Los ochentas

Georgia first hipped us to the fact that Buenos Aires loves ¨La Musica de los Ochentas¨- 80´s music. She even told us that some hold it as a class issue- the darker people like the darker music (i.e. reggae and hip hop, reggaton, etc), while the lighter, upper classes kick back to the smooth sounds of high yellow entertainers like Billy Ocean and Lionel Richie.
Could it be directly analogous to the availablity or actual possesion of cocaine? The upper classes savor the taste of coked-up singers like Don Henley and George Michael while the rest of the city merely drinks booze and smokes an occasional joint whilst grinding to ¨Hey, Ma¨.
Whatever it is, the taste is apparant. You can´t hope to make it through a day in the city without hearing ¨Lady in Red¨, especially if you are riding in cabs. Your driver may actually be moved to the point of singing along with Air Supply or just grooving to ¨All Night Long¨.
Portenos don´t seem to tire of hearing songs in English that they don´t understand. They may even, with a few Quilmes under their belt, venture a Karaoke version of their favorites with phonetic, iterpretive, totally wrong lyrics.
In shops, ¨The Final Countdown¨ will blare without irony for it´s full, magestic running time without even a flinch of disapproval from the shopkeeper.
On an overnight bus from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazu, G and I were treated to a DVD entitled ¨Good Times¨, featuring the videos for ¨We are the World¨, ¨Time After Time¨, and ¨Careless Whisper¨. We wondered if Portenos had been into this music when it was contemporary or had only discovered it later. Were the ¨Good Times¨ referred to the heady days of the American 80s? Or much later, when Argentina was having it´s own stock market boom, enamored of the wealth and excess found in 80´s music videos, watching dubbed copies of ¨Wall Street¨ while their government linked their Peso to the American Dollar.
Maybe they listen to this music as a fond reminder of the days before their currency went bust. Hearing Huey Lewis and the News probably stirs the same feelings in newly tax-bracket-dropped Portenos as it does in retired Wall Street brokers. Georgia, who has more of insight as she´s been here for some months, tells us that these people seem not to know how to live on a modest budget. So, for the time being at least, champagne corks will continue to pop off to the tune of ¨I´ve Had the Time of my Life¨.