Best Songs of the 80s — Top 100

Michael Jackson

The bassline, the beat, the moonwalk it inspired on Motown 25 — Billie Jean is the defining pop moment of the decade and the song that made Michael Jackson the biggest star on earth.

Prince

No bass guitar anywhere in the mix. Just Prince, a drum machine, and a song so original it topped the charts for five weeks and confused radio programmers for months.

Madonna

Gospel choir, burning crosses, and a video that caused Pepsi to pull their sponsorship — Madonna's most artistically complete statement closed the decade in controversy and triumph.

Guns N' Roses

The riff Slash wrote as a joke in a rehearsal became one of the most famous guitar lines in rock history. Axl Rose's vocal takes it to the stratosphere.

Kate Bush

Bush's request to God to allow her to swap places with her lover was rejected by the BBC for using God's name in the original title. The song won eventually, in 2022 more than in 1985.

The Police

Frequently misidentified as romantic, Sting's obsessive surveillance ballad dominated 1983 and remains the most-played song of the decade.

Toto

Dismissed by critics, beloved by everyone else — Africa is now recognised as an impeccably crafted study in longing and geography.

a-ha

The pencil-sketch video is iconic, but the song — all soaring falsetto and irresistible synth arpeggios — would have found its audience without any visuals at all.

Bruce Springsteen

Reagan tried to use it as a campaign song. He hadn't listened closely — it's one of the bitterest, most politically astute songs of the decade.

David Bowie

Bowie goes mainstream with Nile Rodgers producing and Stevie Ray Vaughan on guitar — the result is his biggest commercial hit.

Duran Duran

New Romantic excess at its most perfectly crafted — the MTV era in one glorious, saxophone-drenched package.

Soft Cell

A Northern Soul obscurity transformed into one of the decade's defining synthpop singles.

Depeche Mode

Vince Clarke's farewell gift to Depeche Mode — the most purely joyful synth-pop song of the early decade.

New Order

The best-selling 12" single of all time — Factory Records releasing the future while losing money on every copy.

Joy Division

Released after Ian Curtis's death, this became the decade's most aching post-punk anthem.

The Cure

Robert Smith setting the template for alternative rock's relationship with romantic misery — impossibly catchy.

The Smiths

Morrissey's most romantic lyric — finding ecstasy in death by double-decker bus — set to Marr's most beautiful melody.

Talking Heads

Brian Eno co-production and David Byrne's existential anxiety over African rhythms — the most intellectual pop hit of the decade.

Blondie

Punk royalty discovers disco and makes one of the decade's (technically the previous decade's) most enduring songs.

Queen

John Deacon's bass line and Mercury's delivery — Queen inventing dance-rock a decade before anyone called it that.

Bonnie Tyler

Jim Steinman's operatic excess matched by Tyler's shredded vocal — the most maximalist power ballad ever recorded.

Journey

The eternal underdog anthem — every decade rediscovers it and makes it its own.

Cyndi Lauper

Pop feminism as pure colour-saturated joy — Lauper arriving as one of the decade's great personalities.

Michael Jackson

Vincent Price's monologue, John Landis's video, and the most elaborately choreographed zombie routine in history.

Fleetwood Mac

Lindsey Buckingham's one-man guitar performance as the Mac entered their final classic era.

Prince

The title track of the greatest one-man-band album — a gospel-soaked ballad that builds to one of rock's great guitar solos.

Whitney Houston

The motivational ballad that proved Houston's commercial instincts were as perfect as her voice.

Lionel Richie

The decade's definitive romantic ballad — a blind girl, a phone, and one of pop's most unashamed melodies.

Dire Straits

Mark Knopfler's famous guitar riff and Sting's background vocal — the MTV-era critique of MTV.

Bryan Adams

Heartland rock's most perfectly executed nostalgia exercise — the power chord opening still gives goosebumps.

U2

The Edge's infinite guitar drone and Bono's yearning vocal — U2's most emotionally exposed moment.

