The 200 Best Songs of The 1980s

The Flock take flight in a synth-crush epic as spectacular, gauche, embarrassing, and irresistible as their hair. Mike Score sings the haiku-like verses: “I saw your eyes/And it touched my mind.” No chorus, just gigantic waves of absurdly poignant synth/guitar heart-goosh, presented with zero irony, subtlety, or (lord knows) hipness. The original Flock lineup reunited in 2018 to do this song with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, and before you ask, yes, bald and beautiful now.

Roses are red and violets are blue, he’s gonna rock this world for you. Slow jam of slow jams, from the only Gregory Abbott who matters, a UC Berkeley English professor turned Wall Street broker turned R&B love man. As he told Billboard’s Fred Bronson, “Emotionally, the phrase ‘shake you down’ made sense to me, and when I repeated it to a lady friend of mine, she definitely understood what I was saying. So that became the hook of the song.” That “well, well” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. 

Green Gartside was one of the Eighties’s weirdest pop stars: a London art-school anarchist who started out the decade making noisy post-punk, then decided to transform into a New Wave fashion plate in Gaultier suits crooning sleek synth-pop hits. “Fear of pop is an infantile disorder,” Green told Rolling Stone. “You should face up to it like a man.” Scritti Politti’s Cupid & Psyche ’85 is one of the all-time great synth-pop gems, with Green sighing and cooing his hyper-cerebral semiotics over the zippiest beats. In “The Word Girl,” he wonders if he’s falling in love with a girl, or with the girl’s words, or with the word “girl.” As he admitted, “ill-digested Derridean-isms are strewn throughout this record.” You can hear “The Word Girl” as a silly love song or an intellectual satire, but either way it soars.

After The Runaways, Joan Jett was dismissed by the music biz as a washed-up leftover with a bad reputation. But then she hit Number One with “I Love Rock & Roll,” a forgotten oldie by the Arrows, claiming it as a feminist dirtbag anthem for the ages. As long as there are jukeboxes, dimes, rebel grrrls in black leather, this song will be blasting.

A transcendent moment of early Chicago house music, from DJ Ralphi Rosario. Xaviera Gold testifies about the power of true love (“that man knows how to sat-is-fy a woman”), over the electro-throb beat. But she’s got some choice words for anyone who tries to mess with her man. (“What that dorky chick got wouldn’t satisfy a cheese stick, much less my baby!”) The track cuts and loops her voice, repeating the words “he’s mine—ALL mine” over and over, until it starts to sound obsessive and deranged, even slightly scary, yet irresistible.

A hilarious takedown of the male gaze, in the acerbic sneer of Patty Donahue. She taunts the men who think they can size her up, with all her gum-snapping sarcasm, only to cackle, “Sucker!” But like all the Waitresses tunes, “I Know What Boys Like” was written by a boy, guitarist Chris Butler. As Butler said, “She could play that role pretty easily; she was a tough party girl.” He scripted brilliant feminist vignettes for her voice (“No Guilt,” “It’s My Car”), as well as the sitcom theme “Square Pegs” and the cranberry-core holiday standard “Christmas Wrapping.”

Peaches, meet cream.

The most outrageously perfect one-hit wonder of the Eighties, i.e. the most one-hit-wonder-intensive era in music history. Let’s face it, when you think of the Eighties, you think shameless. You think hair. You think cosmetic disasters and fashion atrocities and squooshy electro-funk and octagonal synth-drums. Kajagoogoo had it all, with the gloriously gaudy “Too Shy.” An elfin starchild named Limahl sings “Too shy-shy, hush hush, eye-to-eye,” as if it’s poetry, and by the time the song ends, it is. 

An irresistible slice of Eighties R&B nightlife, starring the ladies of Klymaxx. They hit the club, ready to party the night away, but it’s time for a “Meeting in the Ladies’ Room,” so Bernadette Cooper can settle the score with all these women who can’t keep their hands off her man. “I’m much, much unhappy about that,” she warns. “I’d hate to come down to their level and become a B.W., a Basic Woman. But if they don’t stop, it’s gonna get scandalous!” Oh, it gets scandalous. By the end, she’s sniffing, “Don’t slap me, because I’m not in the mooood.” Not a damn thing B.W. about this song.

“I might like you better if we slept together”—now there’s a pick-up line.

