Misery Index Hits Worst Level Since... 1983

Miserable. As Miserable as the end of the Carter/Reagan recession, with one big difference: At this point in Reagan's term, we were about to post a quarter of 10.9% GDP growth and grow (with one brief pause) through the end of Clinton's second term.

Andy notes "break out the parachute pants and the Madonna cassettes." Indeed, that's an excellent way of noting, in a tangible way, exactly how long it's been since it was this bad.

And I can't resist posting 80s videos anyway.

Pulling from this list, the Misery Index has not been this high since the below songs ruled the radio.

By the way, I'm including a few bad songs too, because it's bad songs that date things. Good songs tend to stick around for a long time and thus don't particularly implicate a time, while bad songs are quickly forgotten.

So when you hear Gloria, you know: Oh, right. That was 1983.

It hasn't been this bad since people bought Laura Brannigan's album, Brannigan.

Oh, and a pair of economically-themed songs from 1983. 1, a song that conjures the Great Depression ( the "uncensored" version of this song; it seems to have some blackface).

And then a really awful song, but so on point.

posted by Ace at 03:43 PM

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