Perry was so impressed that he even helped create the remix
Line of Events
In 1980s Indiana, a group of young friends witness supernatural forces and secret government activities. While searching for answers, the kids uncover a series of extraordinary mysteries. Steve Perry, former lead singer of Journey, said that the remix of Journey’s ’80s hit “Separate Ways” (Worlds Apart) from the fourth season of “Stranger Things” was pretty much done the way he originally wanted it to be done in the ’80s, but the technology was lacking. In several episodes, people “interrupt”; someone is talking on a two-way radio or CB—that is, one person is talking/talking, and another person is transmitting to interrupt them, and then the other person hears the interruption and stops transmitting.
Eleven: Friends Don’t Lie
This has been done several times with CB radios for kids and radios used by police. These radios—CBs and police radios from the show’s era—don’t work that way. If you’re broadcasting and someone else is broadcasting, you won’t hear it. The opening titles and fonts of Stranger Things mimic the grain and look of the opening credits of 1980s TV series.
ET, Poltergeist, that sort of thing
Featured on FoundFlix: Stranger Things (2016) Ending Explained + Season 2 Hints (2016). Stranger Things (Title Sequence and End Credits Theme) Written & Performed by Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein. Plot-wise, there’s no reason for Stranger Things to be set in the 1980s. But the ’80s vibe—the dial-up phones, the chain smoking, Winona Ryder—are there to clue you in to the inspiration for this movie, which is pretty much every ’80s supernatural movie centered around kids.
The wonderful thing is how dead this homage is
Not just the clothes and the hair, but the acting, the approach to the script, and the structure – all of it is true to its inspiration. There are little nerds, horny, insecure teenagers, a monster, a mysterious authority figure, evil science/government figures, a conflicted researcher, and a tearful mom. You could argue that the entire season is just a pastiche of recycled elements, and I wouldn’t disagree, but it really doesn’t feel like a copy at all, more like a throwback to the era, as if the writers had fallen into a coma in 1985, woken up, and gotten to work. While it doesn’t have the high style of the Spielberg films that are its greatest influences, it has its likeability.