10 Modern Songs That Sound Like The 1980s

Amazing, strange, and often groundbreaking are described for the 1980s era, not only limited the music itself. Owing to an array of one-hit wonders who overstuffed their tunes with synthesisers, many people dismissed this music. But fans who grew up secretly loving this songs should stop being embarrassed. Critics are starting to praise their achievements they once dismissed. A new era, what after 2010 would be defined as "modern" saw a number of artists embracing those sounds, emulating them the same way the '80s musicians repurposed '60s rock and '70s punk. Here are the ones considered the best that borrowed the tunes from the synth pop age.

10. Walk the Moon, "Shut Up and Dance"

The quartets 2014 hit opens with a riff familiar with U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name". Singer Nick Petricca wrote the song after a night out at a club with his girlfriend, later citing Pat Benatar, the Cars, and Rick Springfield as influences. "The '80s and some of the '90s was a time when weird was celebrated," he later said.


9. Lady Gaga, "Perfect Illusion"

Gaga's "Perfect Illusion" is the electro essential from her latest album, Joanne. While other records tend to be based in country folk and roots rock, the LP's lead single could easily have appeared in her 2008 album The Fame, which was more of an electro-pop. Gaga's layered, vibrato-rich vocals gives this track shades of peak Pat Benatar and the Heart.


8. Tame Impala, "The Less I Know the Better"

Tame Impala's Kevin Parker is no stranger to leveraging his talents to pay tribute to the past. The Aussie's third album, 2015's Currents, saw Tame Impala find inspiration in a new decade, with Parker describing it as his attempt to "convince a few die-hard rock fans that '80s synths can fit over a '70s drum beat. "The Less I Know the Better" uses that formula to great effect, resulting in a track that infuses retro influences that travels across time.


7. The 1975, "Somebody Else"

Their name might be 1975, but this band's latest album is all about the '80s. "Somebody Else" has a slow-burning sensuality and suspense of a song like Tangerine Dream's "Love on a Dream," but also the control of a Tears for Fears fever dream.


6. Drake, "Hold on We're Going Home"

The Toronto rapper's third album Nothing Was the Same harks back to '80s R&B with no filter at all. With its relaxing rhythm, smooth melodies, and utterly moving lyrics, the track leaves the status-anxious space Drake typically inhabits and settles in a world where the love between two people that counts.


5. Mark Ronson, "Uptown Funk ft. Bruno Mars"

Bruno Mars' powerful vocals fuel the funk-filled pop jam, and the song speaks to influences both from the '70s and'80s, especially the "Minneapolis Sound" of Prince and the Time. Like their greatest tracks, "Uptown" has both vintage and futuristic vibes.


4. Taylor Swift, "New Romantics"

Tay Tay transitioned from country to full pop with her album 1989 in 2014. "New Romantics" is one of the faster-paced tracks on the record, featuring her sharp-tongued lyrics about romantic outcasts, à la The Breakfast Club. Originally intended as a bonus track, it became the album's final single, after getting more attention.


3. Sky Ferreira, "Everything Is Embarrassing"

"Everything Is Embarrassing" is straight out of a prom scene. The track is dance pop at its finest, and Ferreira couples the anthem grunge with sensual lyrics. It's a standout from her 2012 Ghost EP, boosted by its Joan Jett-like swagger, just with more keyboards instead of guitars.


2. Carly Rae Jepsen, "Run Away With Me"

This is a record that borrows heavily from the decade best known for twinkling synth sounds and booming drums. For Jepsen, the trip back time works. With an '80s flair, provided by a beat from Swedish super-producer Shellback, her sincere proclamations and anthemic choruses are injected with a throwback sensation.


1. M83, "Midnight City"

The epitome of 80s music. Anthony Gonzalez's vocals soar hazily and the main riff sparks. Then, the saxophone solo from James King of Fitz and the Tantrums are heard, transporting 25 years back in time.

My Folk's Love Story

I developed my interest in 80s music because of the special relationship I have with my father. He is a quiet man who keeps things to himself. It is so hard to make him speak or to even try to bring words out from him. He hardly speaks about the past or how he was when he was young. I can only get to know him from second resources such as my mom, my grandmother, or his friends. Conversations with him do not usually last long. He would only ask me how my grades were, how was school, and that is it. Shy, reserved, and traditional. 

Sometimes I am embarrassed with how he behaves in front of my friends. If he attends to events in my school, he would sit in a corner and not speak to any parents there. If we bumped into his friends in our outings he would cover his head to hide from them or just waited to be greeted. Strange, but that is my dad. 


