Sounds of the 80s is officially a year old today. There's been highs and lows (a low today was Sara interrupting Aretha Franklin's Freeway of Love.) I quite enjoyed the interview with Nathan Moore (Brother Beyond)

A lot of people using Sara Cox as brainbleach from X Factor this evening according to Twitter.

I just want to say that I thought the interview with Gary and Martin Kemp was excellent. Gary is always good to listen to, an extremely articulate man

Lower mark reached - people are sending in mondegreens for Sara to sing on air..

Oh dear...

5 months since anyone posted about Sounds Of The 80's on Radio 1 with Sara Cox on Saturday nights!

I came back for a listen last week and again am listening this week, only to find out it is a recorded show. Plus within moments of the show starting she was off on her anecdotes again, this one was about walking the dog and poo bags. Just what I tuned in for.

Anyway I thought it was worth listening again to see if it is worth re-evaluating from 6 months ago when I last listened. Seems like a decent guest in Steve Levine who is now talking about producing Culture Club back in the 80's. Last week I noticed that the guest Robert Howard of Blow Monkeys was spread out over both hours into 3 separate chats which I thought dragged it out a bit.

One track played in the first half hour that I'd not heard in years and years was Right Now by The Creatures. But there are still too many over familiar and over played tracks it seems to me, and Karma Chameleon is currently playing.

Exactly what are you expecting from someone who was a 10-year-old child in 1985? Anecdotes of meeting fellow-clubber George O'Dowd in exclusive underground London Clubs at 3am in 1980, before she even started Primary School?

Sounds of the 80s is a retro show, aimed squarely at twenty-somethings today, born after the time, who think it was all jolly marvellous and immensely cool (including clunky iWalkmans which lasted 2 hours on £4-worth of Duracell batteries and chewed tapes whenever you ran for a bus). It's extremely superficial, with a presenter who admits to thinking that a 'virgin' was "a type of parsnip" in the actual 1980s.

This is not Johnny Walker telling us the story of Radio Caroline in the 1960s.

The show is most definitely not aimed at twenty somethings. They do not listen to Radio 2 for a start.
To be nostalgic and have a retro interest in the 80s means you would now be in your 40s, not twenties! Twenty somethings are nostalgic about their own youth...ie the late 90s and Noughties.

I never mentioned nostalgia. I even emboldened the word 'retro' to avoid such confusion. Sara Cox does things like explaining to the listener what a 12" mix was and why they were so special.

And as for no young people listening to Radio 2, it's moved on from David Hamilton, you know. Young people think the 80s is cool, just like young people born in the 70s thought the swinging 60s was cool in the 80s and 90s.

People pushing 60 who want 80s music are more likely to be tuned into an Absolute 80s show presented by one of their own.

Sara Cox was ten in 1985.

The only thing that really keeps me listening to this show is the various guests. Why does she think we want to hear about her home life all the time? I keep recommending Richard Green retro show, but I do urge anyone fed up with Sounds Of The 80s to check this out on listen again. The guests are just as good as the ones on Sound Of The 80s, Richard's an excellent interviewer - when Steve Strange died, I posted an link on facebook to an interview he did he did with him on his show a few weeks previously. Also, he keeps you update with what these 80s artists are doing now, and plays the occassional new track. I consider it the listening equivalent of Classic Pop magazine, for anyone who reads that.

I only listen to SOTE on Iplayer so I can skip the bits when Sara talks.

Enjoy that privilege. You wouldn't have it if you were a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay. In fact, they'd probably skip the bits when she wasn't talking!

Maybe iPods with 80's compilations on random play may suit you guys better?

Sounds Of The 80's is absolutely NOT a show specifically aimed at twentysomethings and people born since that decade ended. Sara Cox is forever reading out the memories of mainly us fortysomethings who were teenagers throughout the 1980's and actively asks what listeners were doing in a specific month within that decade, which would be pretty pointless if her listeners average age was 25!