U2

The Joshua Tree's opening statement — six minutes of pure ascent, beginning with The Edge's organ.

Simple Minds

The Breakfast Club closing credits song — "hey, hey hey hey" the decade in one refrain.

Wham!

The saxophone intro that launched a thousand guilty pleasures — George Michael's first great solo statement.

George Michael

The guitar riff borrowed from "Reap the Wild Wind" and a statement of self-reinvention.

Phil Collins

The drum fill that stops conversations — Collins's minimalist synth noir at its most atmospheric.

Peter Gabriel

The Claymation video and the Beefheart-influenced funk — Gabriel at his most playfully extravagant.

Tracy Chapman

The quiet folk-pop song that demolished the year's charts and redefined what an acoustic guitar could say.

Tina Turner

Turner's comeback after years of abuse — the most empowered pop record of the decade.

Eurythmics

Annie Lennox's ice-cool presence and the synth riff that launched the new wave era internationally.

Culture Club

Boy George's gender-fluid persona and a country-tinged pop song that topped charts globally.

The Human League

The Christmas No. 1 that established Sheffield synthpop as a global phenomenon.

Spandau Ballet

The most dramatically understated power ballad of the decade — Tony Hadley's voice soaring.

ABC

Martin Fry and Anne Dudley's orchestrated New Romantic peak — sophisticated pop at its best.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Banned by the BBC for its sexual content, it immediately sold a million more copies.

Pet Shop Boys

Neil Tennant's deadpan delivery over Giorgio Moroder-influenced synth — sardonic pop perfection.

Erasure

Andy Bell's extraordinary falsetto and Vince Clarke's perfect synth hook — the synthpop closing statement.

INXS

Michael Hutchence at his most charismatically understated — the great lost rock ballad of the decade.

Crowded House

Neil Finn's melancholy New Zealand pop at its most universally consoling.

Midnight Oil

Australian political rock at its most urgent — Aboriginal land rights as mainstream pop.

Depeche Mode

Stripped-down industrial blues that predicted the 1990s alternative rock explosion.

The Psychedelic Furs

The John Hughes film made it famous; the song itself is a post-punk classic.

Echo & the Bunnymen

Ian McCulloch's most soaring vocal over Will Sergeant's guitar — post-punk at its most beautiful.

The Alarm

Welsh post-punk passion that gave the decade one of its more underrated anthems.

Big Country

Guitars played to sound like bagpipes over an enormous landscape — Scottish rock at its most expansive.

Run-D.M.C.

The record that launched hip-hop into the mainstream — harder, faster, angrier than anything before it.

LL Cool J

The teenage MC announcing himself as the most commanding voice in early hip-hop.

Public Enemy

The Bomb Squad's sonic assault and Chuck D's political rage — hip-hop as revolutionary act.

N.W.A.

The most dangerous record of the decade — and the one that changed hip-hop's direction permanently.

Grandmaster Flash

The first hip-hop song to document urban poverty with the unflinching honesty of great fiction.

Sugar Hill Gang

The record that introduced hip-hop to America — technically a 1979 record, but defining the decade's first chapter.

Beastie Boys

Ironic party anthem mistaken for sincere party anthem — the Beastie Boys laughing all the way to the bank.

Salt-N-Pepa

The infectious groove and the declaration of female agency made this the most important hip-hop single by women in the decade.

Whitney Houston

Pure exuberant pop joy — Houston at her most playful and commercially unstoppable.

Janet Jackson

Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis's production and Janet's newly assertive persona — Control as liberation.

Diana Ross

The Bee Gees writing for Diana Ross — disco pop elegance into a new decade.

Stevie Wonder

Oscar-winning, commercially gigantic, and divisive — Stevie's most mainstream 1980s moment.

Midnight Star

The electro-funk moment where the 1980s found its own groove identity.

Rick James

The bass line MC Hammer sampled and the song that defined funk in the early decade.

