Fun list. And I would just mention - the new New Order album is worth a listen. It’s on spotify.
Was not Peter Murphy’s “Cuts You Up” 1990? It was number one on Billboard’s Alternative Number 1 charts.
The single was released in 1990 but the album it’s on (“Deep”) was released in December 1989. The author calls it out as the last eligible song of the 80s.
I was so keen to get to the end of the list to see how high Oingo Boingo rated. Harumph.
Joy Division is on the playlist of the local supermarket. Replacements too. That will make one feel old.
It’s a weird list. Muskrat Love is also on the list and a bunch of other crappy '70s songs. Then Fatboy Slim or New Order will pop up.
Fun list although I’d define myself as a fan of 80s alternative rock but not as an obsessive one so it was plenty and a bit samey after a while. A top 30 would have been fine as far as I’m concerned. Still, it brings back fun memories - I discovered most of these bands in the early 90s.
I’m glad to see Joy Division at the top spot. Great call on the Siouxie and the Banshees entry, too.
I had completely forgotten about The Mercy Seat. Great song. I first heard it around 1991, listening to the only radio that played this sort of music at the time in Belgium (and it was only for one hour a day). I was taking a bath and was completely mesmerized by this seemingly endless, manic crescendo. Same thing, to a lesser extent, with House of Love and The Church.
And as has been said before, I’d have chosen different songs for several artists:
The Sisters of Mercy - Marian, Alice, Some Kind of Stranger or Burn.
Suzanne Vega - Marlene on the Wall.
Faith no More - Epic.
The Sugarcubes - Hit.
Depeche Mode - Shake the Disease, Never Let me down or Behind the Wheel.
The Cure - The Drowning Man.
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle.
I hear stuff like that pop up in odd places, too. I heard Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds in Zaxby’s a few months ago.
Interesting how much of this music I still have on my shuffle, and prior to reading this list, I would have said I didn’t like '80s music all that much.
This probably is going to sound either ignorant or arrogant but here goes…
I listened to nothing but alternative all through the 80s, (KROQ for several years of it) and I haven’t even hard OF a good chunk of those songs. It seems to me that this is yet another list of trying to “out hip” others by naming the most obscure cuts. A lot of these aren’t even the best songs by the band.
Given that, I find it interesting they don’t take their Ministry cut from “With Sympathy”. I know the band supposedly hated that album, and felt they were being forced into doing music they didn’t want, but that album has (for me) one of the cuts that defines the 80s - Work For Love. I guess the author is showing sympathy, as it were.
He didn’t pick Cities In Dust for Siouxsie? Not Strangelove for Dep Mode? Heretic!
To be fair, I agree with Bad (Live) for U2 over New Years Day, Veronica for Elvis’ song (and it should be way higher), and the top 5 are probably my choices from those bands. But, I wouldn’t put Joy Division anywhere near that high.
Interesting omissions. I’m glad there was no Madness, but they probably could have replaced some of the more obscure bands. But where was (unless I missed them?) ABC, Oingo Boingo, The Fixx, Gene Loves Jezebal, General Public, The Motels, Spandau Ballet. I always filed Duran Duran under New Wave, even if I hated them at the time. 
And yet, he puts Black Flag in there. That’s very generous definition of “Alternative”. They’re pure punk.
Are Pet Shop Boys too pop? What about the Cars, fer cripes sake. Now they are mainstream, but when they were new they were totally new wave man (totally different head. Totally.)
If his definition for Alternative is “out of the mainstream”, then David Bowie doesn’t belong (I think he does, so it’s the definition that I disagree with).
Thank you. I’m glad to see her ranked so high!
Love and Rockets - “So Alive” (1989)
They do acknowledge in the article that this was #3 pop single, at least. My first exposure to this was on Top 40, and while I enjoy alternative music, I spent every Sunday from around 1987-1997 listening to Casey’s Top 40 Countdown (for much of this time period the Countdown was my only top 40 listening). I associate this with the hit pop-rock of that era, since it was played with all these other huge hit songs.
NOW, I still hear this song on the radio a lot, but it’s always on alternative rock stations. So I might hear it back to back with The English Beat or some of these other songs that neighbor it on this list.
Also, REM always seemed pretty mainstream to me, since they were in heavy MTV rotation from the mid-80s (I guess maybe pre- mid80s they were more obscure? but they were certainly mainstream WAY before “losing my religion”) and stuff like “Stand” was on Top 40 radio before their later greater commercial break through.
Midnight Oil was huge on MTV. Everyone with TV in 1987 probably saw the video. it was like seeing/hearing “Bad” by Michael Jackson or “Sweet Child of Mine” by GNR or something.
A lot of the songs are like deep cuts from popular bands with bigger hits, or just earlier pre-breakthrough stuff. I do hear a lot of these songs today- more of the “1 hit” wonders than the deep cuts, though.
Yeah, many of those artists have now slipped into more mainstream pop consciousness, that’s for certain. But I still think that for the vast majority of people, Joy Division are not exactly household names. Or I just keep running into people who don’t know them, but are familiar with New Order.
Yeah, but so were the Cure, and they also are what I and my peers called “alternative music” at the time, and what would be played on alternative radio. REM was pretty much the quintessential alternative band that people would have heard of. Have a looksie at the Billboard alternative chart for 1989, for instance.
Seems to me to be the obvious pick. I was assuming it would be #1 before I started reading.
Can’t argue with that. At least here in the U.S.
You know, if you’re going to have Love Will Tear Us Apart on a playlist that also has a Captain & Tennille song, shouldn’t that song have been Love Will Keep Us Together? Big miss by whoever picked the songs.
Me, too but since it was not in the Spotify playlist, I forgot to mention that Running Up That Hill, fantastic as it is, wouldn’t be my first choice among her 80s songs. I’d probably pick the wonderfully quirky Sat in your Lap.
The Sensual World, This Woman’s Work and Cloudbusting are three other songs that move me a lot in her output from that decade (especially the video for the latter).
That list, while being pretty comprehensive, is also pretty particular to that guy. There’s a lot of shit I wouldn’t have put on, and a lot of stuff that they ranked way too low (Lloyd Cole is at 91? WTF?) but props for trying.
To have fun with some bandwagoning of better cut selections:
Concrete Blonde: I’ve always felt God is a Bullet to be one of their weaker songs, teenage pee-chee scribble angst. I’d pick Still in Hollywood or Happy Birthday as a prime 80s cut.
Berlin: Sex is a silly gimmick song that doesn’t show off musicianship or vocals. Go with No More Words, Metro or Masquerade
Sisters of Mercy: Drop This Corrosion in favor of Marian, Temple of Love, or Lucretia
Love and Rockets: So Alive was a later breakthrough chart hit, but they were already solidly established with No New Tale to Tell, Kundalini Express.
David Bowie: Only artist I’d quibble about being “alternative”. He was solidly mainstream IMO, he’d been on Dinah Shore and Johnny Carson and was a household name.