Celebrities such as Madonna, Whitney Houston and Prince became global superstars, experiencing a level of fame unseen since the Beatles and Elvis Presley.
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New wave bands such as Depeche Mode, Spandau Ballet, Billy Idol, Blondie, Culture Club, Duran Duran, Soft Cell and the Bangles successfully made the crossover from the indie scene to the mainstream charts.
The heavy metal market was still thriving, with the likes of Van Halen, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, Guns 'n' Roses, Iron Maiden, Aerosmith and Def Leppard having a massive following.
In the late '80s, hip hop, rap and house spawned a new breed of superstars such as Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Grandmaster Flash, Ice-T, NWA, Kurtis Blow, Frankie Knuckles and many more.
It was the decade when music, fashion, image, music videos and popular culture combined to create some of the biggest hits of the 20th century. In an era before CDs were around, vinyl records and cassette tapes were the medium to play music.
Every car was fitted with a cassette player and music fans would tape their favourite tunes off the radio, or clamour to buy the latest 12-inch singles. It was an exciting time for young people, fashionistas and music lovers.
Today, many 1980s records have stood the test of time and still receive radio airplay. You may even have a best-selling single in your collection and not know it!
- Do They Know It's Christmas
Written by Midge Ure and Bob Geldof to aid victims of the famine in Ethiopia; the charity single, Do They Know It's Christmas, by Band Aid, released in 1984, became the UK's biggest selling single of all time.
Released on 3rd December 1984, it was the Christmas number one. It had sold more than three million copies by 31st December 1984, displacing Wings' Mull of Kintyre as the biggest-selling single in history - a title it held until 1997. In 2012, it was voted the nation's sixth-favourite Christmas song of all time in a TV viewers' poll.
- Tainted Love
Soft Cell was a prime example of an indie band who crossed over into mainstream pop, topping the UK charts and recording the biggest selling single of 1981. The synth-pop duo of cloakroom attendant Marc Almond and ice-cream seller Dave Ball played the Northern Soul classic, Tainted Love, as part of their live set after meeting as students at Leeds Polytechnic.
They released it on the Some Bizzare label and after a memorable Top of the Pops performance, shot to the top of the charts, making them overnight stars. Part of the new wave sound, Tainted Love also became a major hit in the United States, spending a then record-breaking 43 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
- Come On Eileen
Dexy's Midnight Runners topped the UK charts in June 1982 with Come On Eileen, which also reached number one in the United States. After winning Best British Single at the Brit Awards, it was also voted the UK's sixth favourite 1980s number one hit in a public poll. It sold 1.33 million copies in the UK and was certified double platinum.
The unusual song features a Celtic-style fiddle, drums, bass guitar and piano. Founded in 1978 by lead vocalist Kevin Rowland, Dexy’s enjoyed massive success in the 1980s.
- Never Gonna Give You Up
Topping the UK singles chart in 1987 with Never Gonna Give You Up, Rick Astley's massive hit was written and produced by the famous song writing trio, Stock Aitken Waterman. As the first single from his debut album,it was a global hit, topping the UK chart for five weeks and reaching number one in an amazing 25 countries!
Accompanied by a video mostly recorded around Harrow in London, the track won Best British Single at the Brit Awards. The video was uploaded on YouTube on 24th October 2009 and to date has received more than one billion views.
- The Power of Love
Jennifer Rush's hit, The Power of Love, was the best-selling single of 1985. It topped the charts for five weeks in October 1985, selling 1.45 million copies in the UK after Rush performed live on Top of the Pops. The power ballad showed off the singer's operatic training and incredible range. It also topped the charts in Austria, Australia, Ireland, Norway, New Zealand, South Africa and Spain
The Power of Love is the singer's most famous hit single to date, in a year when The Goonies and Back to the Future came out at the cinema. It was said that she wrote the lyrics about her boyfriend at the time.
- Karma Chameleon
Culture Club's Karma Chameleon was the UK's biggest-selling single of 1983. Number one for six weeks, it sold 955,000 copies. It also topped the US chart for three weeks.
Culture Club's colourful vocalist Boy George, alias George O'Dowd, said the song was about people's fear of alienation.
He said after he wrote the song, the rest of the band weren't keen on recording it, because they thought it sounded too much like a country song. Luckily, Boy George ignored their doubts and was proved right.
Karma Chameleon won Best British Single at the Brit Awards. Culture Club even performed it in an episode of TV action series, The A-Team, in 1986.
Biggest 1980s album
Michael Jackson's sixth studio album, Thriller, has been omnipresent since its release 40 years ago in 1982. While the Jackson Five topped the charts in the 1970s, Michael Jackson's solo career took off in a big way a decade later.
Consisting of nine of Jackson’s songs; Thriller is the best-selling album of all time, selling around 70 million copies worldwide. It has been certified an unprecedented 34-times platinum.
Apparently, Jackson wanted to create an album where "every song was a killer", moving in a new musical direction by mixing pop, funk, rock and R&B.
Is vinyl making a comeback?
In the 1970s and '80s, vinyl records were at their peak. In the ensuing half a century, cassette tapes came and went. Then CDs came out, followed by MP3 players and mobile phones as a means of listening to music on the go.
In 2020, it was the first time since the heyday of vinyl that record sales surpassed CD sales. Could vinyl records be making a comeback? The answer appears to be yes. Surveys show CD sales have dropped significantly in recent years, while vinyl records are on the increase.
Records are on many supermarket shelves these days alongside the CDs - and it's not just consumers on a nostalgia trip who are buying them. Research shows millennials are driving vinyl sales.
Record player sales have also increased recently, although many are the new hybrid breed comprising a record player with a Bluetooth speaker that can stream music, as well as play your classic 33 and 45 rpm records.
Valuable records
If you're a collector who has saved your old records from the 1980s, look after them carefully. One of the pitfalls of vinyl is that it's prone to scratching.
If you have mint condition records, some may be valuable now. For example, the rare Columbian issue of the 1983 Iron Maiden album, Piece Of Mind, in blue vinyl, is worth £2,000!