Tracks from the 80s by icons like Madonna and Michael Jackson (below) are hard to beat

lIt’s a rare night when you can leave a city nightclub without hearing Summer of ’69 at least once. You are likely to stomp to We will rock you or I want to break free. Faith, Footloose and Free Fallin’ too are good bets, depending on your location.

While the pop and rock stars a few decades old — U2 to Aerosmith, George Michael to Kylie Minogue — are still hot worldwide, if it’s Calcutta, crowds seem happy and at home with not only the faces, but the vintage music from back in the day, too.

While in other cities, techno and trance rule the nightclubs, here, the crowd isn’t satisfied unless the evening winds up and down with a few tracks that would be considered oldies elsewhere, says DJ Ivan from Bangalore, who was in the city this weekend, mixing it up at Winning Streak.

The disco at The HHI kicked off a series of “back-to-school” evenings and nights called Skooldayz. Churning out 80s and 80s-style sound is a sure way to lure crowds. While cities like Bangalore like to groove to “contemporary styles like R&B and hip hop”, tastes in the city are definitely more retro, he feels.

“The Skooldayz concept is big in the UK. It’s essentially about recreating the sonic environment for people who went to school around two decades ago,” explains Ivan. “It’s easy to dismiss it as mere nostalgia, but people enjoy the music they grew up with,” he adds.

So tracks like Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean and Beat It and Madonna’s La Isla Bonita and Like A Virgin “is the type of thing they dig”.

Bands at live venues like Someplace Else play a heavy dose of late 60s, 70s and 80s music to an audience brought up on those sounds. While the accent here is on rock, old favourites score over modern numbers.

“Our clientele mostly consists of people in the age group of 25 to 40 years. Eighties music reminds them of their first date, hanging out with friends and other special moments in their lives,” feels DJ Harish of Dublin at ITC Sonar Bangla. Remixed versions of old hits do well with people in their 20s and 30s, while the original tracks “are in great demand with the older crowd”.

The feel of the music may have something to do with it, stresses rocker Neil Adhikary, whose band Span plays at Someplace Else every Thursday.

“That kind of music was smart, and it wasn’t based on the repetitive sounds that characterise trance and techno. Its iridescent melodies and feel-good vibes have survived the test of time and are back with a bang.”

For the 40-something audience that transitioned in taste from disco to rock, the 80s vibe is more than welcome. “Now it is back again, both in the work of new artistes as well as the original hits being spun by the DJs in the pubs and discs,” feels Sandip, a regular at Dublin.

Music stores echo the same sentiment. “Except for Norah Jones, who has made an impression with strong vocals, not much modern music is selling too well in the English segment. While dance compilations still lead MusicWorld’s sales list, classics hold their own.

“It’s the 25 to 45 age group that has the purchasing power and they go for older stuff like Bee Gees. They like peppy numbers with strong melodies and much of 80s music is in that vein,” says Binod, shop assistant at the Park Street store.

The Britneys and Justins of today can only hope to age half as well.