Why is 80’s Music So Amazing?

Journey, Wham, Duran Duran, Hall & Oates got me through high school!

🎶 Trying to smile but the air is so heavy and dry 🎶

They weren't the brightest gals, were they? This always cracked me up.

Does anyone else listen to the First Wave station on Sirius? My family hates it but I love it.

Answering OPs question. At first, MTV was shut out from showing videos from the big studios. So, they had to go with less well known artists--giving the industry a much needed injection of creativity.

Also - there was a much wider variety of musical styles that were still considered mainstream pop; and artists who were well into their 30s were making music that teenagers liked - so there was a wider pool of talent who were considered relevant than we have today.

I still listen to this, and several other Echo and the Bunnymen songs.

R29, liked the bunnymen in the 80s but got into them only shortly before they broke up. About 3 years ago, I rediscovered them and actually texted my longtime friend and asked why we weren't bigger bunnymen fans? He replied that he did love them, but got sidetracked by the cure. The cure was my gateway band into new wave/alternative. But I haven't listened to them in many years. Whereas the bunnymen have held up. It's between the cutter and ocean rain for favorite bunnymen song.

Echo & The Bunnymen was my very first concert at the Felt Forum, in 1983 or 1984. And yeah, their sound has held up.

Joy Division is another one that still sounds good at times.

Joy Division again. No Love Lost

When it first started, MTV couldn't play videos from big US artists because the record labels weren't making videos for most of them.

To have videos to air, MTV had to depend on UK artists who had consistently been making videos. Those videos, most of which were much more creative than American top 40 at the time, became popular due to their heavy rotation on MTV and those songs then began getting more airplay on US radio stations, becoming even more popular.

It took a few years before the big US artists caught up and started making videos, but by then the UK artists had already developed a worldwide fanbase, The US artists also had to expand their musical creativity to compete.

I've always felt thus one of the best songs from the 1980s. Still holds up very well.

R12, still remember listening to their album on a walkman at the mall. And then being pissed I lost the cassette.

[...]

Two words: New Wave. Music we could all dance to.

I love T'Pau. China in Your Hand is a great song although it didn't chart in the U.S. sadly.

R3 I do! I usually cover weekend nights at inpatient psych facility. The nurses know that when I’m there I have my computer set to Saturday night dance party on the Sirius XM New Wave station. Even the younger nurses in their mid 20s know a lot of the songs.

Because people weren't copycats like they are nowadays. Today, they all copy each others and in the 80s everyone had their own style. Prince was unique, MJ was unique, Bowie was unique, Madonna was almost unique, George Michael was unique etc....Also, no social medias, no cellphone, no internet, no woke culture bullshit. People were happier.

This song came out in 1980 the year I was born, and it’s still fab song.

Music was great in the 80s because you had so much variety. You had actual ROCK music to listen to, in various forms ranging from heavy metal to more middle of the road and soft rock. Pop had a lot of variety, too, with all these great bands from the UK and even Europe adding to the mix. There was country-pop that produced a shit ton of hits. And, R&B and soul stuff. The start of rap. So much innovation going and as others have stated, much of it fueled because of the success of MTV and their constant need for new material to air.

Then the 90s came and that all started to quickly disappear. Grunge was the last gasp of actual rock music; it's really dead now. Pop got Disney-fied and everything became over produced and bland.

MTV made music fun but when MTV stopped caring about music and started relying on reality TV shit, it all quickly went downhill for everyone. The corporation TOTALLY took over music and now it really mostly sucks.

Ha the old good days.

A-HA - Take on me

Cyndie Lauper - Girls just to wanna have fun

Whitney Houston - I wanna dance with somebody

Desireless - Voyage Voyage

Madonna - Like a Virgin

Tina Turner - Private Dancer

Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams

Simple Minds - Don't You

The Cure - Close to me

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

Prince - Purple Rain

Toto - Africa

Wham! - Wake me up before you go go

Diana Rosse - Upside Down

Pink Floyd - The Wall

Stevie Wonder - Master Blaster

Police - Walking on the moon

Abba - Gimme, gimme, gimme

Kool and the Gang - She's fresh

And the 90s was really good too.

