I Just Saw the Worst Eighties Thing Ever and Need to Share
The year was 1985. The biggest stars in music (and Dan Akroyd) gathered to record a charity song to benefit famine victims in Africa. You would think that a video featuring Tito Jackson, Cyndi Lauper and both Hall AND Oates would be the worst eighties thing ever.
You would be wrong.
A few scant weeks later in that magical year of ’85, dozens of SWEDISH hair metal artists gathered to record their own version of humanitarian ear crime: Swedish Metal Aid.
This video is, undoubtedly, the worst eighties thing you’ve ever seen. Seriously, AIDS and the space shuttle disaster both look at this video and say to themselves, “Hey! We weren’t so bad after all.”
It’s obviously a rip-off of “We Are the World”. The singing is atrocious. I would think these weren’t actually musicians but extremely poofy-haired vagrants pulled off the street if it weren’t for A.) I recognize the first solo singer as the guy from Europe (the band ,not the continent) and B.) thanks to their expansive socialized safety net Sweden HAS NO vagrants. The singers look embarrassed to be part of it, as if they’d just taken a time machine to 2019, watched the video on YouTube and then gone BACK to 1985 with the full realization of their own poo and then been forced at gun-point to still participate.
While they didn’t solve the problem of famine in Africa, thanks to all the hairspray concentrated in one place they DID manage to jump-start global warming. Sweden as a country should have been placed on probation from the UN for crimes against humanity.
Alright, you’ve been warned.