The Boston collective Mission of Burma were so far ahead of their time, they could break up for two decades, then reunite and STILL sound ahead of their time. Burma had their own avant-punk style, drawing from John Coltrane and Syd Barrett, with a fourth member adding tape loops and sound effects. “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver” is a seething tale of paranoia, from Signals, Calls, and Marches. “Showbiz has nothing to do with us,” bassman Clint Conley told Rolling Stone in 1981. “When you see us, all you see is a lot of sweat and honest emotion.”

Black Uhuru sound the alarm, from their masterful reggae classic Red. The Jamaican trio of Michael Rose, Duckie Simpson, fellow Kingstonite Michael Rose and Sandra “Puma” Jones give a message of faith to Rastafarian believers all over the diaspora, with the Sly and Robbie riddims driving it home.

The one and only Pete Burns, a human mascara tornado with hazmat hair and a bitch-queen leer, takes a look at miserable pitiful teenage kids everywhere and tells us “you look like you’re LOTS of fun!” and I still choose to believe he meant it. 

Aretha’s sell-out mid-Eighties period was such a golden era. The Queen was super-committed to pop for a minute, with Who’s Zoomin’ Who and Aretha. How strange is it that Aretha packed seven aiming-to-please Top 40 hits into a couple years, ’85-’87, but then never bothered trying that again? While all the other Sixties veteran were hitting rock bottom? It’s the one moment in her career Lady Soul felt like winning folks over—but then she got over that, in yet another Aretha enigma. “Who’s Zoomin’ Who” has one of her cattiest kiss-offs: “Fish in the sea, but they ain’t me!”

Soft Cell were the avant-garde U.K. synth-pop duo who became global pop darlings, with their non-stop erotic cabaret. “Tainted Love” was the pioneering 1981 hit, turning an obscure Motown oldie by Gloria Jones into a futuristic smash that set a new record by staying in the U.S. Top 40 for almost a year. But the keeper is the 8-minute 12-inch version, where it segues into a heavy-breathing soliloquy on the Supremes’ “Where Did Our Love Go?” “People were using electronics in unfeeling, robotic ways,” singer Marc Almond told Rolling Stone. “But Dave [Ball] got these rich, warm, moody sounds. Exciting and slightly dirty sounds. We figured, ‘Why does electronic music have to be cold?’”

If you went to a prom in the Eighties, this song was legally required, and it never failed to melt every AquaNet perm on the dance floor. The Gap Band rolled out of Tulsa with their fly cowboy hats, and a slew of burn-rubber funk hits. “You Dropped A Bomb On Me” combined two of the Eighties’ biggest obsessions: nuclear paranoia and insane basslines. Dave Grohl has proudly said this is where he got the drum intro for “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” “If you listen to Nevermind, the Nirvana record, I pulled so much stuff from the Gap Band and Cameo and [Chic’s] Tony Thompson, on every one of those songs,” Grohl says. “That’s all disco—it’s all it is. Nobody makes that connection.”

Obscene, obviously. Frankie Goes To Hollywood starred two of pop’s first openly gay singers, Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford, plus three token straight dudes. They had a political message: nuclear war bad, pierced nipples good. And oh yeah—they also had “Relax,” the biggest-selling U.K. hit single ever at that time. “Relax” still sounds deliciously filthy, a synth-pop orgy of slurps and splashes. Frankie pushed the gay bravado through the roof (they actually called a song “Krisco Kisses”) and some of us will go to our graves defending their sensitive slow jam, “The Power of Love,” but “Relax” is definitely the one that hits you with the laser beams.

Born in London, raised in the Bronx, eternally famous as the expert story-teller with the eyepatch. In the ebullient days of hip-hop’s golden age, Slick Rick tells the new rap generation a bedtime story about the street life, with the haunting finale, “He was just 17, in a madman’s dream / The cops shot the kid, I can still hear him scream.” 

The ska stars take a dire look at an England full of unemployment, riots, racist violence, with a warning that we’d never go back to pre-Thatcher/Reagan days—unfortunately accurate. “At the time, there was a lot of racism happening,” Neville Staple told Rolling Stone. So we just thought, ‘Well, we want to school with Black and white guys. Instead of fighting and calling people names, let’s work together.’ So we combined Black music with punk. We just mixed the two cultures.” R.I.P, Terry Hall.

This wasn’t New Edition’s first hit—that would be “Candy Girl”—but it was their coolest, with their hugely influential boy-band template. Bobby Brown and Bell Biv DeVoe went on to future glory, making this the only big-deal pop group where the lead singer was the LEAST famous member. 