^ Diana Ross

Speaking of Split Enz R19 Tim Finn’s son, Harper, is a pretty good artist himself!

The list R21 compiled is amazing. What a decade. Not to mention all the great rap music that wasn’t touched on.

It wasn't just the UK. The US made a lot of great music, although wasn't always top of the charts.

I think the early/mid 1980's were the last time that music, art or fashion was truly committed to being "modern."

I believe the cultural turning point was 1989, with the 20th anniversary of Woodstock. Everything became all about oldies/nostalgia, looking backward (never forward), vintage influences. New Wave music wasn't trying to sound like some other decade. It didn't owe homage to anything that came before. Looking back (pardon the irony), it was really a shitty inflection point.

After a decade-plus of basically replaying and repacking oldies of one type or other, around 2000, the online-ization of everything disrupted the traditional financial model of the music industry, made it much less profitable (especially for the artists) to put out great records or even singles.

For some reason I just started listening to Lena Lovich again. I forgot how good ! Anyway, this one is not one of her bigger songs but one of my favorites.

R4 Did you know that MTV refused to air Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" video?

"Walter Yetnikoff, the president of Jackson's record company CBS Records, approached MTV about playing the "Billie Jean" video, which MTV had not ever played in spite of Jackson's success as a musical artist. Yetnikoff became enraged when MTV refused to play the video, and he threatened to go public with MTV's stance on racial discrimination. "I said to MTV, 'I'm pulling everything we have off the air, all our product. I'm not going to give you any more videos. And I'm going to go public and fucking tell them about the fact you don't want to play music by a black guy.'"[2] MTV relented and played the "Billie Jean" video in heavy rotation.[2] After the video was aired, Thriller went on to sell an additional 10 million copies.[44] The short film was inducted into the Music Video Producers Hall of Fame in 1992.[34] In a 2005 poll of 31 pop stars, video directors, agents, and journalists conducted by telecommunications company 3, the music video was ranked fifth in their "Top 20 Music Videos Ever".[45] The video was also ranked as the 35th greatest music video in a list compiled by MTV and TV Guide at the millennium.[46] "

Anyone remember this one from FR David?

Sade was an absolute 80s gorgeous icon. Her unique voice and style. Oh I miss the 80s so bad....

And Voyage Voyage by Desireless

Yessss R31

In the 80s, producers/djs were not the prime force that they are now. So the artist tended to be actually distinct versus nowadays. I think the main things that killed pop music were hip-hop, the dominance of djs/producers and Britney Spears.

Compare the top 10 sellers of the 80s versus last decade and you can see low we've gone.

1. Michael Jackson 2. Madonna 3. Phil Colllins 4. U2 5. Queen 6. Prince 7. AC/DC 8. Bruce Springsteen 9. Bon Jovi 10. George Michael and Wham!

Top 10 of the last decade:

1. Adele 2. ED FUCKING SHEERAN 3. Justin Bieber 4. Taylor Swift 5. Rihanna 6. Bruno Mars 7. Drake 8. One Direction 9. BTS 10. Eminem

R33 So true. All music today sounds the same. Compare this great song from Midnight Oil to its contemporaries? All are unique.

Another early 80s song.

R36, yup. Because it's all made by the same two or three producers. Compare the 10 of the 80s vs last decade--many of the 80s artists were experimental or creative. None of the top 10 of the 10s except for Rihanna and Eminem can really be called experimental and ambitious. Oh and I hate Max Martin, he is someoene else who ruined music.

Nik Kershaw-loved this guy

Yes, this song is pure fromage but it triggered in me the revelation that I was a total fag. I sweated the fuck out of this guy.

We're supposed to pretend that gender bending wasn't a thing until the past few years, yet there are examples to the contrary. This wasn't a big hit, but not unknown either.

