That's a tall order, not the least for trying to remember the decade for all the marijuana haze I saw much of it through. The '80s was when my musical interests really took off, so there is a lot, contemporary and historical, to consider.
All right, I'll share this--although on a Rock discussion board I'll probably get rocks thrown at me. In the early '80s, I had a job as a delivery driver in the San Francisco Bay Area's Silicon Valley, driving the company's Chevy van--which had only an AM radio. You kids might not know this, but AM was actually a force back then. (Coincidentally, I had a conversation about this yesterday, when a younger colleague asked, "You mean, AM wasn't just talk radio?")
Anyway, in the SF area all the rock stations were FM, and there weren't too many AM music stations that as a late teens/early 20s guy I was even remotely interested in. There was an oldies station (think Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry et al.) I listened to on occasion, but mostly I listened to Top 40 radio, KFRC. Now, when I got home I'd immediately turn on KFOG-FM, which was my real musical education because they would play all kinds of rock (and soul). But, in the van, I was listening to all kinds of early '80s pop.
So, I found myself grooving to the likes of "She Blinded Me with Science," "Come on, Eileen," "You Dropped a Bomb on Me," "She Works Hard for the Money," and a whole bunch of others. There were more rock-oriented hits, too: The Clash had a hit with "Rock the Casbah," the Kinks with "Come Dancing," and even Frank Zappa with "Valley Girl." David Bowie's Let's Dance album was big for him, and it was from listening to that distinctive guitar in the mix that I learned about Stevie Ray Vaughan (he was featured on KFOG too), and I saw SRV on his tour for his debut, Texas Flood, at the Keystone Palo Alto. But, yeah, it was stuff like ABC's "Poison Arrow," the Pointer Sisters' "Jump (For My Love)," and Michael Sembello's "Maniac" that issued forth from KFRC. Then Michael Jackson's Thriller came along, and it was one single after another.
My point is that over the years I noticed that I managed to collect a number of those songs I first heard while driving the van, and several years ago I put together my first mix of "Van-Drivin' Songs" as a nostalgia exercise. Definitely a distinctive period, primarily because I was young and music had such an emotional impact on me at that time--although as a guy I'd never have admitted that at the time. At the time, I was already a Who fanatic and was soon to discover Bob Dylan and then Zappa. And a whole bunch more. But although I've never really been a pop fan, that exposure I think made me more open-minded about music, and even if ultimately it's not my love, I can understand why it could be for someone else.
And even though this might not be my "favorite" '80s music, it is, oddly, some of the most memorable.
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"We hear very little, and we understand even less." -- refugee in "Casablanca"
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