What are your favorite 80s songs?
I will warn you, this is going to be quite an extensive list because there are so many 80s songs that I love.
First of all, I need to talk about The Final Countdown. It's iconic and it's the perfect song for motivation. It's a song that I am so fond of. I'm waiting for the day it gets played on the radio at the place where I volunteer.
Then there's Everybody Wants To Rule The World by Tears for Fears. This one is probably my favourite song that has been played on the radio where I volunteer. I've heard some of the more dramatic covers of it but the original is always the best one to me (it may be blasphemy for me as a Kiwi to say this but Lorde's cover is not better than the original). Also this web weaving was inspired by the song. I just feel like there is something about the more positive and upbeat vibes of the original that just works.
I also really like the Eurythmics songs that I have heard. Especially Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves and Sweet Dreams. Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves is so uplifting and Sweet Dreams on the other hand is both very catchy and can be cathartic.
What can I say about Depeche Mode. The first song of theirs that I listened to was of course Personal Jesus and that one is a bop. Behind the Wheel and Enjoy the Silence both have an unsettling quality to them that works well. I've wanted to make a Kösem edit to A Question of Time for the longest time as well.
I haven't listened to nearly enough Wham and George Michael but Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go and Father Figure are both classic.
99 Luftballons is a great case study of a song that makes you want to dance and yet is about something incredibly disturbing.
The Look by Roxette is just a bop. I have nothing else to say about this one.
Major Tom/Völlig Losgelöst by Peter Schilling. I first heard this song in English but I prefer the German version honestly. Whoever thought to set a chase scene in Atomic Blonde to this song was so right.
The Very Important Queen Tangent
So Queen is my all time favourite band and I have 2 favourite albums of theirs. While one of them (Jazz) is from the 70s, the other one (The Miracle) is from the 80s. So I'm going to talk about The Miracle as well as Hot Space and A Kind of Magic because those are my favourite 80s Queen albums (although there are a lot of 70s songs I could talk about too and some 90s Queen but that makes me sad).
So in chronological order:
Hot Space (1982)
Apparently this one is controversial. But I like most of the songs on this album. They are different to what Queen had done before, but they still work really well and just because something is new and different doesn't make it bad. Not to mention that Under Pressure is on this album. Aside from that (because let's be honest it goes without saying) my favourite songs are Staying Power, Dancer, Action This Day and Calling All Girls.
A Kind of Magic (1986)
Half of this album is just normal Queen songs and the other is the Highlander soundtrack. Honestly some of my favourites were the ones on the movie soundtrack. While One Vision is fantastic (the positive message for a potential future mixed in with the humour of the fried chicken at the end is just a wonderful combination), Princes of the Universe made for such a dramatic song to open the movie on in the best way. I also love Don't Lose Your Head and Gimme the Prize and Who Wants To Live Forever is always a deeply moving song.
The Miracle (1989)
This album toes the line between the more fun and lighthearted vibes of something like Hot Space and something more reflective that becomes more of a feature of 90s Queen so it kind of bridges the gap between 80s and 90s Queen in that way and it is genuinely my favourite 80s Queen album (although the cover art is just cursed, one of the worst covers of any Queen album ever honestly). So on the one hand you have songs like Party and Khashoggi's Ship and on the other you get Was It All Worth It. And they bookend the album. The combination of fun and emotional lands very well. My other favourites are I Want It All, The Invisible Man and Scandal (the final one of which absolutely deserves a place in the Greatest Hits albums, it's so underrated. It's an excellent song reminder of how much the British tabloids suck, now just as much as they did in the 80s).
