Back in 1986, before men were allowed to cry or women were allowed to wear trousers, people used to dress their emotional effusion behind synthesisers, dual-layered harmonies and echo-reverb.  Though the music of the 80s may sound overly felicitous, or even crass in its gushing, a closer inspection leads us to think that, behind the specious happiness of the booming economies and abundance of the times, people’s hearts were still breaking, some went without and yet others had little in between.

As a child of the 80s I still feel that tingle down my spine when I hear the wail of a guitar against a synthesised wall of noise.  I know it’s not cool to say that, but it’s true.  When I hear those empty keys of those piano melodies like soliloquy it transports me back to the solipsism of childhood bedrooms in front of old TV shows or the crackle and fuzz of a tape player.  Most 80s music seemed to have a nostalgia for the future and, now that we’re living in it, that nostalgia can only be for some sort of dream world. We went off track somewhere.

The Hits 5 compilation is one that we used to have when I was a kid. It was released in 1986, meaning that I must have been around four when it came out.  We had it on tape and used to listen to it in the car on long journeys.  I can remember listening to it on my first tape player, thinking that this is what the world was really like. Though this isn’t the full compilation (I couldn’t find all the tracks on the Internet), it has enough to give you the general gist of the thing and maybe help you remember a thing or two about where you might have come from.

Track List

1. The Bangles – Walk Like An Egyptian

2. Don Johnson – Heartbeat

3. Paul Young – Wonderland

4. Bruce Hornsby – The Way It Is

5. NIck Camen – Each Time You Break My Heart

6. Paul Simon – You Can Call Me Al

7. Eurhytmics – Thorn In My Side

8. The Stranglers – Always The Sun

9. The Pretenders – Don’t Get Me Wrong

10.  Dead or Alive – Brand New Lover

11. Haywoode – Roses

12. Cyndi Lauper – True Colours

13. Peter Cetera – Glory Of Love

14. Pyschedelic Furs – Heartbreak Beat

15. George Michael – A Different Corner

16. Red Box – For America

17. The The – Infected

18. Robert Palmer – Addicted To Love

Download. Part 1. Part 2.

I began taking antidepressants at 22 years old. My parents were reluctant to put me on medication as a growing teenager. In July 1998, I found something I thought would offer me a better chance at being happy: I became a born-again Christian by accepting Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. Some people find different ways of happiness and staying alive. Thinking that a big, divine God had kept me alive this long for a reason kept me going.
Jesus Christ became my raison d’être: for eating, sleeping, breathing. I lived to worship God day and night and felt He had truly transformed me and saved me out of my depression. While He may infuse a life-changing transformation for some Christians on Earth, for me, my victory over depression would be short-lived. It soon became the “thorn in my side.”
Close friends and family said that Christianity didn’t work for me. But through my faith, I found a need to continue living. I felt needed and had a reason to live for other than myself. Thinking that God has me here for a higher purpose keeps me going: I’m curious to find out what’s at the end. Faith in God can bring some needed relief for depression sufferers.