It’s sometimes easy to imagine what this city was like in the mid-80s. It’s not like it was that long ago, after all, and whatever scene was happening at the time, most of the key players are still around somewhere. London right after punk seemed like an unlikely combination of edginess and vapidity, and sometimes it was both of these at once. Today, it’s still a spectacularly interesting place to visit, and a rather nice place to live, too. There are plenty of local scenes going on, and for young people with a lot of frustrated energy, it’s still a great place to find out what to do with it.
Visiting is easy enough, and once you navigate the airport, it’s a matter of finding transportation to your hotel. London is one of the top cities in the world for accommodation, and it’s reputation is very-well deserved. While you’re out checking out the town, you might see some remnants of the 80s, in the way people dress or the music you might hear, and maybe, if you’re lucky, you might be able to catch one of Howard Jones’ acoustic concerts.
After his short-sighted record company let him go in the 90s, he went off on his own, making his own tours, and starting his own record company. It turns out to have been a very good move, because there’s been a lot of interesting new work generated from then to now, along with some extremely memorable shows. But he’s most widely known as the Howard Jones who was one of the main figures in synth pop in the 1980s. Songs like “What is Love,” and “No One is to Blame,” brought him lots of attention in the MTV circuit, and his interesting hair helped flesh out his image. The music is as potent and catchy as ever.