For many of those scarred by the traumas of the 1970s, the news that the decade's fashions and music are having another revival may well be greeted with a feeling of weary inevitability.

Youngsters being blown along as the wind catches their retro flares risk receiving the sneers of previous generations. "We didn't go through the burning heat of the 1980s just for you to be able to wear bell-bottoms ironically," the shouts will come.

"Flares fair"

Noel Edmonds, hosting a 1974 edition of Top of the Pops, reminds us what the sights...

But all the same, the wide lapels, the garish colours and shiny fabrics will be back on the streets in the coming months.

One of the inspirations for this revival is the film Boogie Nights, a tale of porn-film actors and producers in 1970s Los Angeles, which has just gone on general release at British cinemas.

...and sounds were really like (Dur: 55")

Veteran film star Burt Reynolds put his finger on the trend to recycle old ideas when he accepted a Golden Globe for his role in the film.

Coming round

"If you hang on to things long enough they get back in style, like me," he told the assembled Hollywood community, although this is unlikely to have come as a surprise to any of them.

BBC Radio Four's Kaleidoscope discusses the roots and impact of disco (Dur: 5'34")

For the last few years, filmgoers have been bombarded with remakes of old films and television shows.

Pop music is even worse. The charts are full of cover versions of old songs, derivative supergroups and sampled pop classics.

Swede as a nut

One band which knows more about '70s revivals than probably any other is Abba-tribute band Bjorn Again, which has surfed the wave of perpetual revivals for the last nine years.

Abba stars Frida and Agnetha

Rod Leissle, who formed the band, has been taking his Abba kitsch around the world almost non-stop. He said: "It is pretty bizarre. I grew up in Melbourne, knowing the English music scene pretty well, and I knew it was fickle.

"So when we formed the band, we thought we'd take it to England, it would last a year and then, boom, it would be over.

"But the 70s thing just keeps coming and I don't know why."

Limelight

However, with audience demand strong from colleges, corporate events and the gig-going public in general, he said the band was going to carry on with the winning formula as long as it could.

And Bjorn and Benny

It seems one of the few things that is not going to be revived is Abba itself. When Bjorn Again met Abba members Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson after a concert in Stockholm, the pair revealed that they received an annual plea by one of the world's richest men to reform, with practically a blank cheque.

"Bjorn said there was no way they would ever do another concert," Leissle said, perhaps relieved that his spoof act was not going to be trumped.

It seems the '70s themselves, however, will not show any such reluctance to grab the limelight once more.
 

Back to top | BBC News Home | BBC Homepage	©