No joke. Every dingleberry clucks with their thick tongues that the 80s was the Me Decade. Apparently, nobody remembers the 70s.
“Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” popped into my head immediately, but I have to yield to “Don’t You Forget About Me.” For what it’s worth, I was 12 when it came out and didn’t see The Breakfast Club till considerably later, but this song was literally the soundtrack for my first year of summer camp (it was used in the farewell slideshow). It definitely evokes the 80s, without summoning The Breakfast Club to mind, for me!
Agreed. I was thinking along with all the excellent suggestions here (OP notwithstanding - I never hear that before), Cyndi Lauper deserves a shout. What is more 80s than “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun?”
Sorry, they’re just too darned loud.
Even though your intent is to victimize me with that, I still enjoy the song. So there.
“Hip To Be Square” had a great video, too.
Nobody’s brought up Starship’s “We Built This City”? That’s the ultimate BAD 1980s song. 
I think it was mentioned in this thread, but, yeah…that’s another totally 80s and only in the 80s song. (Actually, it was only brought up in passing in post #21.)
There is probably a very UK/US divide here. I spent the first part of the decade in Britain and the second in the US. On the UK side, there are some very definitive sounds for me…
Toyah Wilcox (can’t remember her songs, but she looked like she was from the future!)
Adam Ant - “Prince Charming”
ABC - “Poison Arrow”
Human League - “Don’t You Want Me”
Duran Duran - “Rio” (yep)
Spandau Ballet - “Chant No. 1”
Culture Club - “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”
a-ha - “Take On Me”
Tears For Fears - “Change”
Depeche Mode - “Just Can’t Get Enough”
New Order - “Blue Monday”
Eurythmics - “Sweet Dreams”
Yaz/Alison Moyet - “Situation”
Def Leppard - “Photograph”
Any bloody Stock/Aiken/Waterman concoction
In America, it goes like (not these aren’t all US bands)
Men at Work - “Down Under”
Ray Parker Jr. - “Ghostbusters”
Huey Lewis & The News - “I Want a New Drug”
Poison - “Unskinny Bop” (God I hate this song)
Whitesnake - “Here I Go Again”
Madonna - “Like a Virgin”
USA For Africa - “We Are The World”
Mr. Mister - “Kyrie”
Berlin - “Take My Breath Away”
Missing Persons - “Words”
Afrika Bambataa - “Planet Rock”
I love The Stranglers’ “Golden Brown,” but it’s a fairly odd record and not, in my opinion, representative of any trend of 80s music (except perhaps drug use - the song is about heroin, right?). Harpsichord, waltz time… but it is a cracking song.
Looking back at my list I see it is very light in the R&B and hip hop category. Truth is, both Prince and Michael Jackson, IMO, sort of transcend the decade. Their music doesn’t sound 80s to me, though Prince’s love affair with the Linn drum probably makes that something of a mistruth. Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling” probably fits.
Actually, now I think about it - the most 80s song ever is Patti LaBelle’s “New Attitude”, followed by Eddie Murphy’s “Party All The Time.”
Late 80s definitely needs more hair metal (possibly the worst, most vapid period of popular music). White Lion? Skid Row? Cinderella? Winger? These were all popular bands, once. [shudder]
That would probably be it for me. Nothing jumps me back to the 1980s like that song when I hear it.
It’s like you’re reading my mind dude.
You don’t get to legitimately Rickroll a thread every day. 
another nomination: Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax.”
Or even better yet, “Two Tribes”, especially that video with actors portraying Reagan and Chernenko sparring in a cockfighting pit.
“Girls just wanna have fun”
The extended version is better, complete with narration from the same bloke who did the UK government “protect and survive” information film.
I think this is all pretty personal and, being a pre-teen and teenager throughout the eighties in the UK, I think of which songs capture the spirit of the age for me and why? I was a huge Jam and Clash fan but eighties they are not.
The FGTH example above is a classic and is in tune with the cold-war paranoia bringing back memories of “Threads” and “when the wind blows”
And who can think of the eighties without that greatest of dance tracks. Blue Monday conjurs memories of underage drinking and snogging Deborah Hocking and heralding the coming of the embryonic dance scene.
The 80’s to us as young teenagers was glittery and shiny. Conspicuous consumption in Thatcher’s britain. You can be rich too and drive a deathtrap 911 if you want. Two bands captured that feeling very neatly. The Human League and Heaven 17. I don’t know how well they were received in the states but these guys were serious pioneers of the electronica movement.
“don’t you want me baby?” has already been mentioned of course but you can pretty much consider all of “Dare” brilliant from start to finish. (standout for me is “the things that dreams are made of”)
Even more thematically relevant to the decade is Heaven 17’s “Penthouse and Pavement” Yuppie scum satire that Brett Easton Ellis would be proud of. (my pick. “we’re going to live for a very long time”)
Hmm. Well, you’re halfway there.
(Whoa-oah, livin’ on a prayer! Take my hand and we’ll make it, I swear!)
“Out of Mind, Out of Sight” by the Models (1985) is as eighties as it gets.
Just about anything off of Journey’s Escape album would do too.
What’s interesting is that arguably the biggest band of the 80’s doesn’t have a song mentioned here: U2. They had one of the iconic moments in Live Aid and one of the all-time albums (Joshua Tree).
I mentioned that the thread was light on many of the most iconic bands of the decade - I think this is because their music and iconography transcend the decade. U2’s music, for the most part, does not sound of 80s production values (shitty synths, cheesy sax solos, etc.). I think a band could release an Unforgettable Fire or Joshua Tree today to wide acclaim, that’s how good (and timeless!) those albums were.
Bono’s mullet, however, was something that had to die in that decade. Only rivaled by those from the guys in INXS.
I suspect we’re the same age, more or less. I was scared shitless after Threads aired. Still remember that bit when the woman wees herself when the mushroom cloud appears. Miner’s strike, Billy Bragg and Red Wedge, Max Headroom, Spitting Image, The Young Ones… and public information films. That’s Britain in the 1980s. 
I completely agree. U2 and REM are two of my favorite bands. I started listening to both of them around the same time when I was about 14 in 1983. Like you said, those albums are timeless because they don’t display many of the traits that define a lot of popular music from the 80s. I just think of it as music not “80s music.”
Never heard that song, but gotta agree. Absolutely stuck in the 80s.