Who remember this?

Still dope.

I first heard the term "gender bending" in early 1984, in reference to Boy George and Annie Lennox. It was used at the Grammys or some such; I remember hearing it a lot in the press.

Eurythmics, Love is a Stranger. Sometimes that really is a truism.

How about this from Jimmy Somerville? Great one for the dancefloor

Cela fait 40 ans déjà"- Musique de l'Été 1981 / 40 years ago

Jefferson Starship - Find Your Way Back

38 Special - Hold On Loosely

Alain Bashung- "Vertige de l'amour"

INXS-Just Keep Walking

Radio audio from Summer 1981-

KSFX San Francisco 7/27/81

And that one? Jeez, they really knew how to take our hearts at that time.

Love Is A Stranger. Just reading the title of the song gives me goosebumps. Such a great tune.

When your heart is weak...

aha always sounded like they were recording in a vast, empty church.

I'd nearly forgotten about INXS. Their early songs are still really good in a pop, but weird way.

This was probably their most popular song of that era, and still love it.

R47 the beat in this Paul Young song gets me

I'll be forever in love with this song.

Such a shame the singer is dead.

The Cure

Boys don't cry. Classic

Mike Oldfield's " Foreign Affair"

I was always into more of the dance/"alternative" (it wasn't called any of that at the time, btw) side of music when I went out and about.

So there's this.

It is good to see obscure music, but a lot of these posted are not memorable music of the 80s. These threads always end up as a platform for the forgotten but not gone tunes. But it does expand our horizons (or memory).

R57 Depends where you lived then. Alot here was big in the European charts and might have made a brief appearance on the US charts.

R57 Totally wrong. There are videos on this thread that were some great hits from the 80s. AH-A? The Cure? Paul Young? Eurythmics? How does it obscure? They were all big 80s stars

However, this song ranks high in my list of unrequited love / I really don't even know how to love myself / I don't know what the fuck is going on anymore, and I just want to sit here be depressed for a little while, maybe a long while. This is on that playlist.

U2 - All I Want is You.

"In the 80s everyone had their own style.?"

Really? It seems to be that 80s music sounded all the same; very slick, very commercial, like the decade itself.

Right--it is SO hard for me to tell Madonna, U2, Janet Jackson, Guns N' Roses, Metallica and Michael Jackson apart.

T’Pau DID NOT make ‘80s music great.

F&F Boris the Anti-Woke Right Winger who has to troll and spread his toxic propaganda in every thread.

That’s Boris @ r17.

What a piece of shit. Everything is wokesters’ fault, not worthless psychopaths like him and Donald Trump.

R65 take your meds and oh yeah, fuck off. Nothing in my post about Trump, you fucktard.

"Right--it is SO hard for me to tell Madonna, U2, Janet Jackson, Guns N' Roses, Metallica and Michael Jackson apart."

Oh, you can tell them apart, smartass. But they all had that slick commercial sound. Very repetitive, very soulless. Pure 80s.

R67 has zero taste. Probably loves crappy rap music.

Guns N' Roses, Metallica and U2 music did not sound slick. Frankly, neither did most of Madonna's 80s songs or MJ's Thriller. Yes, they all made commercial music but it wasn't overly produced. If you want overproduced, slick and commercial, listen to albums from the 00s.

R14 is the Trump troll

This was just so different!

Still holds up . Wall of Voodoo. Mexican Radio

R27 I love LL...New Toy got me into New Wave

A real genius. David Byrne of Talking Heads.

R3 - you need to add First Wave Deep Cuts - it's all the songs that were around and you know but have been forgotten on the dust heap. There's only so many times you can listen to Bizarre Love Triangle and I Melt with You without fucking losing your god damn mind.

It's a newer Sirius channel and cuts through so much of the repetitive new wave stuff.

R75 where is the deep cuts channel on Sirius? I listen at home thru the app and can’t find it.