Yaz had the ultimate boy/girl synth-duo combination: the flamboyantly soulful Alison Moyet and the silent synth geek Vince Clarke. They blew apart after one impeccable album, Upstairs at Eric’s, and the damn good You And Me Both. “Situation” focuses on Moyet’s needy, pushy, hungry voice, pouring her heart out over the chilly electro-beats. It’s definitely a situation—“don’t mess around, you bring me down, don’t make a sound, just move out”—but it makes them both feel alive.

Best “baby” of the Eighties: when George kicks off the second verse with that “Baaa-baaay!” He was so in the zone by the end of Wham!, with “I’m Your Man” and “The Edge of Heaven,” people expected him to start his solo career with a bang. But “Faith” shows off his eccentric flair, sounding totally unlike any other pop of the era—acoustic guitar as hi-hat, rockabilly as an excuse to accessorize a motorcycle jacket with pearls, over and out in three minutes, no fade-out, just a cold ending, plus a 30-second instrumental intro that’s just an organ playing a Wham! oldie. Did we mention stubble? Lots of stubble. Total genius. Now if only “Hard Day” had been a single. 

The London club collective Soul II Soul had a plan to remake soul music in the wake of acid house, with DJ/producers Jazzie B and Nellee Hooper. Jazzie B had the slogan: “A happy face, a thumping bass, for a loving race.” Soul II Soul hit big with “Keep On Movin’,” but “Back to Life” went even deeper, an Afro-Carribean jam with funk bass, disco strings, and reggae diva Caron Wheeler singing “Back to life, back to reality.” (For some reason, they left “Back To Life” off their debut album Club Classics Vol I, replacing it with a lame a cappella version, which didn’t go over well in the days when CDs cost $15.99—one reason why fans didn’t rush out to buy Vol II.)

Bryan Ferry is a god. “More Than This” is his most lavishly romantic song, from the 1982 smash Avalon, in the heat of his early Eighties falcons-and-cummerbunds era. Ferry does his suavest crooning, over the lush synths. He spent the Seventies playing the elusively ironic Euro-trash rake of Roxy Music, inspiring New Romantic glamsters like Duran Duran and ABC, so he was right on time. “More Than This” deserves to be his signature tune—but note that Phil Manzanera’s beautifully understated guitar solo is half the song, and it wouldn’t work without him.

Pennsylvania farm boys decide they want to be the Ronettes, move to the Sunset Strip, pile on the makeup, accidentally reinvent the whole concept of “fun.” “Talk Dirty To Me” is as flamboyant and brazen as Eighties pop gets, as these Hollywood hair-metal harlots mix up Sixties girl-group flash, New York Dolls guitars, nursery rhymes, and the moment where Bret Michaels yelps, “C.C., pick up that guitar, and uh, TALK to me!” 

The Scottish tartan rockers had a brilliant sonic trick—bagpipe guitars. But they also had songs full of giant-hearted warmth, singing about pain and truth and things that really matter, with a habit of yelling “shock!” over the twin-guitar battles and giant drums. Stuart Adamson’s big-brotherly compassion is loud and clear in “In A Big Country,” especially when he crams so many syllables into the payoff line: “I’m not expecting to grow flowers in the desert/But I can live and breathe and see the sun in winter-time!” 

Chrissie Hynde’s most gorgeous tune, showing off her reluctant romantic streak. She recalls a secret crush—“You arrived like a day and passed like a cloud, I made a wish, I said it out loud,” just perfect—with James Honeyman-Scott’s messenger-of-love guitar chimes. Yet it feels very punk. “That moment in pop history when punk was happening for six months let me slip in very nicely because no one was allowed to say: ‘She’s good for a girl,’” Hynde said in 1999. “That’s the beauty of rock, it’s androgynous. I was a very androgynous kid.’”

Nobody made goth girls twirl harder than the Bunnymen. These Liverpool lads had it all: an excellent name, scary album covers, long scarves, black overcoats, and psychedelic guitar squalls. Ian McCulloch stood at the top of the U.K.’s hot-gloom-dude charts—bigger hair than Morrissey, poutier lips than Robert Smith, not as dead as Ian Curtis. “Never Stop” is the Bunnymen at their most gloriously pretentious, with McCulloch preaching over a Velvets-style groove of guitar, cello, and congas.