What's The Most Totally '80s Song Ever?
Open up a newspaper and you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd been sucked into a wormhole and spat out in 1984. In the indie realm, too, the zeitgeist is looking as luridly 1980s as a stockbroker guzzling Taboo in a Sinclair C5 (insert wildly inaccurate '80s stereotype here).
On the one hand there's La Roux reviving the ice-queen electro-pop of Eurythmics (whose singer Annie Lennox is also on the comeback trail). On the other we've got White Lies and Red Light Company cut-and-pasting the billowing raincoat-rock of Echo & The Bunnymen and Simple Minds.
All of which inspired an office discussion this morning: What is the most quintessentially '80s song ever? This, of course, begs the further question: What do you mean by "'80s"? Synth-pop? Hair metal? Post-punk? New wave? College rock? All these genres "defined" the decade, depending on who you talk to.
It's a huge subject, but here are a few tracks that have been suggested so far. Tell us your own suggestions below.
Simple Minds - "Alive And Kicking" (1985)
Not so much for the song--although the expansive synths, blustery dynamics, and Jim Kerr's declamatory holler are all traits that characterised rock music in this decade more than any other--but more the video, which features so many of the tropes we've come to think of as definitively '80s. 
Namely: arms-wide posturing, lantern-jawed staring into the middle distance, an inexplicable mountaintop setting...
Journey - "Don't Stop Believin'" (1981)
Essentially a roll-call of '80s lyrical clichés--the small town girl, the smoky bar, the cheap perfume. From here, the notion of all-American desperadoes livin' on a prayer became a cornerstone of 80s poodle-rock. 
In all seriousness, though: Steve Perry, what a voice.
Donna Summer – "This Time I Know It's For Real" (1989)
Because the '80s was actually mainly about naff, gaudy, commercial pop--we just choose to remember the more epic bits. In reality, British music in the '80s was dominated by Stock Aitken Waterman, whose assembly-line production style is so horribly of-its-time it even renders the voice of Donna Summer, otherwise capable of such brilliance, almost unlistenably cheesy. It's telling that you never hear SAW hits on the radio these days: Nothing in pop history has dated less well.
Pet Shop Boys - "It's A Sin" (1987) 
Quintessentially '80s in a good way, this one. Yes, it's titanically overblown--all thunder bolts, synthesized choir, and po-faced religious references--but it's also vast and dramatic and ambitious in a way that few artists would attempt in today's cynical, intensely ironized, post-everything climate.
BLONDIE "RAPTURE" #1 US BILLBOARD
BLONDIE "THE TIDE IS HIGH" #1 US-UK BILLBOARD
BLONDIE "ATOMIC" #1 UK
BLONDIE "ISLAND OF LOST SOULS" #11UK #37US BILLBOARD
BLONDIE "THE HARDEST PART" #84 BILLBOARD
DEBORAH HARRY "BACKFIRED" #41 BILLBOARD
DEBORAH HARRY "FRENCH KISSIN IN THE USA" #57 BILLBOARD
DEBORAH HARRY "I WANT THAT MAN"
DEBORAH HARRY "SWEET AND LOW"
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- Billie Jean, Beat It: Michael Jackson
- When Doves Cry: Prince
- Sweet Child o' Mine, Welcome to the Jungle: GnR
- How Will I Know, So Emotional: Whitney Houston
- Back in Black, You Shook Me All Night: AC/DC
- Like a Virgin, Into the Groove - Madonna
- Nasty, Control: Janet Jackson
- Without or Without You: U2
- We are the World: USA for Africa
- All Night Long, Say You Say Me: Lionel Richie
Flashdance What a Feeling Irene Cara
Maneater Hall and Oates
Rapture Blondie
Every Breath You Take The Police
Thriller Michael Jackson
C'mon Feel The Noise Quiet Riot
Living On A Prayer Bon Jovi
Relax Frankie Goes To Hollywood
In The Air Tonight Phil Collins
Don't You Want Me Human League
Walk This Way RUN DMC and Aerosmith
We got the beat The go-go's
Dont You Forget About Me Simple Minds
Need You Tonight INXS
Total Eclipse of the Heart Bonnie Tyler
You will also have to include a song from each of the following...U2, Madonna, Journey, Billy Joel, Prince, The Boss, Public Enemy, well you get the idea.
Skid Row ~ I Remember You
Remember yesterday - walking hand in hand
Love letters in the sand - I remember you
Through the sleepless nights and every endless day
Id wanna hear you say - I remember you
Now please leave the 80's to Madonna and Michael Jackson (and if you need a dark horse - After The Fire's rendition of Der Kommissar).
Voices Carry - 'Til Tuesday
Let's Go - Wang Chung
Anything by:
The Cars, Duran Duran (Save a Prayer is a good one), OMD (Souvenir is great), ...
Phil Collins' "Take Me Home" (!!)
1) Sex, I'm a... by Berlin
2) Like a Virgin by Madonna
3) Purple Rain by Prince & The Revolution
4) Burn Rubber by The Gap Band
5) White Lines by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5
...just to name a small few! (I miss The 80's!) glad to have been a part of it!
It don't matter if it was Poison, Motley Crue, GnR or a hundered others.
It was a time of More,More,More.
And the bands did just that More drugs, more booze, more women, more money, more everything.