As is the case with the song you chose for your opening post, much of 80’s music is both buoyant and tinged with saudade and a bittersweet weariness. A lot of 80s music reminds me of dusk during the summer, when the sun’s arc across the sky is still delayed, making evening seem like late-afternoon, and the atmosphere is electric and infused with palpably urgent possibility.

The music of the 80’s all the way up to the mid-90s, at which point mainstream music started becoming timeless and placeless, dates itself. It fills me with nostalgia.

[QUOTE] As is the case with the song you chose for your opening post, much of 80’s music is both buoyant and tinged with saudade and a bittersweet weariness. A lot of 80s music reminds me of dusk during the summer, when the sun’s arc across the sky is still delayed, making evening seem like late-afternoon, and the atmosphere is electric and infused with palpably urgent possibility.

This wordsmith motherfucker. That might be the best description of 80’s music I ever read in my life. I was actually driving home from work at dusk when I heard the song, but the only possibilities were what kind of starchy carb I’d make for dinner.

R76 - it's in the Xtra channels. They also have a First Wave workout channel - so only the uptempo new wave hits to workout to. I enjoy that one too.

It may be easier to find on your phone.

R64 So you came here to ruin the thread but you dare to call others Boris????

See, that's why the Wokes are psychopaths. You can't handle people who disagree with your bullshit propaganda. The result is that you're pathetic and ridiculous. A fucking stalker who urgently needs to be locked up in a mental asylum. Your Wokeism nobody wants it. We are not all born having been cradled too close to the wall like you. Go fuck yourself you the dirty sub human shit.

Oh and just like that i am NOT a right winger but i am NOT a far leftie communist like you either. Imbecile.

For me, this epitomises being a teenager in the early 80s in the UK. The country was going to the dogs but music sounded like some bizarre techno utopia shot through with melancholic romanticism, See also: Soft Cell, Yazoo (Yaz), OMD, Visage, The Buggles etc.

Device - Hanging On a Heart Attack

Not a huge hit but still one of my favorite 80s songs. Holly Knight never became huge as a performer but wrote or co-wrote songs like Love Is a Battlefield and Better Be Good to Me.

Thanks R79, I found it!

Bronski Beat “small town boy” video was about a gay kid being abused and had to leave, it really was a socially conscious video and excellent dance song. The music was better because it wasn’t programmed though a computer and some idiot in a giant mouse head standing there “playing” it. Early MTV was the shit. We lived for the new music videos premiering, the artists “popping” by, guest VJs (JOHN TAYLOR!!!) and the way they would one up each other in their videos. It introduced America to New Wave, BritPop, European and Australian bands. They had room for Journey and Soandau Ballet. One of the my best holiday songs was filmed in the MTV studios from Billy Squier. When MTV began to put stupid tv shows on, it started to ruin the way we heard new music then tunes completely KILLED the music industry. I miss vinyl and record stores. FUCK the social media bullshit music industry where you upload yourself on you tube and you’re a “star” .

Another that wasn't big in US. It might get more play now than it did on it's original release. No idea why, it's a great poppy sound.

MTV started with a lot of New Wave (postpunk) as well as whatever basic rock was current in 1981-92. The New Wave won out. Then in early-mid '83 they started playing Michael Jackson, and this set them on a road to top-40-ism—but in the next year or two bands like Tears for Fears and Depeche Mode still predominated. By the late 80s, however, they seem to have ditched the original VJs and the original format and turned increasingly to shows hosted by irritating characters. Finally in the 90s the only videos they played were truncated and vandalized with a stream of inane viewers' comments, and the channel basically was all reality shows.

That's how I remember it, anyway.

[quote] Why is 80’s Music So Amazing?

For me it can be explained with one word: Siouxsie

Siouxsie really is stunningly beautiful in her own way. While also being terrifying.

Bananarama is still kicking as a duo and their last album, In Stereo, is great. They’ve gone through many phases and sounds. If you like Cruel Summer check out their first album, Deep Sea Skiving. Later album Pop Life has amazing hooks and more adventurous production.

