Its fourth season has ignited interest in Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill and Metallica's Master of Puppets. Both 80s songs have subsequently attracted news attention and streaming interest and it shows how current culture can unearth golden oldies for the uninitiated.
What gets highlighted - gloom or glam music, denim and big hair, kids-friendly movies, or TV which reflected very uncertain times - colours perceptions about what life was like.
The decade is, 40 years on, often presented as a comforting balm of more simple, slower-paced, and less sophisticated times. The personal computer and internet revolutions were beginning and technology wasn't as overwhelming and omnipresent.
Looking back through culture can underline changes. This year's big blockbuster, Top Gun: Maverick, revisits the testosterone-fuelled, broad sweep of 1986's original Tom Cruise-starring vehicle, but that old swaggering image of American power feels like a relic in 2022 amid the country's grim systemic problems and division.
British TV drama Sherwood delves into how the past - in its case the mid-80s UK miners' strike - can also seep into the present.
In current events, there's something of a mirror to the 80s occurring with dark parallels.
As difficult as this year's cost of living crisis is, the 80s were turbulent locally, with Muldoonist economic protectionism giving way to deregulation and asset sales. The general atmosphere of the early 80s was reflected in the Blam Blam Blam classic There Is No Depression in New Zealand.
An oil shock opened the decade, and high fuel prices are among the problems now. There are differences today, including that unemployment is low. Home deliveries, online services, public transport and work from home allow people to dodge some fuel costs.
There were a number of regional wars in the 80s, the Lockerbie terror attack, and the Rainbow Warrior bombing. Globally, the threat of Cold War-era nuclear destruction hung over the popular consciousness - as climate change now does.
The nuclear threat reared its head with President Vladimir Putin's statements after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February and the temporary occupation of the Chernobyl plant compound - site of the 1986 disaster.
Putin has said the collapse of the Soviet Union was a mistake. The 80s began with Russian soldiers in Afghanistan, saw Mikhail Gorbachev become Soviet leader half-way through and ended with revolutions and the Berlin Wall torn down.
Individuals can still have an outsized impact for good or ill then and now. Whereas Vladimir Putin epitomises intolerance and the urge to impose his will over millions of people, Gorbachev reacted to the situation he found himself in with reforms and negotiations with the US, which eased the way towards more freedom for millions.
These days, several major problems appear insurmountable, out of reach of ordinary citizens to influence them. The huge disparity in global wealth inequality today began with tax cuts for the wealthy in the 80s.
The tech giants now run digital and social media operations that can be misused for committing crimes, or to erode trust in facts, science, and democracy. Trolling can bring a stranger's negativity into your home. On the positive side, people can communicate by video with someone they know on the opposite side of the world, or have an exchange of ideas with others they don't know.
Struggles from the past compared to now can illustrate that progress is possible.
The 80s had its own plague - HIV Aids - which has gone from being a devastating disease that brought death to ordinary families to one which is manageable with medicines. Covid-19 vaccines are not perfect but they quickly helped reduce risks for many millions of people.
In 1986, America's Nasa suffered the Challenger space shuttle disaster 73 seconds after launch. But it has recovered through co-operation with other nations over the International Space Station, work with private companies, and successful unmanned missions.
Last week was the 37th anniversary of Live Aid in 1985, the concert fundraiser to help Ethiopia over famine, watched by an estimated 1.5 to 2 billion people. Live Aid was primarily the vision of Bob Geldof. Its effectiveness was questioned, and progress in Africa remains elusive and uneven, but it remains a milestone event and monument to one person's attempt to make a difference.
Nostalgia-filled popular culture tends to smooth the edges of an era that could be both challenging and exciting.
Comparisons over time are useful to show advances in some areas and digression in others - as long as people who didn't live through it at the time get the real picture, rather than one just filtered through selected TV, films and music.