When I was 11, he moved out of our house to work at the border of Singapore and Malaysia. I could only see him on school holidays where I have to go all the way there to see him. The journey took approximately 4 hours to reach his place, and those gaps were the time when I started shelling out of the common interest I have with the society which is the contemporary music. I started realizing that there was more music offered beyond the radio that I always listened to. 


That was the pinpoint on how I developed my interest in 80s music. Dad had playlists in every car we had, and some of those songs I hear up till today reminds me of him, because these are the songs that connected us, like Bluetooth. We still have that awkward relationship even as father and son, but listening to his jam tells me that there is a fun side of him deep inside. Here are some of his songs that becomes my favourite songs too.

Air Supply – Making Love Out of Nothing at All

Released in July 1983, this power ballad was written by Jimmy Steinman, who also wrote “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. At that time pop music had already beginning to slowly materialize woman. Lyrics often refer to the things most guys want from a girl – sex. 

It is unfair for me to say that all 80s music are good. Some of them are meaningless too. Listen to Phil & Company – Tralala if you don’t believe me. Although the word “making love” is on the title, this song was about pure love that can be formed without having to take your clothes off. It is very pure and very deep, and that reflects the kind of person my father is, having to live separately from my mom because of work.


 If you watch the music video it starts with a man and a woman waving goodbye to each other, and you can watch the rest of it. My guess is that was what they were going through together and it hurts not seeing each other after living together for 20 years. His love towards my mom is so deep and that was where I learned how romantic he could be behind his kids. He is an amazing lover.

Who Knows A Rock Band Can Be So Political?

Combat Rock(1982). Photo by CBS

35 years ago, an English band The Clash released its fifth studio album Combat Rock. It was the group's best-selling album, being certified double platinum in the United States. It contained two of The Clash's most popular songs, the singles "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go", familiar to the millennials’s ears after revitalized by the Duffer Brothers in the hottest Netflix series of 2016, Stranger Things.

Biographer Pat Gilbert described many songs from this album as having a “trippy, foreboding feel”, just like any normal rock band would do. But there was one song that took a different turn in their music. The Clash used its influence to voice out on social injustices that happened in that era through the song "Straight to Hell": unemployment spanning generations, and abandonment of children in Vietnam fathered by American soldiers during the Vietnam War.

Following the footsteps of another famous rock band from the same era, Pink Floyd, who came up with songs “Another Brick in The Wall” which criticizes how children were taught in school, and “Us and Them” which also described social injustice, The Clash took us a tour of what happened in that time that the people should be paying attention of.

The first verse refers to the shutting down of steel mills in Northern England. Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, elected in 1979, sets out to cut British Steel’s losses at a time of overcapacity in the industry, rising energy prices and a deepening recession. 1980 begins with the first national strike by steel workers for more than 50 years, over pay and the threat of plant closures. A deal is eventually struck after nearly 14 weeks, but in May the government appoints Ian MacGregor as British Steel chairman to drive through its savage rationalisation programme and by the end of the year Consett, Corby and Shotton steelworks have closed, with the loss of more than 20,000 jobs. As a result of capitalism, total employment in the industry almost halves between 1979 and 1981, from 156,600 to 88,200.

The second verse expressed their political view about the Vietnam War that happened the previous decade when this song was released. The War was protested by many, with the like of Muhammad Ali, who also refused to join the military and focused on the racial injustice in America at that time.

The Clash’s motif was the impact and aftermath of the Vietnam War. Children fathered by American soldiers to Vietnamese mothers and then abandoned. The “Amerasian” children were left, and would spent their whole lives with identity crisis (“Lemme tell ya ‘bout your blood bamboo kid, it’s not Coca-Cola it’s rice”).

“Social justice is a concept of fair and just relations between the individual and society. This is measured by the explicit and tacit terms for the distribution of wealth, opportunities for personal activity and social privileges. In the current global grassroots movements for social justice, the emphasis has been on the breaking of barriers for social mobility, the creation of safety nets and economic justice” (Clark, Mary T., 2015).  “Straight to Hell” was thrown to the groups responsible towards the social injustices created because of their irresponsibility and abuse of power.

“Social justice assigns rights and duties in the institutions of society, which enables people to receive the basic benefits and burdens of cooperation. The relevant institutions often include regulation of markets, to ensure fair distribution of wealth, and equal opportunity” (Rawls,1971). The Clash made a point that some people still would not understand the meaning although it is generally accepted by many. Some people just would not think of the massive consequences with the actions they had made.

