“I don’t think there’s ever been such a rush towards insignificance in the name of the historical future as we’ve seen in the last 15 years.” — Robert Hughes concluding his TV series The Shock of the New in 1980
➢ War: the 20th-century way to build a new world — Robert Hughes laments the effects of war in The Shock of The New
✱ 40 years since “I picked on you-oo-oo”! July 6, 1972 saw the seminal pop moment — David Bowie’s first appearance on Top of the Pops as Ziggy Stardust, on the day in 1972 that he created the next generation of popstar wannabes
✱ Who dares define glam rock? Where to draw a line between glitter and glam – naff blokes in Bacofoil versus starmen with pretensions
✱ Bowie’s teenage lover who created the look of Ziggy – unseen pic of Freddie Burretti from 1973, exclusive report at Shapers of the 80s
✱ The autumn issue of V Magazine recasts the New Romantics for American readers, and puts millennial pioneers on its covers: Mormon supermodel and social media wunderkind Lucky BS on one and Troye Sivan on another as the gay YouTuber carving out a new path through music. Eyebrows are already raised
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✱ 29th Sept – Deejay set from legendary Blitz club host Rusty Egan at Under the Bridge, London SW6 1HS with Michael Rother playing Neu! – two singers over backing tracks, plus six songs from Rusty’s new album, Welcome to the Dancefloor
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✱ Tony Hadley is back “doing what he loves best – being a solo artist” . . . Moving on from Spandau Ballet, their singer is playing live at three UK dates in October with the South Bank Sinfonia, plus six in Europe
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✱ Powering on through the autumn Peter Hook & The Light perform New Order and Joy Division live in North America
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✱ Dazed magazine for autumn 2016 is fronted by two leading French femmes Léa Seydoux and SoKo and “celebrates the visionary talents who capture the creative spark of the moment”
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✱ The best new tracks on the latest Dazed Playlist include Mykki Blanco, Erykah Badu, Nas and Scottish trio Naked
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✱ i-D's Futurewise summer issue No 343 believes that we're more politically fired up than ever before, and urges us to grab control of our lives! However, its promo blurb doesn’t explain who this cover face Selena Forrest is or why being fully clad in Balenciaga expresses the change it claims is “in air”. I-D really seems to be losing the plot
✱ i-D’s mix for August features Malmo’s young house producer Armand Jakobsson, aka Rimbaudian. Tracks include his own I Would Do Everything I Did Again, and Wanna Be Bae; plus DJ Seinfeld’s Flyin' Thru Sunrise
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✱ “The Greatest” issue 65 of Soul Survivors magazine pays tribute to Muhammed Ali and features Angie Stone, Alton McClain, Peven Everett & Billie Jewell, Guile Sharp . . . Under Fitzroy Facey’s sole ownership, the mag celebrates its tenth anniversary with a new compilation on Expansion Records, out in September
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✱ Tue–Sat: Trumphouse Tuesdays, Grenade, FCK, #FRI251, SatFac251 at Factory251 – clubnights, cocktail masterclasses and live bands – EDM, house, garage, hiphop, nu disco, funk, soul and indie over three floors designed by Ben Kelly at Princess St, Manchester M1 7EN
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✱ Remake Remodel claims to be “The Nation’s Saving Grace of Alternative, Rock’n’Roll” — Ruby Lounge M4 1QB first Saturday of the month, plus Rip It Up Mondays at Soup Kitchen M1 1DF
◆ The painter David Hockney proposed the “cubification” of cinema three decades ago in a landmark interview in 1983 with Shapers of the 80s when he revealed “Suddenly I see cubism differently, more clearly”. Read it inside, along with news of his recent experiments to subvert single-point perspective. [iPad self-portrait, detail © David Hockney]
✱ After 2010’s Grammy Award winning Soldier Of Love LP, Sade went on to release The Ultimate Collection. The 29 tracks on two CDs included three new numbers, plus a version of Moon & The Sky featuring Jay-Z . . . In 2011 the band won a Grammy award for Best R&B Performance By A Group for the track Soldier Of Love
✱ 2010 — Shapersofthe80s finds comeback Shard comfy as ‘Auntie Sade’
✱ 1981 — Pix of Sade’s Demob designs during the first Blitz invasion of the US
✱ 1982 — Pix of Sade helping backstage during Steve Strange’s fashion show in Paris
➢ 1980, Three key men in Boy George’s life
➢ 2010, Ex-Blitz Kids give their verdicts on the TV drama Worried About the Boy (pictured)
➢ 1979 — Unbelievable! The voice of sweet reason in George’s TV debut
➢ 2010, Ex-jailbird George takes his first trancey steps on the path to sainthood
➢ June 14, 2011, Boy George celebrates the big Five-0 and tells the world, yes, finally he has “lots of regrets” ...
