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It's the duty of every emerging decade to shun (and with no uncertain distaste) the one that immediately preceded it, whilst simultaneously indulging in a rose-tinted hankering for the one prior to that. This being the case, it's with a sigh of relief that we now emerge from the long-running 90s/70s love affair. And if that spells the end of ABBA tribute bands (that more than one such outfit ever existed will remain one of the 90s biggest mysteries), then the world can only be a better place for it. That said - and we hope you're sitting down for this one - the imminent glorification of the decade that gave us T'Pau and John Cougar Mellencamp is our next step forward. Tread carefully now.

Fact is, we live in a world where recycling has made the leap from Guardian-readers taking the weekly pilgrimage to the Bottle Banks to establishing itself as a pop-culture trait in its own right. Never slow to pick up on these things, Television has gleefully prostituted the twin evils of sound and vision in a similar pursuit - anyone who spent the best part of last Christmas in front of the telly (and that would be most of us) will readily confirm that barely a night passed without Kate Thornton enthusiastically pimping her adolescence for any passing camera crew, while we absorbed images of the Ashes To Ashes video (er, how crap?), whilst conveniently forgetting that The Cutting Crew ever existed.

And there's more to come. It being the 00's (pronounce that any way you like, but please don't expect us to say "The Noughties"), the 90s (the decade formerly known as the 70s) are, of course, no longer in favour. Not that this is stopping Channel 5 bringing us their "70s Weekend" this month, a 48-hour session that threatens us with appearances by Alvin Stardust, Dave Lee Travis and Toyah Wilcox, who only ever wanted to be free, but ended up marrying Robert Fripp. And presenting religious programmes.

Musically, it's easy enough to get dewy-eyed over You Should Be Dancing and Summer Nights, although a whole generation still smarts at the memory of blowing two weeks' pocket money on Saturday Night Fever and Grease double album soundtracks, only to find that they boasted perhaps three listenable tracks apiece at best. Similarly, the glorious cinematic legacy of the decade will also be exploited to the hilt, although for all the talk of Star Wars and ET, don't let's forget that this was the same period that gave us The Incredible Melting Man (special-effects eczema, basically) and (can we be honest about this one now?) the execrable and cliche-laden Towering Inferno.

But that's the beauty of these shows. Time is kind, memory is fallible and there was, in all fairness, a time when the "Wh-wh-wh-wh-why" bits in The Reflex sounded quite cool, and Tron represented the apex of hi-tech cinematic effects. That time was the 80s, and it's about to enter your life like the old, unwanted friend who brings up your embarrassing college past at parties. Right now, BBC2's I © 1980s is approaching 1984 and hey, not a mention of Billy Joel's We Didn't Start The Fire to be had. Which is only as it should be.

Fact is, it's easy to point at the 80s and say "That's shit, that is" (irrefutable evidence in two words: "Thatcher" and "AIDS"), but it also represents a time when you didn't have to do the taxman's job for him, where a mortgage was something your parents had, where a kid was what you were as opposed to what you were planning, and where your biggest challenge was to complete a Rubik's cube. A life with no responsibilities and no hassle then. Just the kind of womb we want to return to, obviously.

Taking us there (and covering all nostalgic bases, it seems) Channel 5 bring us the 80s Weekend. Doing the very right thing, they kick off with The Hit Factory, a throwback to the days when Stock Aitken and Waterman, the people behind Steps gave us, well, good stuff. OK, OK, so we suffered Sinitta, Jason, The London Boys and (we still wake screaming at night) Sonia, but for each Hazel Dean there was a Mel & Kim (Respectable), or a Princess (Say I'm Your Number One).

Taking a rather more fluid approach, Channel 4's rightly-revered Top Tens series returns this month too. Now anyone who caught last year's magnificently entertaining Stadium Rock Top Ten will know that it matters diddly squat how much you like or dislike the music on offer - this is the show that makes it all fun. And the season straddles all the decades you could ask for, with (we shudder) Progressive Rock reminding us that Earth-Father Peter Gabriel used to dress up as haemorrhoids onstage, while X-Rated, if nothing else, underlines the censorial nature of the 1980s, featuring as it does, Justify My Love and Relax. Is it just us, or does no one get banned these days?

Having accused Channel 5 of hedging their bets, it's only fair to point out that BBC1 is casting the net even wider, with the epic Soundtrack. Currently in production, this epic endeavour seeks to cover the whole history of the pop single, ranging in scope from Irving Berlin's Alexander's Ragtime Band (ask your grandparents) to Baby One More Time. it also makes the very valid point (and we apologise if there's a bit of post-pipping going on as you read this) that there's little new in the world of pop, merely a cyclic love affair with the past.

That particular love affair, of course, is as prone as any to premature ejaculation. And the embarrassing wet-patch on pop-culture's bedding belongs fairly and squarely to ITV2's I © 1990s. Of course it's important to know where the next Zeitgeisty "thing" is located, of course the entertainment industry pretty much depends on such information. To wallow in 15-month old Nostalgia, however, is to show an unforgivable lack of knowledge re Vintages. The truly scary thing about all these shows? It hardly takes a crystal ball to work out that today's ankle-biters will be watching 2015's retro clip-shows about how Kate Thornton used to be on the telly all the time and those Westlife chaps were actually quite good, weren't they? We'll stick with the 80s, if it's all the same with you, ta.