Pop Songs That Truly Defined The 80’s For Me
Published by simon on August 11, 2006Ah, the 80’s - the decade best remembered for its TV shows, movies and politics - and music. The pop music from that decade throughly defined the times - and grealty influence the generation of kids and teens that grew up in that generation. It was the generation of the then new MTV, of Michael Jackson, of Madonna and bands with weird hairdo and make-up.
There are literally thousands of good songs from that era, for me to list down only 20 was extremely difficult. This is my personal list of songs that perfectly captured the mood and exuberance of the 80’s, in the backdrop of my growing up years. Everyone would have a different list, and if you made one, i’d love to read it and hear your story behind it. This post in two parts, the next one will be after this…
Pop Songs Truly That Defined The 80’s For Me
Forever Young (Alphaville) 1984 - Probably my all-time favourite song from that decade of fantastic pop sensibilities. Although for most part, 80’s music was pretty much walk-in-sunshine-cheery, Alphaville’s one of two hits (the other being Big in Japan) was brooding and reflective on the future, with lines like “hoping for the best but expecting the worst/are you gonna drop the bomb or not?” and “sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
the music’s for the sad men“. Maybe it was the mournful optimism, maybe it was the creepy video, this song truly encapsulated the 80’s for me. I read recently somewhere this aptly, this song was hugely popular in graduation proms across the US at that time…
Do They Know It’s Christmas (Band Aid) 1984 - USA for Africa’s “We Are the World” was bigger and probably sold more records, but Bob Geldof (Boomtown Rats) and Midge Ure’s (Ultravox) UK effort was the one that inspired the Americans. Released in time for the Christmas market, Geldof gathered round some of his friends and other big names from around Britain and Ireland to raise famine relief for Ethiopia. Among the stars on record were Phil Collins, Sting, Paul Young, Boy George, Bono, and members of Spandau Ballet, Bananarama, Duran Duran and Big Country. Two subsequent versions were remade in 1991 and 2004. The orignal was followed up with the worldwide concert Live Aid. In the decades that followed, superstar collaborations for good causes were more commonplace (Voices That Care, Hear ‘n Aid, All-Star Tribute), but this one had that magic and appeal that will always be remembered.
Karma Chameleon (Culture Club) 1983 - I was never their biggest fan, but Boy George has to one of the characters to define the 80’s, along with Madonna and Michael Jackson. The group was formed as a culturally diverse ensemble, hence the name. But with a cross-dressing member with heavy make-up named Boy George (apparently the ‘Boy’ was added to his first name George as to make clear which gender was he) , the group became a huge hit with the early MTV generation. ‘Karma Chameleon‘ from their second album was instantly their biggest hit, but sadly after that the group faded out amidst drug possession stories of their members. Boy George made news recently, and i was quite shocked at how aged he looked. The song is as perky as they come, along with the colourful video. However, to this day, i can never understand what it was all about…
The Reflex (Duran Duran) 1983 - what list of 80’s music would be complete without Duran Duran? Long before the cheesy era of 90’s boybands was the quientessential British New Wave posterboys who took over the world with 70 million records sold worldwide, 18 singles in the Bilboard Hot 100, and 30 in the UK Top 40. There were so many memorable songs by them, like New Moon On Monday (the first Duran Duran song I heard), Hungry Like the Wolf (cool video, man!), Girls on Film (a girl friend of mine of mine recently confessed she was absolutely fascinated with the video back then…) but The Reflex was the very first single from them that i really like. Yep, the days of recording the songs from the Sunday morning request programs on radio, then playing them over and over again until the tapes dies…
Nikita (Elton John) 1986 - Back in the mid-80’s my brother was lucky enough to go to Australia to study (this was before the exchange rate went through the roof) while the rest of us scrimp and saved for his studies back home. On the first trip back home for holidays, he brought back this strange phenomenon which apparently was huge outside Malaysia - vinyl singles. At that time, we only knew LPs and cassettes, and even vinyl LPs were expensive and hard to find. So my brother brought back with him about 7 red coloured small records, and Nikita by Elton John was one of it (Bryan Adams and Pat Benatar were among the others). On the B-side was “The Man Who Never Died“. So I was introduced to this sweet song about a Cold War love story involving a Russian girl named Nikita.