◆ Shapers of the 80s tells the story of Spandau Ballet’s comeback tour after two decades apart — Videos, interviews, free downloads, links and background articles from the 2009–10 Reformation tour ... That’s all folks, possibly for ever, as it seemed at the time
◆ Story behind the making of Spandau’s Olympic Gold, remixed by deejay Paul Oakenfold and turned into a slick vid
✱ 35 years ago the 80s supergroup’s debut single Planet Earth peaked at No 12 in the UK chart . . .
Shapers of the 80s tells how Duran’s road to stardom began in the Studio 54 of Birmingham, UK, in 1980
✱ Highlights of Duran’s round-the-world adventure in 2011 . . . and DD’s delayed return to the UK . . . Plus ten killer videos other people made as tributes
to Duran’s return to creativity
➢ How three wizards met at the same crossroad in time — a brief scene-setter on the forces shaping the Swinging Eighties
➢ 1980, Strange days, strange nights, strange people: at The Blitz a decade dawns
➢ 1980, One week in the private worlds of the new young: London blazes with creativity
➢ 1980, Shapers of the 80s tells how Duran Duran’s road to stardom began in the Studio 54 of Birmingham, UK
➢ 1981, Birth of Duran’s Planet Earth ... when other people’s faith put the Brummies into the charts
➢ 1983, The Making of UK Club Culture — definitive Face cover story by yours truly seen here in the Wham Rap! video
➢ 1976–1984, How creative clubbing started and ended with the 80s
➢ 2010, Comeback Shard comfy as ‘Auntie Sade’
➢ 2009, Onstage, Spandau’s Hadley and Kemp finally get huggy: a mighty Reformation
➢ 35 years as master of hot cuts – How legendary funk deejay Robbie Vincent influenced the shape of British musical taste
✧ ... except of course everybody claims they were the first
✧ Blitz Club co-host and deejay Rusty Egan still causing waves
✧ Follow the adventures of an international deejay at The fabulous World of Princess Julia
✧ Judith “frankly” Frankland at The Swelle Life
✧ Boy George dates and official news
✧ The World of Animal Nightlife
✧ Gary Kemp at Twitter, not forgetting silver fox Martin Kemp and sax maestro Steve Norman
✧ Danilo Monzillo’s exhaustive Blitz Kids compendium
✧ The official line on Duran Duran
✧ New Romantics on video
✧ Landmark pop videos from the 80s and all crucial points before — on the Shapers of the 80s channel at YouTube 
❖ Welcome to all our visitors from 212 countries and dependencies, recorded at Revolver Maps — not forgetting our visitor in the world’s southernmost city, Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina (54°48′S, 68°18′W), only a smidgeon further south than our readers in Río Grande and Punta Arenas... Our northernmost visitor lives at Kjøllefjord in Norway (70°56′N, 27°20′E), a nudge nearer the Pole than others in Finnmark, and at Murmansk in Russia (68°58′N, 33°05′E). A special Hello to our new visitors in Iceland!
