Post by Dr. T is an alien on Dec 6, 2020 15:15:38 GMT -5
For me, the hard part is picking the fourth spot.
1) Obviously Michael Jackson has a spot. Even if Thriller was all he did in the 80's you could argue he deserved a spot, but he obviously did a lot of classic work throughout the decade.
2) You can say the same for Prince. The Purple Rain soundtrack is enough to get him consideration, but he so, so, so much more. In fact, his work was probably superior to Michael's, but when you say 80's superstar you first think MJ.
3) Madonna would be the 3rd choice, but unlike the other two it is due to constantly being at the forefront of pop culture for most of the decade. Like A Virgin leaves an impression, don't get me wrong, but it does not have quite the impact of the other two examples I gave. However, Madonna demonstrated a tremendous ability to show flexibility, courage, and willingness to change with the times in a way that actually allowed her to guide the times.
4) Bruce Springsteen - This was the hardest choice, but having grown up in the times I cannot understate just what kind of cultural impact Born in the USA had, even if a whole lot of people (including the Ronald Reagan re-election campaign) did not actually get the meaning of the title track. Sure, he only released 3 new albums in the decade after releasing an absolute landslide of albums earlier in his career, but I'd say between Born in the USA and Tunnel of Love he did plenty.
Some notables that I considered for that 4th spot:
Bon Jovi
Hall and Oates (I really almost went with them instead, tbh)
Phil Collins (if all of his work was either as a solo artist or as part of Genesis I might have given him/them more consideration)
Barry Gibb (dude basically just started writing and recording a ton of hits for other people when the disco backlash derailed the career path of the Bee Gees, proving that he had what it took to be a hit maker throughout the decade even if he was unfairly ignored because he just happened to be the most successful star of a brand of music that got too saturated).
He absolutely gets in for the 70's, both as an artist and a songwriter (he is the only guy to have written 5 songs that were simultaneously in the Top 10 and have 4 separate songs replace one another as the #1 song on the charts). Still, he wrote, recorded, and produced a bunch of hits for a bunch of hits for other artists in the 80's,