Acceptable in the 80's is a song created by Scottish musician Calvin Harris, released on his 2007 debut album "I Created Disco". It was released as the album's lead single on 12 March 2007. The single peaked at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart.
Duran Duran partially covered the song during their Future Past tour, mixing the song's chorus with the group's own 1981 single "Girls on Film".
Calvin Harris[]
Calvin gained an interest in music through his school in Dumfries; which loaned him the use of some equipment for use at home to make music. He began sequencing and sampling using an Amiga computer, and OctaMED software.
The Amiga Computer[]
The Amiga computer was a bespoke 16/32-bit graphics workstation designed in 1982, developed in California by a group of ex-Atari employees; who had also produced the Atari 400/800 computer. Atari eventually partly-funded the Hi-Toro project until it was bought and taken over by Commodore in 1984, with the first computers shipping at the end of 1985.
The Amiga featured photo-realistic HAM graphics from digitised or scanned sources, 3D ray-tracing and animation (Jurassic Park and Titanic used pre-vis graphics rendered on an Amiga, and Babylon 5 was created using an Amiga for Season 1.), digital sound sampling and mixing, and the ability to play video games. The Amiga featured a Paula chip, which could play back 8-bit samples in real time, using 4 independent voice channels - which could be customised to use 8 track audio, and later 16 tracks, using sequencer software. One of the most well known sequencer 'trackers' was OctaMED - Octa meaning it could be used as an 8 track sample and midi mixing studio.
For a 1982 computer designed to be 10 years ahead of it's time, it took until 1992 before it reached the height of popularity in the mainstream, particularly in Germany, France and the UK. By 1995, PCs and MACs began to take over the multi-media sector, and many Amiga users switched to those machines with the release of Windows 95 and Windows 98.
Song Development[]
"Right at the start, when I was about 13 or 14, I only had an Amiga 500 Plus running a bit of tracker software called OctaMED. My brother was big into his computers and, when he moved up to a proper PC, I took charge of the Amiga. My brother introduced me to the Amiga and said “use that to make rave tunes on it”. So I started making rave tunes and it progressed from there. No, I wasn’t a true raver. This was around 1994, WELL after the death of rave. With the right interface, you could sample things off CD, so I used to nick loads of loops from Fatboy Slim albums and make my own tunes.
"In a sense, I suppose you could say that I immediately went on-board. I was working inside the computer. That computer just happened to be an 8-bit (32-bit CPU) Amiga! I know we get all nostalgic about 8-bit samples, but, rest assured, the Amiga didn't sound lo-fi and gritty. It just sounded… a bit rubbish. It probably didn't help that the only monitors were the TV speakers from the second-hand TV in my bedroom.
"Not long [after that] I moved up to an Amiga 1200 and, at Christmas, persuaded my parents to get me my first keyboard… a Korg M5. That was the great thing about being a kid. You could ask for bits of kit for Christmas and birthdays. I also managed to get a Zoom 1201 - an amazing little effects box for 99 quid! - and an Electrix Filter Queen.
"All of that first album [2007's I Created Disco] was recorded on the Amiga A1200 setup. It was all done in my bedroom in Dumfries, before I got any interest from the music business. All I had was the Amiga 1200, the Korg M5 provided loads of sounds for the first album, a huge, 32-channel Soundcraft mixer, my 950 - at some point, that was upgraded to an S3000 - the Alesis compressors, the Zoom, a Line 6 echo-thingy, a Focusrite VoiceMaster Pro and a couple of AKG C1000 mics. That was it!
"The Focusrite was brilliant, because I could really crunch the vocals up and distort them to hell. That was my mixing technique. Distort everything to hell, then you don't have to worry about things like EQ and balance. Distortion allowed me to work with my limited setup.
I Created Disco - a Top Ten album in 2007 - was all made on the Amiga.
"Why not? The Amiga did a great job! Even after things started to take off, I did my best to carry on working with it. We were a team!
"My music landed in the hands of the right people at the right time… purely by chance. I was THIS CLOSE to giving up!"
Sadly, I realised it was probably time [2007] to give the studio a bit of a spruce-up. The Amiga - God bless it! - was put on the shelf, replaced by Logic with all the bells and whistles, and a Mac. I'm sure you've heard this loads of times, but that first jump to Logic is pretty spectacular. There I am, in my bedroom, with my trusty Amiga. All of a sudden, you've got a studio setup that's as big as your budget and your imagination will allow.
"Thinking back, I was quite wary of that jump to Logic-World. Wary of suddenly having money and endless toys to spend it on. I've heard stories of bands that spend all their advance on gear, then the album tanks and they're left with loads of gear and no cash. I was careful. I only bought the things that I really needed, but I didn't go crazy. I didn't need to. I was having enough trouble getting my head around Logic and trying to start work on the second album."
DD Connections[]
The song was played during the middle section of Girls on Film during the Future Past tour, 2021 to 2023. The song was played 7 times during 2021, 33 times in 2022, and 41 times in 2023. [1]
Lyrics[]
It was acceptable in the 80s It was acceptable at the time It was acceptable in the 80s It was acceptable at the time I've got love for you If you were born in the 80s, the 80s I've got hugs for you If you were born in the 80s, the 80s I'll do things for you If you were born in the 80s, the 80s I've got hugs for you If you were born in the 80s Yeah It was acceptable in the 80s It was acceptable at the time It was acceptable in the 80s It was acceptable at the time I've got love for you If you were born in the 80s, the 80s I've got hugs for you If you were born in the 80s, the 80s I'll do things for you If you were born in the 80s, the 80s I've got hugs for you If you were born in the 80s Yeah It was acceptable in the 80s It was acceptable at the time It was acceptable in the 80s It was acceptable at the time
References[]
https://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/interview-calvin-harris-on-software-hardware-and-hit-making-530744
http://www.caughtinthecrossfire.com/music/interviews-2/calvin-harris-interview/