80’s Pop Music

80’s pop music was great with the likes of Stevie Wonder and Lionel Richie making their mark. 30 years later both mentioned artists are still revered and played in pubs, clubs and on TV.

It clearly left it’s mark on the world influencing all kinds of things from fashion to blockbuster movies.

Music on Fashion

There’s a specially defined sense of fashion for 80’s music lovers, the perm, the spandex, the parachute pants were mostly influenced by the superstars that wore them.

With the likes of Whitney Houston and Madonna topping the charts its easy to see why women wanted to emulate such beautiful young women.

Looking back, 80’s pop music was an incredibly important aspect of that era. It powered industries and creativity all over the world. The likes of the fashion industry really benefitted from these sexy young performers wearing their brands.

It allowed people to really be themselves and express true individuality. Check out this gallery to see what I mean.

Male and female alike you can agree there’s a vast array of styles and colours to be seen. Each style different but known by the label “80’s fashion” Each one driven by the style of music they made.

5 Reasons why it was so important

1: Fun fun fun

There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that 80’s music was fun. It had a light air and a feel of positivity to it, people wanted to listen to it because it made them feel good. If you wanted a great party you would have (and still would) put some classic Wham! on.

It was looking to the future, it celebrated love and happiness. Plus something new and fresh was coming out every week to get your groove on to. It had the feeling that it was never going to go away.

2: Live Aid/Band Aid

Live Aid was started as a personal crusade by Bob Geldoff and Midge Ure after writing the song “Do They Know It’s Christmas” Helping to raise over £30 Million on the day they did in fact start something much greater.

These days we have all sorts of sporting events, comedy events, musical events inspired by this one day. Charities the world over and the people they were set up to help have all seen a benefit to the start of Live Aid.

3: Girls on Top

Chrissie Hynde, Bananarama, Siouxsie, Donna Summer, Belinda Carlisle, Carly Simon, The Pointer Sisters, Alison Moyet, Grace Jones, Sade, Bjork, The Bangles, Sheila E, Annie Lennox, Janet Jackson, Joan Jett, Salt-N-Pepa, Laurie Anderson, Whitney Houston, kd lang, Tina Turner, Bonnie Tyler, Gloria Estefan (!), Jane Siberry, Regina Belle, Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker, Teena Marie, Jill Jones, Lisa Stansfield, Cyndi Lauper, Wendy and Lisa, Tracey Thorn, Helen Terry, Chaka Khan, Kirsty MacColl, Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman, Julia Fordham, Tanita Tikaram, Madonna… You don’t have to be Camille Paglia to note that this was a great decade for strong, successful female musicians.

4:  Music Journalism

This great musical decade certainly got the journalism it deserved. Again, the roots were laid down in the NME/Sounds/Melody Maker punk years but writers such as Ian Penman, Mark Ellen, Paul Du Noyer, Ben Watson, Tom Hibbert, David Toop, David Hepworth, Mick Wall, Richard Cook and John Fordham flourished big-time and graced the great bastions of ’80s writing such as Smash Hits, Kerrang!, The Wire and Q. Sprinkle in some of the most outspoken, politicised and downright lairy musicians of all time and you have the ingredients for a brilliant decade of music journalism.

5. Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna?

They were almost exactly the same age but can all three really have hit their straps in the same decade? Ambassador, you are spoiling us…