I was listening to CBC’s Simply Seán (wryly funny, if you like that sort of humour) on the way to Hamilton Airport, and suddenly the distinctly 80’s sounds of synthesizers and guitars wailed over the speakers like a siren call from the distant past…

Bloody hell! It was Platinum Blonde’s “Crying Over You” (Alien Shores, 1985). If you’re a Canadian who grew up in the ’80s you will understand what a “!!” moment this was, to hear it on the radio in 2008 like I was 13 years old again. Except I was driving a car.

I would’ve pulled over just to sit quietly in my stunned disbelief through the rest of the song, except I was on Highway 403 and would’ve been late for my flight.

For the rest of you, either non-Canadians, or Generation Y or younger Canadians, or Canadians with too much self-respect to admit to recognising these poncy people prancing about in their blue square-shouldered suits, behold the HAIR — the impossibly BIG, BIG HAIR that occupies 80% of the screen when heads are shown in this video. Behold the cheeseball flashes of fake opulence like vintage cars, jets, boats, and the flaunting of politically incorrect figures such as black porters and bodyguards ogling white girlfriends of poncy bandmembers. Behold the 80ishness of it all, in all its shoulder-padded, chemically treated and coiffed glory!

But you know, even though the video makes me cringe in a I-can’t-believe-this-was-de-rigueur kind of way, I still find the song pretty catchy… check out Platinum Blonde’s other less-cheesy videos on YouTube, like It Doesn’t Really Matter and Situation Critical from their album “Standing in the Dark” (1983).