Retro Hell: Life in the `70s and `80S, from Afros to Zotz [Paperback]

Editors of Ben is Dead Magazine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1997

Valley Girls, Quaaludes, Howard Cosell, K-Tel Records. In today's pop-culture spin-cycle the 1970s and 1980s rule. "Retro Hell" provides a travelogue through the best and worst of these unforgettable decades. Orchestrated by the editor of the "Ben Is Dead" magazine, the book both sends up and celebrates the cultural landscape of our misspent youth. Thirty "Ben Is Dead" writers and hundreds of their readers helped assemble the nearly 1000 sharply opinionated alphabetical entries and sidebars. The icons, the eccentricities, the excesses, the kitsch - from alligator shirts, breakdancing, Earth Shoes and Farrah Fawcett to bumper stickers, eight-tracks, Schoolhouse Rock and John Travolta. Illustrated throughout with 100 black-and-white photographs and illustrations, the book offers a compendium of recent pop-culture arcana - a look back for everyone who survived the 70s and 80s.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

These two books guide the user through the cultural trivia of the last two decades with surprisingly little duplication. Both have plenty of See references to lead readers from "Erasure" to "Synth-Pop" to "Aerobics" to "Leg Warmers." Contributors to the long-running Ben Is Dead, a Los Angeles-based alternative culture magazine, have compiled their favorite memories of the Seventies and early Eighties. The signed entries include more general trends ("Orange: Important color when we grew up") as well as the expected "Jonathan Livingston Seagull," and often two or more people contribute annotations for the same entry. This format works well because the writing has a distinctly personal touch; the essay on PBS's Electric Company has as much to do with the impression the show had on one viewer as with the facts of the show's production. Journalists Gaslin and Porter offer a more factual?and more boring?take on the people, TV shows, and hit songs of the 1980s. Their short entries occasionally take a stab at humor or remind us of some forgotten connection but mostly list a singer's top hits or an actor's most memorable parts. As reference sources, both these books are comprehensive and well organized enough to answer the basic questions about one-hit wonders and sitcom stars and would do well in medium and large public libraries. Retro Hell also has some value as a cultural history and should be in public and academic circulating collections.?Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (P); 1st edition (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316102822
• ISBN-13: 978-0316102827
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #220,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BEN IS DEAD rules, okay?, October 27, 2005

By 

Ace Backwords (www.geocities.com/acebackwords2002) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Retro Hell: Life in the `70s and `80S, from Afros to Zotz (Paperback)

My old punk rock pal Mary Mayhem pawned off a box of old fanzines on me the other day, and there was a big stack of BEN IS DEAD magazines amongst them. I had forgotten how good that magazine was. Its a bona fide work of art (without chewing on it, okay?). The publisher, Darby Romeo, was sort of the archetypal Southern California Jewish cultcha' chick for the '80s. Besides being a brilliant writer, she had a yearning quality and a very original slant. She always seemed to be looking for the real and the authentic, even as she was wading through the shallow and phony junk that is Pop Culture. With her "Retro Hell" issues, its almost as if she's looking for God in the details (and I'm sure He's there somewhere, even amidst the Fonzie lunchboxes and Charlie's Angels posters). Face it, we were all raised amidst the blizzard of Pop Culture artifacts. We tried to create a life (or a so-called lifestyle) out of the crap pouring out of our TV sets, radios, and rock magazines. Darby Romeo graduated from high school in 1985, started publishing BEN IS DEAD in 1988 at around age 21, and I think she kept publishing it until around 1999 or so. Every issue got better, slicker, more original, and even more successful (she even copped a book publishing contract out of the deal). And then, she apparently disappeared from public view. Rumor has it she joined a weird cult. WHich I suspect is just the kind of weird rumor that Romeo would appreciate (everytime I disappear from view people just assume I'm dead, sheesh). She had a highly defined sense of irony on top of irony on top of searching for something real on top of further irony. She was the kind of Hollywood chick who hated and smirked at everything "hip." Even as she seemed obsessed with all things hip. As a little girl in the '80s she had Duran Duran posters all over her bedroom walls (well, she would've if her father had let her). Then in the '90s she launched herself into the gears of the Media Machine and got to interview Duran Duran. She even got grab-assed by Simon LeBon, or one of those hair-boys. So you see, dreams come true. Its odd and odd experience re-reading those "Retro Hell" issues of BEN IS DEAD ten years later. Its a perfectly-preserved time-capsule of the long-gone '90s fanzine scene. So I guess now its Retro Retro.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Blast To The Past, January 3, 2000

By 

Christina Kelley (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Retro Hell: Life in the `70s and `80S, from Afros to Zotz (Paperback)

All the fun stuff from the 60's through the 80's is included here: Crazy Straws, scarf dresses, toe socks, even The Schick Electric Hot Lather Dispenser! It's all here, and best of all alphabetically arranged which makes finding a specific item a snap!

One of the best things about this book is the inclusion of several contributors first hand experiences with some items. Their detailed descriptions might help jog some fun memorys of your own.

Unfortunately, a few of their storys contain profanity, so you may not be able to share those passages with the entire family. But if you don't have a problem with an occasional curse word in the text you'll LOVE this book!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful nostalgia trip, May 1, 2003

By 

B. Pomeroy "bpomeroy54" (Sewell, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Retro Hell: Life in the `70s and `80S, from Afros to Zotz (Paperback)

If you were born during the tail end of the Baby Boom or are part of Gen-X, think of "Retro Hell" as a travel guide to Memory Lane. This book covers almost every aspect of life in the 1970's and '80's, from the most profound to the most trivial. What makes this book a joy is its ability to remind you of the little things you've forgotten -- toys, fads, fashions, one-hit-wonder bands, TV shows, commercials -- and bring back a flood of memories.

Though much of the writing is strongly tongue-in-cheek, it's not all cynical... which is quite refreshing. Not everything about the '70's and '80's was horrible; indeed, in an age of terrorism and war, roller disco doesn't seem so bad.

This book was originally published in 1997. If a newer edition is planned, adding some context would be especially helpful, now that the entire decade of the '90's has passed. For it's the seemingly frivolous things that ultimately shape our lives in unexpected ways.