More Coke News: The 80s Are Back - Courtesy of Hova

So, things have been crazy busy here at *Wired *HQ (we do it all for you), but you know what can make this Monday a little better? Oh yeah, a new Jay-Z leak. The song, from Jay's recently announced American Gangster-inspired album due in November, hit the nets over the weekend and people, including me, kinda can't shut up about it. Now, normally I wouldn't write about a single leaked track, except that in the case of "Blue Magic" A) It's hot as hell B) It's already getting good reviews - as a leak! and C) In the song Hova raps about something that's been gnawing on me for a while. Shortly after proclaiming "...wanna bring the 80s back/ That's OK, that's where they made me at" he drops "Blame
Reagan for making me into a monster/Blame Oliver North and
Iran-Contra/I ran contraband that they sponsored/Before this rhyme stuff, we was in concert." Now, obviously the 80s have been back for a while (one need only look to Jay's "little brother" Kanye West to see that), but what strikes me is the way Mr. Def Jam ties it into politics. Pop culture is often a response to the political climate it is created in and often any "retro" action is usually the result of childhood nostalgia on the part of those who happen to be the twentysomething taste-makers at the time, but Jay's verse is so specific to President Reagan and the cocaine-fueled 80s. It got me wondering if after seven years of a different Republican in office the culture around us hasn't reacted in a similar way. Underground dance music is back (Justice, LCD Soundsystem, etc.), day-glow is back and I haven't been out recently but people tell me coke is back (and that moment in Pulp Fiction when Eric Stoltz says "coke is deader than... dead" seems oh so quaint). Not everything is the same, the American Psycho-Wall Street-excess vibe is pretty gone. But it's starting to feel like we're not too far from a John Hughes flick - although probably not from Hughes himself. Am I just lost in my own nostalgia-fest?