Wanna Be Starting Something

If you ask me what was my highlight of 2009, it would not be me graduating from elementary school, or the infamous Kanye West incident at the MTV VMAs. It would be the death of the ‘King of Pop’ Michael Jackson which was a shock for many, and life changing for mine. Sometimes you can still learn from someone even after their death if you pay more attention. Like any others, I could only see him as the Billie Jean, Beat It, and Thriller singer with a controversy of changing skin color in his career. But his death put a single trudge on me to go deeper into his music and less focus on the spotlight the media gave him in his career. What I found had a deep impact on me and my music preference until today, and also became the idea of me in setting up this blog: 80s music artists. Top 10s, favorite artists, or just a pick of the week and a story behind the chosen song will become the basis of my passion blog.

I was just one of those people who formerly knew him as the man behind the 3 smashing hits from the album Thriller. I started knowing him when the Sony Music celebrated the 25th anniversary of that hit album which was in 2008. A year later, the world was shocked with his death: I never took any interest primarily because I thought everyone dies in the end. But when I got home, I still remember vividly, even channels not related to music interrupted their program to bring this news. "Michael Jackson passed away at the age of 50 from cardiac arrest". 

For weeks(or maybe months), radios, televisions were all repeating his songs. Charts were made especially for his songs only. CD stores in Kuala Lumpur made into the headlines, reportedly due to his albums selling out in a matter of 2 days, from the latest to his Jackson 5 days when he was just a lovely little child. I could not help in expressing my curiosity, so I followed my father to a supermarket and bought his 'Dangerous' video album, as well as his concert in Bucarest in 1992 which recorded the most attendance, and all sorts of top 10s and documentaries about his greatness.

The twelve year old me gave one chance only for myself to have a listen because I was superstitious in hearing a dead person's voice, fearing it might haunt me in my sleep. So, I installed the CD in the car for one song only, and the rest is history. I thank my father for introducing good music that is hard to find nowadays, or maybe I was not looking in the right direction, but MJ's music was just the beginning of many good music I found, and the further I look behind, the more it is from the legacy left behind by famous names such as Daryl Hall & John Oates, Kenny Rogers, Paul Young, and many more. Biggest credit goes to the late King of Pop. Your soul is still among us, and I commemorate you every 25th June and 29th August.

To kick off this week’s topic, let’s look at 10 Michael Jackson songs you may or may not know, and I will list my top 10 underrated Michael Jackson's songs.

10. Wanna Be Starting Something

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Title of this blog goes to this song. From the album Thriller in 1982, this is one of the songs I wish could go as famous as the 3 mentioned before. Probably underrated because there is no music video to further promote this song.

9. Dirty Diana

From the album Bad in 1989, this song is pretty great with the use of guitar as the main music. MJ can sing more than just pop. He sounded like a rock star here, except he did not look like one. Pretty emotional song.


8. P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)

A feel good song to listen to if you are on a ride. Pretty fun to sing along with.


7. Dangerous

Song title taken from the album. This was the first of MJ's album I bought, along with others to come. Though not my favourite from the album, but the music is good. Apple to the ears.

6. Gone Too Soon

At this time he was known to be friends with Macauly Culkin (Home Alone) and was also known to be very friendly with kids until he was accused as a child molester. I never agree a single bit about that claim, but this touching song was for a friend of his, Ryan White who died at a very young age from AIDS. Love the piano tune from this. Might make you cry because there is pathos overload in this.


5. Stranger in Moscow

I can barely recognise him in this video. In fact I was afraid to just look at this version of him when I was way younger. What happened to his face? Nevertheless, he still had the touch of masterpiece at that moment, but this had already passed the peak of his career.


4. Who Is It

One of the songs in Dangerous. So much hiccups in it which he always got criticised about, but this showed a different side of MJ than we usually know. A more personal side of him.


3. Jam

If you're a basketball fan, check this out! You may miss one of the greatest moment of entertainment at this decade: MJ meets MJ. Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan together in the music video. Apparently, this song is about basketball so that's why Jordan is featured. Real recognises real.

2. Human Nature

A song I would listen on lonely nights or if I have a bittersweet feeling about a memory. Covered by Chris Brown in "She Ain't You". Advocating for the original, this one will remain the best version of the song itself.


1. Give In to Me





Another song that shows a different side of MJ. You will see a lot of this in his album Dangerous and I would recommend that album too if you want to find about more about MJ's music. Also my mum's favourite, that's why it belongs to number one on this list.