Wow...not an entirely horrible list

Wow I grew up in the 80's and dont recognize a single song in the top 10. To much metal i guess

Don't...you get fresh with me. (#7)

That was truly disappointing. On, NME? never mind.

That is the most pretentious and eclectic list of top 100 "best" songs of the 80s I've ever seen.

Not one mention of Huey Lewis.

An insane number of the top 20-30 songs were from bands in one city, and it wasn't LA.

/Manchester

Buffalo Stance was awfully high on that list...

I_C_Weener: That is the most pretentious and eclectic list of top 100 "best" songs of the 80s I've ever seen.

THIS. Only read the Top Ten and was incredibly underwhelmed. "Buffalo Stance"? Are you kidding me? A lot of the selection process seemed to be "remember that amazing album that band put out? What was the fourth-best song on it? Yeah, that's the one."

no ABC? Not one entry from Lexicon Of Love? Ye Gods, 'Poison Arrow' or 'The Look Of Love' deserve to be on there. Still, a not entirely horrible list, and I can't really complain about the top 5 either

I recognize the list is British, but Joy Division, New Order, the Smiths/Morrissey (Maz?) and Stone Roses are heavily represented, to the detriment of some obvious candidates left off the list. Surely if these guys matter, then more than one Elvis Costello song would have been appropriate.

But is Rush on the list?

'Cuz if Rush isn't on the list, the list sucks.

/trolling myself
//what's up with #36? "Various Artists?"

cretinbob: Wow...not an entirely horrible list

Any such list that includes the waste of airtime that is Starship and leaves out

Peter Gabriel
The Police
Stevie Wonder (who was mostly shiat in the 80's but "Master Blaster" should be on this list)
Split Enz/Crowded House
The Replacements

is failerrific, imbecilic, and knee-walking cuticle-chewing shtoopid.

This list was obviously put together by New Order's tour fluffer, BECAUSE IT BLOWS GOATS.

"Every breath you take" was everyone's top pick in 1989.
then:
drunks driver-like I pray-raceland-born from the ASS- i just called to say i saw you- and hello I'm a loin king

The 1980's music wise were a bucket of suck.

/lawn
//off mine
///1st Zeppelin concert 1975 age 14
///that is all

the_celt: The 1980's music wise were a bucket of suck.

/lawn
//off mine
///1st Zeppelin concert 1975 age 14
///that is all

the 70's was worse, but great as well.

Interesting top 10.

needs more pixies

Needs more Rick Astley

Billie Jean got robbed. No Beat It? No REM, apart from The One I Love?

Do you like Phil Collins? I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, Duke. Before that, I really didn't understand any of their work. Too artsy, too intellectual. It was on Duke where Phil Collins' presence became more apparent. I think Invisible Touch was the group's undisputed masterpiece. It's an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time, it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums. Christy, take off your robe. Listen to the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins and Rutherford. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument. Sabrina, remove your dress. In terms of lyrical craftsmanship, the sheer songwriting, this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Sabrina, why don't you, uh, dance a little. Take the lyrics to Land of Confusion. In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority. In Too Deep is the most moving pop song of the 1980s, about monogamy and commitment. The song is extremely uplifting. Their lyrics are as positive and affirmative as anything I've heard in rock. Christy, get down on your knees so Sabrina can see your asshole. Phil Collins' solo career seems to be more commercial and therefore more satisfying, in a narrower way. Especially songs like In the Air Tonight and Against All Odds. Sabrina, don't just stare at it, eat it. But I also think Phil Collins works best within the confines of the group, than as a solo artist, and I stress the word artist. This is Sussudio, a great, great song, a personal favorite.

I would have just chosen 100 smiths songs.

Bullsh*t, that's not "It's Raining Men"!

Released: October 1989

The Triple X-rated nature of this track should not overshadow how absolutely vital it was to the nascent commercial dance scene. It would later become a building block of the ever-influential Chicago House movement. Perhaps its key trick was the slowing down/speeding up of the track mid song. A club anthem on a par with its natural predecessor, Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love'.

Two glaring omissions for any list that includes metal:

Peace Sells

Angel of Death

I think they could have just cut and pasted the music entries from American Psycho and had a better article, and I'm not alone in that I see.... That said, good list but suffered from too many of the same artists on it, probably only Prince and Michael Jackson and the Clash deserved more than one track on it, too many people on the list with 3-4 songs. Bad filler article, NME.

/list fails without Hall and Oates lol, i can't believe i just typed that.

