First, '80s pop appears to be hitting with an audience whose parents were dating when tunes like Journey's ubiquitous "Don't Stop Believin' " and Pat Benatar's "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" (both in the "Rock of Ages" score) first rose up the charts.
Second, so much of that era's most commercially successful works were scorned and dismissed as soulless "arena rock" by fans raised on the previous generation of classic rock such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who and Pink Floyd. That was especially true of many of the acts whose work was culled for "Rock of Ages," among them Asia, Foreigner and Whitesnake - all of whom have been critics' whipping boys forever. According to these acts' many detractors, their music was more about commerce than art, forged not in the depths of songwriters' psyches but in corporate boardrooms and focus group meetings.
So why, three decades later, is much of that music resonating so strongly throughout the multimedia landscape?
Among the culpable parties are the writers and producers responsible for what we see on TV and in the movies. A perfect example was the creative brain trust of "The Sopranos," which thrust Journey into the pop-culture spotlight when "Don't Stop Believin' " was used in the most vexing series finale in television history. And look at how current hit TV programs such as "Glee" and "American Idol" have embraced music from the era of President Reagan and Spandex.