Gen X came of age during the 1980s and we embraced new, simpler forms of mostly danceable music (punk, synth-pop, hip-hop, new wave, goth, etc) than in the 1970s.

As someone noted above, one of the great things about the 1980s was many people genre-hopped. You might be listening to pop, dance, rock, metal, and every variation of each. I loved British/European synth-based dance and club but The Sisters of Mercy's 1987 album Floodland was practically always on my playlist.

I was born in 1962, and some lists claim I am a boomer. But my friends and I all disliked the Rolling Stones, Zepplin and all of that Boomer music. I never listened to that stuff unless forced to. The 1980s music and fashions (such as they were) represented a new direction in Music. Culture really defines Gen X more than maybe baby statistics. (If that is what these “generations” are based on)

80s music was pretty dreadful.

Ace of Base’s cover of Crurl Summer is superior and is still used over Banarama’s in most venues.

Said no one ever.

"I was born in 1962, and some lists claim I am a boomer. But my friends and I all disliked the Rolling Stones, Zepplin and all of that Boomer music."

Sounds like you and your friends wouldn't know good music if it bit you on your asses.

[quote] Those videos, most of which were much more creative than American top 40 at the time, became popular due to their heavy rotation on MTV

I credit MTV for helping create the best period of commercial music (1983-1987). Towards the end of the decade, you saw a shift toward more American and R&B artists which was still good, just not as great as when new wave was popular. The post punk period started in the late 70s with amazing records being produced by Bowie, Talking Heads, Blondie, Kraftwerk etc but American radio was still the pits with disco, country rock, and soft rock still very much in heavy rotation.

Pop music has really gone downhill. Even 2008 seems glorious compared to what we have now.

If you call drugged out old men preening and prancing while playing and singing out of tune (the Stones) “good music”, all I have to say is give me my Depeche Mode, Cure, or Erasure any day of the week.

Obviously R99 has never heard ANYTHING by the Rolling Stones, who have created some of the greatest rock music in history. And he can take his Depeche Mode, Cure and Erasure and stick 'em where the sun don't shine.

R100 The reason we like 80s music isn't because other kinds of music was bad, it was because the music we absolutely loved was at its commercial peak. It was part of the culture. MTV also helped popularize the music and the fashion, which introduced a lot of straight people to alternative lifestyles. There was also a lot to love if you were a fan of 60s music. 80s brought everything back to the essentials after nearly a decade of experimentation. Lots of 80s artists paid homage to the 60s as well. It was just a happy time to be alive.

Also...in the 80s, as many DLers can attest, Andy Warhol had his own show on MTV, "Fifteen Minutes" with Andy Warhol, who (I believe) also guest-hosted "The Cutting Edge." It was just so cool. Music was art. Art was music. It was exhilarating and not yet totally cynical.

One more thing: the film that (to me) captures the spirit of the 80s more than any other is (...NOT "Wall Street," as some might suggest, and not even the John Hughes films, either), but Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild" starring Melanie Griffith and Jeff Bridges.

(Jeff Daniels, not Bridges) / sorry

This was nowhere near mainstream, but was played in certain clubs because it was so insane and fun. This was played well in mixed clubs believe it or not.

This wouldn't stand a chance today anywhere, but I do still listen to it from time to time.

Karen Finley - The Yam Jam

Bryan Adams - Run to You

The first ever vinyls I bought were Bryan Adams' Reckless, U2's The Unforgettable Fire and Madonna's Live to Tell maxi single. Run to You is still one of the absolutely coolest songs ever made.

Can't really identify with the lyrics but I love this song. My big sister gifted me Russ Ballard's cassette when she broke up with her asshole boyfriend who'd given it to her. Other classics from the album are Voices and The Last Time. This is probably the purest melodic 80s rock there is.

This was my number one break up song for the longest time.

A lot of 80s music was complete shit, but a lot was great. Partly because the concept of songwriting as a craft still existed, because music was played on instruments (although there was a lot of great synth) and also because there were different genres and different scenes.

