisha talked to Tre'vell Anderson and jarrett hill (a FANTI reunion!) about Ava DuVernay's latest, Origin. What's Making Us Happy Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: jarrett hill: Niecy Nash-Betts' Emmy acceptance speech Tre'vell Anderson: The Historically Black Phrases live show Aisha Harris: The Book of Clarence Stephen Thompson: Lego Masters Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+. Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free episodes. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: pchh@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Pop Culture Happy Hour emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy