Favorite '80s song?

Corvina

Again, hard for me to decide mine, especially given how much great music came out of that decade. My favorite song ("Driven Like the Snow") is from the 80s, so I guess that's it.

What's yours?

[feel free to post video]

Tatterhood

the 80s and tom lehrer, truly the two best decades

Imipolex G

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many to choose from.

probably something by Rush, though. "Limelight" or "Subdivisions" perhaps.

Sredni Vashtar

—or—



—or—



—although there are may other candidates.

thenamelesssamurai

As people have said, way too many to choose from, though "The Golden Section" by Coil and "Peace Sells" by Megadeth are the two songs that immediately come into mind.

Obā-san

Imipolex G

mentions of an honorable kind:
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Iron Maiden - Revelations
New Order - Blue Monday
Sisters of Mercy - Lucretia, My Reflection
Megadeth - Black Friday
Simple Minds - Don't You Forget About Me
Van Halen - Jump
U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday
Kraftwerk - Computer Love
Judas Priest - Bloodstone
Killing Joke - Eighties
Slayer - Raining Blood

Corvina

I oughtta just make a list, one song per album. I'll post it later.

MetaFour

The very first thing that comes to mind is Daniel Amos: "The Pool".

MetaFour

Others: 

David Byrne: "Don't Want to Be a Part of Your World"

The Church: "Under the Milky Way"

Dirty Dozen Brass Band: "Voodoo"

The (English) Beat: "Rotating Head"

Herbie Hancock: "Saturday Night"

The Jam: "Funeral Pyre"

Joy Division: "Love Will Tear Us Apart"

New Order: "Blue Monday"

Pet Shop Boys: "Always on My Mind / In My House"

The Swirling Eddies: "Hold Back the Wind, Donna"

Talking Heads: "Once in a Lifetime"

UB40: "Reefer Madness"

Sredni Vashtar

Crap, not only did I not mention Coil, but what might be the perfect single passed me by entirely.

Which is funny, because it's on my profile activity page right now.

Salix Babylonika

LETTING THE DAYS GO BY

Corvina

Jane said:

LETTING THE DAYS GO BY

Dammit, now it's playing in my head

Odradek

Oh my god too many to name, I really like New Wave you guys

Salix Babylonika

That's because it's good.

Section42L

Just to name a few:

Bauhaus - Terror Couple Kill Colonel
Brian Wilson - Love and Mercy
The Buggles - Living in the Plastic Age
The Cure - Catch
The Dream Academy - Life in a Northern Town
The Dukes of Stratosphear - 25 O’Clock
The Flaming Lips - One Million Billionth of a Millisecond on a Sunday Morning
Guided By Voices - Hey, Hey Spaceman
New Order - Temptation
Nirvana - Blew
Pet Shop Boys - What Have I Done To Deserve This?
R.E.M. - We Walk
The Smiths - Sweet and Tender Hooligan
The Sisters of Mercy - This Corrosion
They Might Be Giants - Ana Ng

Sredni Vashtar

Odradek said:

Oh my god too many to name, I really like New Wave you guys

It was a great period for music.

The late '80s got a little dodgy on the pop charts but the really underground stuff was at least consistently interesting.

Salix Babylonika

are you trying to say that "Living In A Box" by Living In A Box, off their debut album Living In A Box, is not one of the best songs ever made.

Sredni Vashtar

They can't all be Living In A Box-level classics, Jane.

Imipolex G

oh yeah, I forgot Video Killed the Radio Star

Alduin

I think Walk Like An Egyptian is the song that plays in my head whenever I think about 1980s America. It's just so iconic to the timeframe and location that it's difficult to imagine anything else.

Hexartes

Take On Me is the apotheosis of 80s pop, I refuse to hear otherwise, and I'm indignant that it's taken 21 posts for it to have even been mentioned. For. Shame.

Princess Alice

Kexruct said:

Take On Me is the apotheosis of 80s pop, I refuse to hear otherwise, and I'm indignant that it's taken 21 posts for it to have even been mentioned. For. Shame.

Best music video, too.

Imipolex G

'tis a good song for sure

Sredni Vashtar

It's the apotheosis of '80s Pop as a concept, but there were other sublime songs in the '80s, both pop and otherwise. So many that it's easy to forget even amazing songs.

Hell, I even forgot this, and it's one of my all-time favourites:

Salix Babylonika

actually in all seriousness my favorite 80s band is almost certainly The Blue Nile who I have never seen anyone else even mention in that conversation.

Hats is an all time personal favorite.

Sredni Vashtar

I will look into them!

Also, seriously, listen to "Ceremony" and "100000 Fireflies", please. They are just so perfect.

Salix Babylonika

magnifique

Imipolex G

been listening to New Order's singles compilation in the car recently and they had a lot of good ones - "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "True Faith" are two that come to mind.

I also love "If You Leave" by OMD even though I am a cheeseball for this

Salix Babylonika

Orchestral Manouvres In The Dark also released one of my favorite 80s pop albums, Dazzle Ships.

Sredni Vashtar

OMD wrote multiple hit songs about Joan of Arc. That is wild.

New Order have, in general, released many, many excellent singles, but "Ceremony" is a strangely elemental song.

