80s kids by Shannon Curtis

When their 2023 album "Good to Me" started gaining traction internationally, synthpop spouses Shannon Curtis and Jamie Hill were faced with an unexpected question: how to extend their typical one-year album cycle while not interrupting their favorite couples activity — making recordings together.

Their answer was to start working their way down a list that they'd been keeping since they first met in 2006 — of songs from their 1980s childhoods that they thought it might be fun to someday record their own versions of.

But where most artists attempt to put their own spin on cover songs, Curtis and Hill took an intentionally different approach: they attempted to recreate as closely as possible the feeling in the original recordings.

The one twist: Curtis would be lending her soaring alto to a collection of songs sung originally by men.

The result is an album of reverent renditions of all-time classic 80s synthpop songs, in which all the recordings are faithful to the most exacting details of the original versions — but which also somehow manage to add up to what sounds for all the world like a seamless debut album from an electrifying new artist.

"80s kids" is a remarkable record. Each song sounds simultaneously period-appropriate and modern; exactly like the original, but also brand new. Curtis and Hill deftly hit every single one of the molecularly familiar emotional notes that fans of 80s music expect from these songs — but more often than not hit them more satisfyingly than the original artists did.

Most remarkably, a number of the songs on "80s kids" are flat-out better than the original versions — no mean feat for an album comprised of ten of the most well-loved songs of all time. A-ha's "Take On Me" and Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer," to name two, are both noticeably more exciting and emotional than the originals — as is OMD's John Hughes soundtrack classic "If You Leave."

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"80s kids is heartfelt, delivered with love, and a pleasure to listen to — especially for a person such as myself, who reacts with suspicion toward artists doing cover versions of songs that occupy the soft and sentimental portion of my nostalgic heart. No such reservations here. Every song has depth and power, and enters the realm of a marvelous homage." — John O'Neil, Record Exchange Boise


"Shannon weaves together a diverse slice of the 1980s in a way that makes total sense to me as a critical 80s nerd. I love it." — Marq Manner, Homer's Records, Omaha


“There’s never a wrong time for classic 80s synthpop. And Shannon Curtis was meant to reunite us with these amazing songs! My Gen X heart is in love!” — Shawn Cephas, Forever Changes Records, Phoenixville


"Creative, fresh, and flowy — a record your player will love to spin." — Kenneth Tomkins, Seattle Records

Shannon Curtis is a Tacoma-based artist hailing from California.

shannoncurtis.net
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