A note to our readers: Former Popdose contributor John Hughes’ departure for bigger and better things has left a rather big hole where his “Lost in the ’70s/’80s/’90s” columns used to be. Fortunately, John gave his blessing for the rest of us to take up his fallen standard, and we’ve pledged to do our best to live up to the brilliance of his work. So without further ado…

When is a rave review also a kiss of death? Perhaps when it’s 1987, and the “critic” is Margaret Thatcher.

It’s pretty well established by now that politics and pop music are uncomfortable bedfellows, at best. Particularly in the three decades since both Great Britain and the United States fell to their respective conservative parties, most attempts to link politicians with pop have been ham-fisted embarrassments – no matter the party or the pop star. As a columnist for the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper put it a few years ago, “Thinking about a politician listening to rock music is like imagining your parents having sex: you not only lose all respect for them, it puts you off the whole concept.”

In that same 2004 article the columnist, Alexis Petridus, bemoaned the attempts of leading Tory politicians to boost their hip factor by variously proclaiming their admiration for the Scissor Sisters, Dido, Jarvis Cocker and even Meat Loaf. Petridus suggested that if history were any guide, those acts might be doomed to suffer what he called “the Curse of the Thrashing Doves.” (more…)