Rock Me Amadeus (Falco) 1986 – Eternally immortalized in those one-hit wonder specials on TV, Falco probably never envisioned his song about Mozart to be so enduring. Mostly, we probably didn’t know any much more about the Falco than the song itself (it was in German), but we sure knew that chorus that went: “Amadeus, Amadeus…”
Only You (Flying Pickets) 1983 - Perfect pop a capella. I bet if they released this song now and today, it’ll still sound fresh. Note to self - unless you’re a bunch of kick-ass singers, don’t attempt to re-create this song during your high school talentime…
Land of Confusion (Genesis) 1986 – This song makes the list on the merit of the music video alone. Using latex puppets by Spitting Images, it featured caricatures of the band, then world leaders Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Gorbachev and even an all-star ensemble singing the final chorus in a spoof of “We Are the World”. The MTV video won a host of awards, I wonder if I can find it on youTube…?
Axel F (Harold Faltemeyer) 1985 – back in those days, the unmistakable (and mostly annoying) opening bars of this song meant only one thing – Beverly Hills Cops. The song isn’t much, but for a TV soundtrack to be so unimaginably popular says a lot for its catchiness. Maybe it was just the public’s fascination with the ‘new’ sound of synthesizers. Decades later the simple melody still lives on in ringtones and cheesy TV ads. Then again, the movie was no CSI, either…
Crazy For You (Madonna) 1984 – Madonna has gone through a dozen transformations and controversies, mostly perfectly engineered to get her maximum tabloid space and publicity. But back in the mid ‘80, a frizzy haired Madonna with heavily mascara and wearing fishnets all over burst onto the scene. It was her second album “Like A Virgin” (her first was “Madonna”) in 1984 that contained this song, which was also feature in a little-known movie called ‘Vision Quest’. ‘Crazy for You’ was different from most of her early songs, in that for me she sounded real and personal.Even now as Madonna reaches 50 and countless albums, I still think this is still my favourite song from her.
Next: The concluding part featuring Wang Chung, spending a night in Bangkok and our favourite page three girl, Samantha Fox.
Technorati Tags: MTV, youTube, Madonna, Eighties, 80’s, music, Falco, vinyl, Duran Duran, Elton John, Band Aid, Culture Club, Boy George, Karma Chameleon, Alphaville, Forever Young
Boy, those are classics. Oldies are always goldies. U missed Prince & Michael Jackson that rocks in the 80’s. A-ha, Duran-duran’s tracks has always been playin’ on the radio in modern times.
I knew most of the songs! Yay!
OMG, I’m old!
btw, which era is Erasure from?
For me, the 80s belong to MJ, Madonna and Elton John. And probably George Michael’s Wham. And by late 80s it was NKOTB.
But what I truly enjoy the most about the 80s was the heavy metal bands. I was crazy over Guns n’ Roses, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Poison, Motley Crue etc. I’m not that old but a heavy metal fan like me would probably agree that the 80s was the golden years for music of that genre.
Simon, do u listen to heavy metal back then? Perhaps u want to share with us your wild rock n roll days?
Speaking about rock n roll, Rockstar Supernova on StarWorld is a great show!
offline geek - mix.fm is probably the only avenue for 80’s music now…
ken - erasure? late 80’s i think. they were great.
hcfoo - i was (and still am) a HUGE metal fan! I was really into Leppard, Bon Jovi and the hair rockers towards the end of 80’s before moving on to heavy metal in the 90’s. the reason why i didn’t include rock in this list is because i wanted to do another list specially for that, so i limited this to pop.
ah! i remember boy george’s karma chamaleon very well. used to love to sing along with it esp the chorus of course “karma, karma, chamaleon, you come and go, you come and go….”. then there is also this what “red and blue, red and blue” right?
i suppose the song is comparing the ‘you’ with the chamaleon since a chamaleon changes colour.
i remember duran duran’s ‘the reflex’ too but completely forget the lyrics except one line “the reflex…… (what?) relax…”
btw, this ‘only you’ by the flying pickets is it the same one that was used in the romantic comedy ‘ghost’? you know, the unforgetable part when whoopi ‘lend’ her body to patrick swazye and he got to dance with demi moore.
lucia - i think the lyrics to karma chameleon mentions “red, gold and green”. something about colours of my love. When we bought those cheap RM3 cassettes, the lyrics came inside the sleeve, usually with lots of spelling errors! I think the song from ‘Ghost’ was “Unchained Melody”. Don’t remember “Only You”.
Excellent writeup! Can’t wait for part 2
Some of the choices were surprising, but really in your character, I must say
My choices would be more mainstream and boring, as those days I relied SOLELY on the RM3 pasar malam cassettes to keep me up to date.
My first pop idol was from the 80s - Rick Astley (is that how its spelt?). I was only 8 back then but I tried to do the 6 inch curry puff hair and my mum even made me a pair of carrot cut pants to go along with the hairdo.
