Oh, and my silly quibbling aside, the songs that screamed 80s for me, I have to break into the roughly 3 segments of 80s music.
Early 80s synthpop: After The FireDer Komissar, Men Without HatsSafety DanceKim WildeKids in America.
Early-mid 80s American Underground: R.E.M.Radio Free Europe, The ReplacementsBastards of Young, The PlimsoulsMillion Miles Away
Mid-late 80s hair metal: Motley CrueLooks That Kill, PoisonEvery Rose Has It’s Thorn (God, I want to barf just typing that), Guns n RosesSweet Child O Mine
Some great nominations. Many of my picks have already been mentioned, but there are a few others that spring to mind.
Whenever i think of the 80s, Foreigner is always there somewhere, probably Waiting for a Girl Like You, but maybe also I Want to Know What Love Is.
Early 80s makes me think of REO Speedwagon and Keep on Loving You.
Laura Branigan’s Gloria usually makes the list, as does Mickey by Toni Basil.
Cheap Trick’s classic If You Want My Love is one of my favorites.
One of my favorite songs of 1982 was Believe it or Not, the theme song for the Greatest American Hero TV show, performed by Joey Scarbury.
Growing up in Australia, i got to hear most of the American and British stuff that came out in the 80s, but was also exposed to some local Aussie stuff, some of which made made the international scene, and some of which didn’t.
It’s not really standard 80s one-hit-wonder type stuff, but the music of INXS will always be indelibly associated with the decade for me, especially the album The Swing, with hits like I Send a Message and Burn for You.
Australia even had its own power ballads, with the best-known probably being What About Me, by Moving Pictures, from 1982.
i think we need to throw simple minds out of this discussion. either it’s too obvious, or it’s a damned ringer. to have the quintessential song from the quintessential 0s movie just seems too…tidy of an answer.
now, my list gooooooes…(drumroll)
maneater (i DEFY you to get that out of your head)
she blinded me with science
take on me
honorable mentions to any michael jackson song. the songs, coupled with the videos, are iconic and such an anchor to those times past. i didn’t mention michael in the top three because i still love all that crap…even his new crap.
now, if you want to throw “party all the time” in there along with “somebody’s watching me”, then please, have at it.
…was “superfreak” in the 80s? i was born in '81.
…(hears the “you just made me feel very old” groan)
Reading this thread makes me want to put on my hot pink jelly shoes, bust out the shoulder pads and stirrup pants, put on some blue mascara and crimp my hair. And snort a big line of coke. Who’s with me?
Rock, schmock. Gimme some early east coast hip-hop, kid.
“The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang, followed somewhat closely by “My Adidas” by Run DMC for its seminal use of shoe product placement.
On the west coast side of things, “Bust a Move” by Young MC and NWA’s “Straight Out of Compton.”
Yeah, boyeeee. I’m going old school on my MP3 player tonight.
If you never caught beef with some fool trying to beat you up over your skinny tie, ruffled shirt, athletic shoes, jheri curl activator and leather jackets, you weren’t really into 80s hip hop.
Another essential quality: a sort of dreamy sound that’s hard to describe. That’s why I left off Haysi Fatayzee’s Shiny Shiny or anything by Devo; they’ve got the other qualities, but they’re a little bit too fun. Same thing with old-school rap; it’s too damn fun. Most Dire Straits song have a dreamy quality, but not much 80s-style fun. Rio by Duran Duran and Atomic by Blondie have it. Just Like Heaven by the Cure has extreme dreaminess at the beginning of the song; their song Love Cats has almost no dreaminess.
For me it’s a tie between “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears and Huey Lewis’ “Power of Love.” The latter benefits from the Back to the Future connection. The former I can’t really explain, except that it just sounds so thoroughly “eighties-ish” that hearing it is like undergoing a three-minute time warp back to 1984.
MTV started in 1981 and rolled out nationally in 1982 and hit real big when they started playing Michael Jackson non-stop in 1983. But about 90% of the songs they played in those early years were exactly those British new wavish bands that started making videos in numbers way before the Americans did. MTV was Britain in America for the early 80s.
And those songs were perfect for music videos; great bouncy hummable pop with hooks that clawed into your mind. It was the last great era of pop music, IMO.
To go with ones you already named, how about Joe Jackson “Stepping Out”; Roxy Music “Avalon”; Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”; Dire Straits “Money for Nothing”; Police “Every Breath You Take”; and Fleetwood Mac “Hold Me”. All British, all in heavy rotation on MTV, and all among the greatest songs ever.
I’d think for a song be definitively “80’s”, it would have be in a genre that didn’t make it out of the decade. Hence, the pop-synth and hair metal. R.E.M. and their spawn hung around well into the 90’s to become what ‘those in the know’ reviled as Complaint Rock.
My personal choices?
Axel F, for its link with one of the essential 80’s movies, Beverly Hills Cop. You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party Walk Like an Egyptian Dancing on the Ceiling and All Night Long, by Lionel Ritchie. Cum on Feel the Noiz Heat of the Moment, or anything else by Asia. Down Under, to go with the whole Australia craze.
The Cure
Echo and The Bunnymen
The Teardrop Explodes
The Smiths
Depeche Mode
The Cult
Sisters of Mercy
New Order
That’s what made the '80’s for me at least, as I wandered forlorn and unloved across a gray and desolate beach, surounded by a world incapable of understanding the depth and complexity of my feelings.
I agree, and fourth (fifth?) this nomination. I graduated high school in 1984, so I am indeed an expert on 80’s music.
Jim and I have also decided that 1984 was the best year for music ever. People like to make fun of 80’s music, but one thing they forget was that the eighties had everything going on - in my opinion, it was the last decade before music became specialized and compartmentalized instead of just being rock music of all kinds of different flavours.
