"I'll be alone, dancing you know it baby"

Whenever "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds comes on the radio, I'm forced to make a choice. Should I change the channel and find something else? Or should I turn it up, avoid eye contact with others, and have myself a good Lifetime Original Movie-esque sob session?

For some reason, a lot of 80s music makes me feel depressed. It's not so much the Guns 'N' Roses and Motley Crue-type stuff (since those 80s rockers are so shitty I rarely get through the first few bars before changing the channel) but the Depeche Mode / Morrissey kind of ballads. You know the kind.

I'm not entirely sure why they have this effect on me, but here are some possibilities:

1. The hair - Not only did the excessive use of CFC-laden hairsprays almost destroy civilization, but they also forced me to skip most of the decade when searching for masturbation material.

2. The synthesizers - I don't know why, but those haunting electronic chords always get to me. I'm sure I could go into a whole rant about how this music feels empty, completely void of any feeling, but I'll just chalk it up to being part-vampire. Those electronic organs remind me of home.

3. The fashion of a lost civilization - Just think of all those tight leather pants and flamboyant currently rotting away in landfills. Or the tapes sitting in cardboard boxes in their basements. Or the Tiffany posters rolled up and stuck in the back of closets. Or, even scarier, the people who owned all of those, once young, now nearing middle age! Nothing scares me more than aging, which is why I bathe in wrinkle cream.

4. Never getting laid in the 80s - Sure, I was between the ages of 0 and 9 during that decade, but that didn't stop this guy.

5. Cyndi Lauper - Never trust anyone who doesn't shed a tear during "Time After Time". They have a heart of stone.

6. The lyrics - Take Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night" for example. On the surface it seems like a fairly benign statement by Hart proclaiming his love of this new fashion trend. But look a little closer. Among the reasons he wears his sunglasses at night: so he can, so he can (1) watch you weave, (2) keep track of visions in his eyes, and (3) forget his name while you collect your claim.

I get the first two: using sunglasses for their reflective properties and to hide people from seeing your perverted ways make sense. But how do they make someone forget your name, especially while they're collecting their claim? How, goddamnit!?!?!

Nothing makes me more depressed than my own confusion.

One of these days, I compose a book-length examination on this, something that this subject truly deserves. If it's a hit I already have a sequel planned: Why dance music makes me cry, with a full chapter on Tatu.