Mostly forgotten these days, but even after all these years, Bono still has never sounded better.

Clannad - In A Lifetime

R100. The Rolling Stones only ripped off the Blues (African Americans) and did it badly. Depeche Mode for instance, founded a new genre.

R111, you really don't know anything about the Rolling Stones.

And there was music like this:

80's Music is amazingly BAD

A true classic of the jandra.

80s music had an atmosphere to it that today's music lacks.

Every artist tried to have their own sound with a few exceptions (Regina sounding like Madonna etc.).

Today's music artists try to find a new way to say "I love you" or "I hate you" but artists that have come before have done it much better...

Let me guess, OP. You grew up in the '80s.

R117, if OP had grown up in the '80s then he'd know that a lot of '80s music was utter tripe.

R118 is Mariah Carey.

80s music was more subversive, targeting non-mainstream demographics (goths, for example). You didn't get the feel of "tokenism" in the charts where pop songs were next to soul/funk music, and punk/goth/New Wave tracks, and even foreign Euro and synthesizer pop.

I mean, nowadays, what's the most "out there" or subversive music in the charts, Billie Eilish?

MTV was great for a few years in the early and mid 1980s, but then it went through a period in the late '80s when it was dominated by hair metal bands like Motley Crue, Poison, White Lion, Cinderella, Ratt, Warrant, Winger, Skid Row, etc. MTV gave all those artists far more airplay than they deserved.

R42, yep still dope after all these years. '4' was our album....just loved 'Urgent' so so much, especially when doing housework. Great memories, Cheers

Also, OP, to add to the Eldergay pileup in answering your question:

1980-1985 saw, in particular, a real expertise developing along side developing synth technology. New sounds were actually being created.

Of course it got eclipsed by other genres after 1985 (romantic cheesy Casio ballads, rap, and heavy metal), so that musicianship kind of drifted underground once synth pop was deemed too gay or weak. Even Rick Astley, Richard Marx, and other late 80s pop acts were cutting corners and not reinventing any sounds at all.

Rick Astley is a good example of how completely shit a lot of 80s music was.

R124 Even the shit was fun to listen to. Can you say that about today's music?

Beautiful South and "Song for whoever".

Every era and genre of music (and anything else) has shit in abundance. The 80s had a lot more great music than average, certainly than today. To those above who prefer The Stones, Led Z, etc - that’s fine, like what you like; but there are many of us who did and do prefer 80s bands because they sounded/felt/looked different than the popular music of the previous 15 years.

Most young people tend to prefer what is current anyway, no matter what era you pick; musically the 80s just happened to be a really fun era to be young. OP and other currently youthful 80s fans are a statistical, if tasteful, anomaly. I’m sure you could find other currently youthful youths that love to stream The Stones. Whatever.

There was nothing fun about listening to Rick Astley, r125.

Id rather listen to Risk Astley than Sam Smith. And they both suck.

Yeah, they both suck and Sam Smith is particularly obnoxious but the only reason Astley seems preferable is because he isn't actually around at the moment. Don't underestimate the torture of having "Never gonna give you up / Never gonna let you down / Never gonna run around and desert you" blasting through the speakers everywhere you turn.

R130 In the US, Rick Astley was a two hit wonder so it was very easy to avoid if you wanted to. Bananarama, Dead or Alive, and Donna Summer had a lot of great songs in the late 80s but it was mostly played in the clubs.

Nostalgia makes 80s music great. People aren't nostalgic for times when they felt jaded or disillusioned about pop culture. People crave to capture that time when they were still innocent and had a sense of wonder about things. I recently had this with the vintage Masters of the Universe toy line from the 80s only to get super depressed when I discovered how many times Mattel rebooted the toy line for modern consumers.

[quote]It seems to be that 80s music sounded all the same; very slick, very commercial, like the decade itself.

This is the truly true truth. I called the entire bunch of them "Madonna Collins" and walked away from popular music.