I thought Modern Talking's Brother Louie, a No4 hit from August / September 1986 sounded rather good when she played it on Saturday. Infact it sounded even better than I recalled it from the time when it was a rather unexpected big hit, but deservedly so. I quite enjoyed some of the continental Europop of the 80's that crossed over into the UK charts like that single.

I've still got a few shows to catch up with. I'm looking forward to hearing the Claire Grogan interview. I'm just listening to Debbie Gibson's interview on Richard's retro show this week.

The Clare Grogan interview - that was way back in about November 2013 from memory!

'Brother Louie' was, and still is, a dreadful record! And the two guys from the band looked ridiculous with their long hair and cheesy, white teethed, smiles.

That said, they released an excellent single in 1985 which should have been a massive hit but failed to progress beyond number 56 in the summer of that year:

You're My Heart, You're My Soul

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kHl4FoK1Ys (7" version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS25I1vMF_0 (12" version)

The cheese factor in how they look is off the scale in the first video! Good song though and one that reminds me of a holiday I had in northern Spain in the July that year as the record was played in every bar and club that I was drinking in (Live Aid took place on the middle Saturday of my two weeks holiday. The local TV channel showed the first hour or so of Live Aid before taking the programme off for two hours in order to show Bull Fighting, which is possibly the sickest and cruellest "sport" there must be. I found the whole thing disgusting).

She was first on 26th October 2013, but most recently appeared on 8th April 2015, and that episode is still available on the iPlayer.

Ultimately, there are only so many famous people from the 80s worth speaking to and still alive, so it's inevitable that the first phase of "Sounds of the 80s" will be to talk to these people (even though they've been on Absolute Radio and other stations or TV shows countless times before saying the same old things).

The second phase - which we're in now - will be to talk to the same old people all over again, trying to make it sound new by hoping the casual listener has forgotten about the last interview and pretending the re-interviews focus on a particular album or incident to make them new and relevant.

The third phase will be casual listeners catching up with the Digital Spy anoraks by noticing it's all a repetitious rehash of old rope, as the show scrapes the barrel by interviewing Carol Decker for the 13th time about the recording of China In Your Hand where the only 'new' thing is her plug for her current "80s Rewind Festival" appearance.

The fourth phase is a massive makeover of the programme, with a new host and format which just plays the damn records and dispenses with the needless chat and anecdotes about dancing to Mel & Kim as a 12 year old growing up on the farm with tweet-length factoids about the songs. Just like Brian Matthew on Sounds of the 60s.

If Absolute Radio finally accepts by then, that it cannot make a profit or sustain its continual yearly losses, Radio 2 may be able to pick up a newly out-of-work Tony Hadley and have him present it. If the geriatric can actually remember any 80s anecdotes by then, of course...

So accurate!

If it was aimed at that age range it certainly WOULDN'T be on Radio 2! No self respecting 25 year old would admit to listening to Radio 2.

After listening to Sounds of The 50s tonight, it confirmed to me that SOT 80's is the weakest in the SOT series. The 50's, 60's and 70's shows are all presented by people clued up on the music they're playing, SOT 80's is really just The Sara Cox Show that happens to play just 80's music.

By all means give Coxy the SOT 90's, but she is really not qualified to present the 80's show, which could be so much better with a DJ of the era.

I love 80's music but I really don't care if I miss this show, just ain't interested in Coxy's small talk, which covers for her lack of 80s knowledge, of which when she does give sounds like its read off Wikipedia...

The show would certainly suit somebody who could casually and easily slip in first hand anecdotes of their own from the decade in question. As you say, she cannot do so in any meaningful or authentic way and it shows. It's so easy to tell when someone is simply reading from a script about something and trying to pass it off as their own knowledge or memory. I still think Janice Long would be the logical choice from within Radio 2, among many other possible external possibilities.

Live Aid one tonight.. RB supposed to have clips.

Wha? Madonna played Into the groove at Philly - but they play the video?

Maybe they don't have rights to US stuff ... whether I'm correct or not I guess will be proved in the next hour!

Live aid. Remember it clearly. Richard skinner was the announcer for radio one