KilgoreTrout

I forget whether it was here or not when I last said that "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order may just be the best song ever recorded in my humble opinion, but if I haven't said it here before I'm saying it here now. So that's one, but I want to mention a few others I like since everybody else is and it's difficult to pick just one anyway.

Raspberry Beret - Prince

Here Comes The Rain Again - Eurythmics

Stand Back - Stevie Nicks

KilgoreTrout

Imipolex G said:

been listening to New Order's singles compilation in the car recently and they had a lot of good ones - "Bizarre Love Triangle" and "True Faith" are two that come to mind.

I also love "If You Leave" by OMD even though I am a cheeseball for this

I had forgotten that song existed ("If You Leave"), but thank you for reminding me so that I can listen to it for the first time in years. :)

Also, I somehow forgot about Pet Shop Boys. I like most of their stuff. I see "What Have I Done To Deserve This?" listed above and that's a great song, but if "Opportunities" hasn't been mentioned yet I'll do so now.

Imipolex G

I am now going to mention:
Duran Duran - "Girls on Film" "Rio"
Depeche Mode - "Everything Counts" "Strangelove"
The Cars - "Drive"

consider these mentioned

Vriska

Well, it's one of them. I don't even know why.

KilgoreTrout

Ooo, The Cars! "You Might Think" is also a great song.

As for Dead Or Alive, they may be primarily known for "You Spin Me Round", but I think another single by them is worth a listen if you haven't heard it before, namely this one:

KilgoreTrout

And here's some Queen.

KilgoreTrout

Here's one that became a favourite fairly recently. I first heard "Juicy" by one Biggie Smalls many years ago, but didn't hear the song he sampled to make it until I played GTA: Vice City. That's this song, and I think it's very good.

Salix Babylonika

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh that makes me angry. I want to harshly shake that video's uploader.

Nothing gets me pissed quite like Youtube clips of songs that omit the artist. The song is by M'Tume.

Imipolex G

I forgot Def Leppard's "Photograph".

I'm just gonna keep posting here until I've named every 80s song I ever liked

Salix Babylonika

outta luck

outta love

got a photograph:

picture of

KilgoreTrout

"Passion killer/you're too much/You're the only one/I wanna touch..."

Love me some Def Leppard. The title track off of "Hysteria" immediately springs to mind.

Sredni Vashtar

How could I forget: Every song off of Ludus' The Seduction and Coil's Horse Rotorvator, but particularly "Unveiled (A Woman's Travelogue)" and "Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)" respectively. For your edification:

thenamelesssamurai

Sredni Vashtar said:

How could I forget: Every song off of Ludus' The Seduction and Coil's Horse Rotorvator, but particularly "Unveiled (A Woman's Travelogue)" and "Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)" respectively. For your edification:

I thought about putting "Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)" instead of "The Golden Section", since it holds  special place in my heart (for several reasons), but the last 3 songs on Horse Rotorvator are just so damn good, even if every song on that album is good.

Corvina

Heart and Soul -- Joy Division
Blue Monday -- New Order
M -- The Cure
A God in an Alcove -- Bauhaus
Thursday's Child -- The Chameleons
Once in a Lifetime -- Talking Heads
Driven Like the Snow -- The Sisters of Mercy
Talk About the Weather -- Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
Molly's Lips -- The Vaselines


There are others I'm sure but these come to mind first

Tre

New wave is rad as hell.

- Rush -- "Tom Sawyer" and "Red Barchetta"
- Soft Cell -- "Tainted Love"
- Herbie Hancock -- "Rockit"
- Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five -- "The Message"
- Joe Jackson -- "Steppin' Out" (albeit in covered form, courtesy of AM & Shawn Lee)
- Cyndi Lauper -- "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" (see also: STRFKR's version)
- Michael Jackson -- most of the singles from Thriller and Bad, tbh


more if I can think of any

Imipolex G

*Rush fistbump*

and since you mentioned Cyndi Lauper, I'd toss in "Time After Time" if I haven't already

KilgoreTrout

"She-Bop" is worth a listen as well. Best song about female masturbation I've ever heard! (If I were typing this on TV Tropes, it would look like this in the edit: [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative best song about female masturbation]].)

buttercrispy

At the moment it's harden my heart by quarterflash, but that's largely because i'm delving into what the originator of why i like certain vocal styles of late.

Sredni Vashtar

Corvina said:

Heart and Soul -- Joy Division
Blue Monday -- New Order
M -- The Cure
A God in an Alcove -- Bauhaus
Thursday's Child -- The Chameleons
Once in a Lifetime -- Talking Heads
Driven Like the Snow -- The Sisters of Mercy
Talk About the Weather -- Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
Molly's Lips -- The Vaselines


There are others I'm sure but these come to mind first

Most of these are quite good, although few are personal favourites. I mean, "Thursday's Child" is nowhere near "Second Skin" or "Perfume Garden" for me, the former being kind of perfect; "M" has a sterling main riff, but structurally it's a bit inert, and there are so many other great songs from that period of their career; and "Once in a Lifetime"... well, uh, OK, no problem there, but most of that album is that good.

Salix Babylonika

I feel like this thread has kind of become a lowkey pissing contest.