The Eighties: Best Tunes

Kids these days are forever being snarky about music in the 1980s.

They can get lost.

The early 1980s had me janitoring, the middle saw me in grad school, and from 1986 to 1992 I was teaching English in Okinawa and listening to the Far East Network, a much more diverse station than the armed forces radio service in Tokyo. When I think of the 1980s, I think of these songs. 

·         Hold Me Now – Thompson Twins. Hypnotic hook.

·         Electric Avenue - Eddy Grant. Dance, I told you, Dance!

·         Sweet Dreams – Eurythmics. Dubious generalizations re human nature but compelling song.

·         White Wedding - Billy Idol. I'm told Billy was a nice guy until two hours before show time and then he'd start sneering a lot, putting on his show face.

·         Flying in a Blue Dream - Joe Satriani. Whadda hook, stay in your frickin’ head all day.

·         West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys. Languid boredom but peppy, an odd combo.

·         Kyrie - Mr. Mister. Another hypnotic hook which saves kind of a lame song. How do the English do it?

·         Everybody Have Fun Tonight - Wang Chung. Everybody up-chuck tonight! At the end of the working day by the elevators to get the hell out,  I sometimes ask people if they're going to wang chung tonight. Yeah, I get stared at.

·         Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N' Roses. No escaping this song the year it was released.

·         She Drives Me Crazy - Fine Young Cannibals. Intense, calling to mind Motown but better.

·         Walk Like An Egyptian – Bangles. Fun.

·         Never Gonna Give You Up – Rick Astley. Never had a big problem with this groovy little tune until y’all made it so ironic and all.

·         Circle in the Sand - Belinda Carlisle. A guilty pleasure.

·         You Make Heaven a Place on Earth - Belinda Carlisle. The only artist here twice. I feel really guilty now. But there's no denying the Abba-type wall of sound

·         How Will I Know - Whitney Houston. Lotsa energy and she's so pretty too.

·         Material Girl - Madonna. She says it's the bucks but she still leaves with the poor producer Keith Carradine who wins her with a little romancing.

·         Little Lies - Fleetwood Mac. Only cuz it reminded me of Rumours.

·         Heat of the Moment – Asia. Another ditty from which there was no escape.

·         Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Tears for Fears. More dubious generalizations, but haunting. A good song to shoot baskets by.

·         Girls Just Want to Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper. In grad school, I knew a guy that looked just like the dude with the moustache and glasses. 

·         Dancing in the Dark - Bruce Springsteen. A good song to spin by nowadays.

·         Sharp Dressed Man – ZZ Top. Classic video, classic guy's song.

·         Addicted to Love - Robert Palmer. Still hear this one at least once a week somewhere.

·         Human - The Human League. Cool synth pop. Still works for me but I'm a romantic.

·         Call Me – Blondie. Early Eighties, yes? A rocker.

·         Harden My Heart - Quarterflash. Lotsa style.

·         Take On Me - a-ha. Best video ever; both leads very 1980s good-looking. So how this song became a joke is beyond me. I don’t even want to know why. I don't want to understand people who weren't around at the time!

No Duran Duran is not an oversight. So shoot me.