Parliament

The P-Funk collective closing the 1970s and defining the rhythm the 1980s would inherit.

Tears for Fears

The decade's most complete pop statement — a critique of power in the most beautiful possible package.

Level 42

Mark King's slap bass and the most understated pop hook of the mid-decade.

A Flock of Seagulls

New wave synth-pop with a guitar intro and haircut that defined an era.

Yazoo

Alison Moyet's extraordinary blues-inflected voice and Vince Clarke's synth minimalism.

Prefab Sprout

Paddy McAloon's baroque pop masterpiece — criminally underplayed for forty years.

The Associates

Billy Mackenzie's operatic tenor over quirky new wave — post-punk at its most eccentric.

XTC

Andy Partridge's clever, self-deprecating pop genius given its biggest commercial moment.

The Pretenders

Chrissie Hynde's grief for two departed bandmates expressed as the perfect pop song.

Don Henley

The great American nostalgia song — sunset drives and dead ends rendered with Mike Campbell's guitar.

Tom Petty

Petty closing the decade with his most relaxed and most loved performance.

R.E.M.

Michael Stipe's deceptively tender-sounding song about disposable love.

Pixies

The quiet-loud-quiet template that Nirvana would steal — and credit.

The Replacements

Paul Westerberg's love letter to an undersung hero — indie rock self-awareness at its most earnest.

Husker Du

The loudest, most melodic post-hardcore song of the decade — influential beyond calculation.

Sonic Youth

The loudest quiet song in alternative rock — Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon building cathedrals of noise.

The Cure

Robert Smith writing a straightforward love song and accidentally having his biggest hit.

Siouxsie and the Banshees

Post-punk at its most danceable and most dangerous — Siouxsie commanding every room she entered.

The Jam

Paul Weller's most political statement — going straight to No. 1 without a TV performance.

The Clash

The Clash's biggest US hit is also their most playful — Topper Headon's piano intro is an unexpected joy.

Bob Marley

Marley's acoustic farewell — spare, profound, and impossible to hear without feeling the weight of history.

Van Halen

Eddie Van Halen on synthesizer — the most ironic instrument choice yielded the band's greatest hit.

ZZ Top

The beards, the cars, the supermodels — and underneath it all, a genuinely great blues-rock guitar workout.

Def Leppard

Mutt Lange's production turned Def Leppard into a stadium act — compressed hard rock as pure pleasure.

Bon Jovi

The acoustic outlaw ballad that showed there was more to Bon Jovi than Livin' on a Prayer.

White Lion

The hair metal power ballad taken to its most sincere extreme.

Cinderella

Tom Keifer's ragged voice over a blues-influenced ballad that transcended its genre.

Whitesnake

David Coverdale's most enduring song — rerecorded in 1987 to become one of the decade's biggest hits.

Heart

Ann Wilson's vocal on this power ballad is the decade's most technically impressive rock performance.

Bangles

Susanna Hoffs's gentle closing statement to the decade — pure, unhurried pop perfection.

George Michael

The jazz-influenced album closer that proved George Michael could do anything — and the decade closes in style.

What is the best song of the 1980s?

"Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson (1982) is widely considered the greatest pop song of the decade, though "Running Up That Hill" (Kate Bush) and "Every Breath You Take" (The Police) regularly challenge it in critical polls.

What music defined the 80s?

The 1980s were defined by the synth-pop and new wave movements, the rise of MTV, the dominance of Michael Jackson and Prince, and toward the decade's end, the emergence of hip-hop as a mainstream force.

What was the best-selling single of the 1980s?

"Don't You Want Me" by The Human League (1981) was the UK's first Christmas No. 1 of the decade, while in the US, Michael Jackson dominated sales throughout the decade.

What are the most iconic 80s songs?

The most iconic 80s songs include "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" (Michael Jackson), "Like a Prayer" (Madonna), "Sweet Child O' Mine" (Guns N' Roses), "Don't You (Forget About Me)" (Simple Minds), and "Take on Me" (a-ha).