Dire Straits: Money for Nothing
Men At Work: Who Can It Be Now, Land Down Under.
Great songs.
Geez, where to start?
“Don’t Forget Me When I’m Gone” - Glass Tiger
“I Just Died (In Your Arms)” - Cutting Crew
“You Take Me Up” - Thompson Twins
Anything by Sigue Sigue Sputnik
“And We Danced” - The Hooters
“Kyrie Elesion(sp?)” - Mr. Mister
“Don’t Go Back To Rockville” and “So. Central Rain” - REM
“Girlfriend in a Coma” and “Unhappy Birthday” - The Smiths
“Life in a Northern Town” - Dream Academy
“Blue Monday” - New Order
“Ana Ng” - They Might Be Giants
“The Circus” - Erasure
I could go on but I’ve been overcome with nostalgia.
Absolutely! I remember being the only person my age who liked this song when it came out. I’ve got the video recorded somewhere.
Bakersfield
Year of the Cat
VH-1 Classic has proven a nice source for some of the 80s stuff you don’t hear anymore. Of course, some of it you wouldn’t want to hear anymore, but you take the good with the bad.
Among the songs in this thread that I can recall seeing videos for on VH-1 Classic in the last couple months:
Dream Academy - “Life in a Northern Town”
Smiths - “Girlfriend in a Coma,” plus four other videos in a half-hour special.
TMBG - “Ana Ng”
Mr. Mister - “Kyrie”
REM - a few old videos in a half hour special, plus the video for “Pretty Persuasion” during normal programming
Dire Straits - “Money for Nothing” (also “Skateaway”)
Pogues - “Misty Morning Albert Bridge” I saw about a month ago, and I have downloaded captures of other Pogues videos that were played on VH1-C
Other stuff I’ve seen them play recently, not mentioned yet:
The Alarm - “Spirit of '76” (This one must not have been too big because I don’t remember it from 1987, though I love it now)
The Outfield - “No Surrender”
Elvis Costello - “Veronica”
Only bad thing is that they have four or five hour-long sets of videos that they play several times a day. This actually has an upside, though, because you can check the message boards at their official website where fans post the playlists for every show the first time they air in the morning. That way you can just skip through all the crap and only tune in for the videos you want to see. Surprisingly, the moderators at their message board are totally cool with this practice.
Sorry if this whole post came across sounding like a blatant plug for the channel, but I really do like it.
Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Oh, and on the off-chance that the OP happens to see this soon enough and have the channel, it looks like the video for this one is slated to play in about two hours, around 3:30AM CST.
[hijack] If you like commercial radio so much that you want 70 channels of it, go with XM. But if you like music, dig deep for the extra $3/month and get SIRIUS. No commercials, no censorship, and it’s not 13% owned by Clear Channel. 
[/hijack]
“Purple Rain” by Prince
“Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinead O’Connor
“Father Figure” by George Michael
“Man Eater” by Hall & Oates
“Goodbye to You” by Scandal
“Toy Soldier” by Martika
“Voices Carry” by til tuesday
Well heck, if we’re gonna list more forgotten songs, then add “Homicide” by 999 and “Homo Sapien” by Peter Shelly and “Had A Dream” by Roger Hodgson, and dozens (hundreds) of other non-dance new-wave/post-punk songs (including songs like “A Celebration” by U2 - it didn’t get much play even in it’s heyday).
Hell, you hear more Ultravox and Escape Club and Human League than the non-dance stuff I mentioned nowadays…
Any Joy Division song apart from “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” I’m surprised the song “Transmission” has never been popular, I mean, “Dance, dance, dance, dance to the radio.” Come on!
“Perfect Strangers” by Deep Purple.
'Course, the song never really got that much airplay outside of the AOR market anyway, and AOR was fading fast into Adult Contemporary by then anyway.
God I miss AOR.
I like PunditLisa’s list, though I’ve heard Purple Rain, Noting Compares 2 U, and Father Figure in the last 6 months on some radio station. I’d also like to say that the satellite Muzak system I maintain at my work has some great channels for 80s!
But even Muzak seems to forget the Violent Femmes. I don’t think I’ve heard “Add It Up”, “Blister In The Sun”, or even “American Music” on radio or our Muzak system, only on my personal music collection. What is it about the Femmes that the public seems to forget about them shortly after their hits go away?
“Beat’s So Lonely” by Charlie Sexton
This list is just the ones off the top of my head - the stuff I enjoyed in the 80’s didn’t get a lot of airplay even then…
Ministry - Halloween
Dead Milkmen - anything but Bitchin Camaro
The Smiths - Cemetery Gates
Violent Femmes - Add It Up, Gone Daddy Gone
Yaz - Bring Your Love Down
Siouxsie & the Banshees - Wheel on Fire, Lost Little Girl
The Housemartins - Sitting on a Fence
OMD - Electricity
Any Dead Can Dance
Talking Heads - Psycho Killer
Adam Ant - Prince Charming, Kings of the Wild Frontier
Bow Wow Wow - What’s The Time
Duran Duran - Planet Earth
Noel - Silen Mourning
Company B - Fascinated
Personally, if I never hear another song by Styx, Loverboy, etc I would be thrilled…
Talking Heads: And She Was
Genesis: Abacab
Phil Collins: I Don’t Care Anymore
Anything by the Housemartins
Anything by OMD
Suzanne Vega’s first album
Brit dopers: this American remembers a group called The Lilac Time. I liked them but they remained unknown in the States. Were they popular on your side?
And that’s just wrong. “The Light is Always Green”, “Caravan of Love” and “Me and the Farmer” are favorites of mine. Fortunately I got to at least hear the lead singer when he toured with The Beautiful South.
Amen to that.
What’s needed is an 80’s Alternative nostalgia station.