And my brother and I would also pretend to be BROS. And later on NKOTB (I did the girly-voiced Joey Makantayar bits). Good stuff…
Damn, you just made me missed an ex-flame! We used to buy all the above records on vinyl! Spandau Ballet, Billy Ocean plus Queen… Lucky I broke up or else he and I would probably be still buying super duper expensive sound systems and super duper expensive DVD, olijinal one, no pirate-pirate one. U2, Bruce Springsteen…argghh..so many names popping up.
Ooh. This is great write-up, Simon! I believe the song ‘Only You’ by Flying Pickets is actually a remake of Yazoo’s original, with singer Alison Moyet (not monyet. ha.).
And DTK It’s Christmas has to be my fave Christmas song of all time! I love the video too! The new 2004 remake is nowhere near la.
Can’t wait for your Pt.2. I hope they have these songs:
o 1999 or Purple Rain - Prince (*wipe drool*)
o Gold - Spandau Ballet
o I Ran - A Flock Of Seagulls
o The Riddle - Nik Kershaw
o Let’s Dance - David Bowie
o White Wedding - Billy Idol
o Hands To Heaven - Breathe
o I Should Have Known Better - Jim Diamond
k.k. better stop before I get tooooo carried away.
You mentioned Falco..ooohhh, I just love Amadeus. Well I know most of the songs too, and it makes me realised I’m not that young anymore!
I tried to discover
a little something to make me sweeter
oh baby refrain
from braking my heart…
I loved them! And I wasn’t even born until the late 80’s!
oops. sorry. i seems to get things all wrong. memory failure! sign of aging eh?
anyway i was right about the song comparing chamaleon and love. the chamaleon changes colours, and the person’s life is fullo colours (that changes).
it was unchained melody in ghost… but then it made me wonder which movie ‘only you’ appeared. i thought only you is a very old song… in 60s or 70s?
I love the 80s music too but mainly English music. I grew up listening to it (yes, I’m that old!) I like Nik Kershaw’s “Wide Boy” (as compared to his other hits) which sadly isn’t played on the airwaves.
My fave bands back then would be ABC, Straycats, Altered Images, Visage, Ultravox, Haircut 100, Madness, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, OMD, Soft Cell, Yazoo, the list goes on!
You can find 80s videos on this website which has the links…
http://www.milinkito.com/los80.php
This is another cool site dedicated to Duran Duran but also where you are able to view old videos or listen to audios with a short summary.
http://duranduran.no/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=146&Itemid=34
Those were the days!
lucia - only you by the flying pickets is a remake, i’m not sure how old the original song was. but flying pickets’ version is a standout.
wmw - thx for the links!
pat - well, i think you prolly can guess where the inspiration for this post came from, huh, Pat?
naz - i never really got into the NKOTB craze. But my friend was crazy over them. Kept singing Hanging Tough the whole day. Like he was a gangsta or something!
lilian - aiyoo. all these audiophile kaki very de high maintenance one lo. one small equipment oso RM2000. summore cannot play cheap disc one, afters spoil their system only…
anjali - hmmmmm…. you may be a little disappointed with my pt.2 list…
mama23beas - hey, did you know my friend’s college once did a play based on that song alone…? Cool, huh?
ken - i really liked their ABBA tribute album. The band, not the boxfile brand.
If you like Forever Young, there’s a remake by a band called Youth Group. Supposedly, its success is even bigger than the original. Have a listen.
Those are really great songs. The 80’s rocked! There’s too many to list down, and I’m surprised that you managed to do so…it would’ve been an endless list for me..LOL
Axel Foley rules!
Err.. If Pelf doesn’t have any memories of any of the bands/singers/songs, does that mean that Pelf is still young? *winks*
I LOVED the 80s!! My favourites were Rick Astley and the Pet Shop Boys!
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The Ultimate 80’s song is no other than the electrifying “What A Feelin’ by Irene Cara - My first choice over the rest. If you still have that record, then play it. You would never be the same.
mannn… i remember all those songs! eh, no a-ha ‘take on me’? i used to sing it in the shower all the time… and what about starship (i think it’s starship)? or any of the 80s divas like anita baker et. al?
Alynna - hmm? must find this one…
Gallivanter - had to cut out a lot of good songs. like ‘Black Man Ray’ by China Crisis. i loved that one, man…
sashi - hah! the movie was so popular back then.
pelf - but you can still discover the magic of 80’s pop, i strongly recommend it…!
nicktay - hah, another 80’s fan!
kennedy - i actually have that tape. My dad bought it for RM8.50 from the supermarket. good songs there.
zyrin - starship: Nothing’s gonna stop us now, sara… anita baker very the boring, ler…
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I love all the old Abba songs - I think Winner takes it all was just about in the 80’s ( as oposed to 70’s) I’m actually in an Abba Tribute Band
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