S'Express and Lil' Louis over Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson?

"Clear," "Strings of Life," and "Big Fun" should have been on here.

Also, what about Mantronix?

the_celt: The 1980's music wise were a bucket of suck.

Not for alternative and electronic music.

No Roxy Music in the top ten. List means nothing.

No "Don't Worry Be Happy"?

/ Fail- ish

Unless number 1 is Journey's "Don't Stop Believin" I have no faith in humanity.

I was about to say list fails without The Cars "Just What I Needed", when I learnt that it was actually a '70's song.

Crap, I'm old.

Confabulat: No Roxy Music in the top ten. List means nothing.

Roxy in the 80s blew goats.

/I have proof.

The top 10 is not composed entirely of Manilla Road songs. This list is burned and died as f*ck.

Meh. Some people eat kippers. Some people love the taste of instant pudding. Everything is subjective. Most of the music on that list is not great, and terrible at the outside. Everyone's taste differ. Just because the author thinks it's a great, doesn't make it so.

sponkster: Wow I grew up in the 80's and dont recognize a single song in the top 10. To much metal i guess

Not even "When Doves Cry"? That's the only one in the Top 10 that I recognized and I too grew up in the 80s.

Fark yes Paid in Full. Someday I'm going to impress the hell out of someone by being able to pull off that whole rap flawlessly out of nowhere.

That was one big fatass bag of suck.

The Who still had quite a bit left in the tank in '81.

It hardly seems worth saying at this point, but... boooooooooooo.

A lot of good stuff in there but more in the top (bottom?) half, if you exactly reversed the list and expunged prince entirely it would come closer to making sense. Still wouldn't be perfect.

Tainted Love should have been much higher on that list.

the_celt: bucket

QFT.

But "the 80's" didn't really start until 1984 or so. The early 80's were really the era when disco and punk petered out, arena rock was moribund, synth music was on the rise, but before the cheese metal fad took off.

The best thing about the 1980's from my blues/blues-rock perspective was the emergence of SRV. Clapton had gone into his Michelob/"I'm just paying for my heroin habit" phase, authentic blues acts were seen as old-fashioned, and garage/grunge was still underground. (I remember going to a Reverend Horton Heat show back in '88 or '89 and feeling as though I had been reborn.) Real roadhouse rock and blues stayed alive only in the bars and clubs; otherwise it was a 10-year parade of utter forgettable suck.

A good example of how the 1980's sucked is to compare ZZ Top's stuff from the 1970's to their mega-selling 1980's MTV stuff. Eliminator was the best of the 1980's crop, and it doesn't hold a candle to Tres Hombres or Rio Grande mud.

I think a lot of the problem in the 1980's was a combination of new technology (people forget that guitar-driven rock was almost killed off by synthesizers) and creative exhaustion. Punk had petered out, disco was dead (and thank God for that), arena rock was disappearing, and popular taste was going towards the mid-teen fare offered up by Michael Jackson and other MTV creations.

Slayer was the first and still the best of the 1980's metal bands; after them, it was just hair and noise and grover-the-muppet singing. (Reign in Blood is still probably the best metal album, then or since.)

That's kind of a fascinating list. It wouldn't have been mine (Prince and Springsteen need to be higher, and Graceland being stuck that far down is just silly) but it's certainly from a particular taste and very defensible with some interesting, quirky choices.

That said, Starship? Really?

Also:

Gulper Eel: The Who still had quite a bit left in the tank in '81.

I'm a huge Who fan, and I love song, but that performance seemed lackluster (for them, anyway) and gave me a sad.

/that vid is an example of why they broke up shortly afterward

She comes in colors everywhere: But is Rush on the list?

'Cuz if Rush isn't on the list, the list sucks.

/trolling myself
//what's up with #36? "Various Artists?"

I know, I'm disappointed too. No Tom Sawyer? No Subdivisions? No Enemy Within?

She comes in colors everywhere: Confabulat: No Roxy Music in the top ten. List means nothing.

Roxy in the 80s blew goats.

/I have proof.

"Avalon" is awfully good gettin'-all-naked-with-her-and-stuff music.

The NME lists do tilt British - big surprise. And the mope-rock of The Smiths, New Order and Joy Division were influential in creating an entire generation of post-punk shoe-gazers. Great. But what I find interesting about the list is the way it reminded me of why I felt musically isolated and disgusted throughout the 1980's and why I felt I came alive again in the early 90's.

The 80's sucked.

'Under Pressure' was too low. David Bowie and Freddie Mercury?