R133 Pop music from every decade sounds similar to eachother to some extent. 80s charts had lots of variety compared to previous or subsequent decades. In the 80s you had lots of hit songs with synth or sax in them.

[quote]In the 80s you had lots of hit songs with synth

More truly true truth. HATED the synth sound then. HATE the synth sound now. But it always makes me think "1980s."

R135 I love it. The Weeknd brought back the synth and the sax back on his last album and it was so refreshing to hear it again in modern music.

Some of us are from the UK r131, and we had that Stock, Aitken and Waterman shit rammed down our throats.

The first minute of this song just gives me waves of nostalgia. It's just so 80s.

I guess it shows just how overwhelming that 80s style was that one of the co-writers of Hotel California ended up releasing that, r138.

For a short time in the 1980s, there seemed to be a style of music by the likes of Johnny Hates Jazz, Curiosity Killed The Cat and others who tried to combine pop, easy listening, jazz and synth-based music. It didn't always work - how many people are even aware of either previously mentioned group - but at least it was something different.

R140 Love it. Pop stars were getting into it as well.

Some more of that style.

I actually love the SAW high energy music from the 80's. It was so frivous and silly yet insanely catchy and fun, there is something very naive and hopeful about it. Of course it has to be in smaller doses alongside all other types music from various genres, but it has its place. Its just that anyone who is even slightly cynical or takes themselves too seriously automatically rejects it for the precise reasons others enjoy it

R142, that song was always awful but it was even worse when The Black Eyed Peas covered it--ESPECIALLY when they sang it at The Super Bowl.

[quote] much of 80’s music is both buoyant and tinged with saudade and a bittersweet weariness.

The sax influence definitely contributed to this feeling. Perfect for a rainy night.

The only song worth listening to in Dirty Dancing:

[quote] For a short time in the 1980s, there seemed to be a style of music by the likes of Johnny Hates Jazz, Curiosity Killed The Cat and others who tried to combine pop, easy listening, jazz and synth-based music.

It's called sophisti-pop. You could add the Blow Monkeys, Swing Out Sister, Basia, and Wet Wet Wet to that list. I remember MTV really tried to push Curiosity Killed the Cat's "Misfit" and Wet Wet Wet's "Wishing I Was Lucky" on viewers by giving those videos a lot of play, but neither song charted in America.

.....

R147 I actually liked Curiosity Killed The Cat's Misfit, but then, I think i wsa one of the very few people in the US who the CD that track was on, not to mention the single.

There was a diversity in 80s music. Sometimes, in the US anyway, you had to go outside the radio to hear it.

Death of a Disco Dance, by the Smiths.

R149 I bought the album on cassette (no Discman yet, at that point)

R146 I prefer Cry to Me

Never heard the term sophista-pop, but love it. Here's one of my favorites of this style

The Kinks in the 80s. Love their earlier works, but this is one of my favorites.

It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) and Prince's 1999 describe the zeitgeist of the 80s. It was a time when people were determined to party, and make money, no matter what was going on.

Even songs like Nena's 99 Luftballoons had a happy upbeat sound.

Thanks for the sophista-pop recommendations. What a beautiful sound. I know what I'll be listening to tonight.

[quote] It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) and Prince's 1999 describe the zeitgeist of the 80s. It was a time when people were determined to party, and make money, no matter what was going on.

I think "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" was meant somewhat sarcastically. I don't think R.E.M.'s message was "let's party and make money." Quite the opposite, in fact.

Duran Duran's new single is interesting and a little creepy.

r158, I wasn't referring to the intention of the artists.

Is this cultural appropriation?

One of my absolute favorites. Released in 1987 and I've listened to it every year since, especially when the weather is gloomy and I'm in a certain mood.

Brother Beyond

Tracy Ullman

Hazell Dean "Wherever I Go"

Requiem by London Boys

Lime and Unexpected Lovers

Donna Summer This time I know

Air Supply