80s

Benedict's first big challenge
Cardinal Ratzinger led the Catholic Church's efforts to quell Latin America's liberation theology movement in the 1980s. Now that he's pontiff, will he soften his stance?
Now and Zen
On the 20th anniversary of its release, Husker Du's landmark album "Zen Arcade" proves there was way more to '80s music than kitsch, camp and bad haircuts.
Burning down the house
A definitive new box set will proclaim the eclectic greatness of Talking Heads when the ugliness between David Byrne and Tina Weymouth has long been forgotten.
Not quite the end of the world as we know it
R.E.M.'s new career retrospective reminds you of the extraordinary cultural moment the band forged in the '80s -- and leaves you hungry for more.
"24 Hour Party People"
This dizzying saga of the '80s Manchester music scene is garish, reckless, endlessly self-indulgent and totally untrustworthy. What a blast!
Pac-Man
With its canary-yellow Everyblob hero, its masterfully simple design and its abstract realm where even death was a cheerful event, Pac-Man brought video gaming out of the bars and into the malls.
"Fight the Power"
Public Enemy's explosive 1989 hit single brought hip-hop to the mainstream -- and brought revolutionary anger back to pop.
The first Ted Olson scandal
It didn't begin with the Clinton-smearing Arkansas Project. The solicitor general nominee's pattern of ruthlessness and deception began during his tenure in the Reagan administration.
Sharps & Flats
In the mid-'80s, people with AIDS lived and died to Arvo Po?=rt's "Tabula Rasa." A new recording reprises music "like the motion of angels' wings."
Boys to men
"Edge of Seventeen," a film about coming out and of age in the early '80s, trumps the current crop of nice-guy gay films.
200 Cigarettes
In '200 Cigarettes,' the nostalgic '80s new wave soundtrack is the star, but the love stories get lost in shuffle-play.
It's heeeeeeeeere
Gavin McNett reviews Rhino's latest compilation, 'The Postpunk Chronicles'
Sharps and Flats: Tommy Keene
"The Wedding Singer"
Stephanie Zacharek reviews 'The Wedding Singer' directed by Frank Coraci and starring Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler
Buy Buy Love
The Robb Report for the Affluent Lifestyle brings back the avarice, the ostentation, the sheer Donald-ness of the '80s.

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