Great 80's music?

If you like Pet Shop Boys, then New Order should definitely be your next stop. PSB were apparently inspired to go the distance after hearing Blue Monday, because they were stunned by the fact that those former Joy Division members were able to come up with those insanely joyous dance beats. After that, if you like the synth side of things, you should look into the Human League, Soft Cell, and OMD. If you prefer guitar-based music that owes more of a debt to "traditional" songwriting, the Smiths and the Stone Roses are the way to go.

I'll give a shout-out to The Field Mice and The Wake, who are both like a combination of New Order and the Smiths. And then there are plenty of bands who made PSB-worthy material, but only sporadically...When In Rome (The Promise), Modern English (I Melt With You), Men Without Hats (Safety Dance), Kon Kan (I Beg Your Pardon...with a brilliant sample from Rose Garden), etc.

 

Two bands that really dominated the 80's mainstream music scene and are almost forgotten, methinks.

Tears For Fears - most of their stuff is pretty good;



And Duran Duran.

 

...and even though they have absolutely nothing to do with Pet Shop Boys in terms of pure musicality, XTC and Prefab Sprout have a similar intellectual approach to music. All of them sneer at the instinctual approach to recorded performances, albeit in vastly different ways. PSB are often comedic/satirical, whilst XTC are simply irreverent and the Sprout take themselves far too seriously (or, perhaps more accurately, take other people far too seriously and adjust their parodies accordingly...witness Cars & Girls, which is a hilariously inaccurate - yet irresistible - parody of Bruce Springsteen). All three bands feature incredibly insightful songwriting, which more than makes up for their occasional forays into pure shlock.

 

The Cure can get interesting. There was a discussion on that, and it seemed the majority of people were split between either Staring At the Sea compilation or Disintegration.

R.E.M. I think you can start with any album between Murmur and Document and see what you think.

Some other bands:
Love And Rockets
Peter Murphy
The The

 

I happened to be listening to this when the thread came along -

Lowlife, Given to Dreaming:

 

This is the 7" version, which omits a few bars in the first bridge that belong in, but it's still great:

Icicle Works, Hollow Horse:

 

One of my obscure (and rather lo-fi) favourites:

Last Party, Mr. Hurst:

 

Not much of an 80s guy, but I did enjoy The Fixx. Great, underrated band.
Both 'Shuttered Room' and 'Reach The Beach' are fantastic records.

 

Throwing Muses, Hate My Way:

 

R.E.M.’s 80’s albums are all amazing! IMHO they put out the strongest, most consistently wonderful albums of any of that decades acts. Second would be The Smiths, and The Talking Heads perhaps.....

 

This is a great album.