80s Music Icons: The 14 Artists Who Owned the Decade
MTV signed on August 1, 1981, and the rules of being famous changed inside a year. Suddenly you did not just have to sound like a star. You had to look like one for three and a half minutes, in heavy rotation, in somebody’s living room. The artists below did not survive that change. They ran it.
The 80s music icons who defined the decade are Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Whitney Houston, George Michael, Cyndi Lauper, Duran Duran, Tina Turner, Phil Collins, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, U2, Janet Jackson and Run-DMC. Everybody has a list. What separates these fourteen is that the charts back it up, so that is how we are telling it: peaks, weeks at number one, and the exact moment each one took over.
1. Michael Jackson
The numbers still look like a typo. Thriller entered the album chart on December 25, 1982, went to number one, and stayed there for 37 weeks. It has logged 726 weeks on the chart. Billie Jean held the top of the Hot 100 for seven weeks in the spring of 1983, Beat It took another three right behind it, and the title track, the one with the video that ate the decade, only ever got to number 4. Then he did the harder thing: he followed it. Bad went to number one for six weeks and threw off five Hot 100 chart-toppers, I Just Can’t Stop Loving You, Bad, The Way You Make Me Feel, Man In The Mirror and Dirty Diana, running from September 1987 clear through July 1988. Nobody has ever had a two-album stretch quite like it. Our full Michael Jackson in the 80s story goes deeper on the run.
2. Madonna
Seven number one singles inside the decade: Like A Virgin, Crazy For You, Live To Tell, Papa Don’t Preach, Open Your Heart, Who’s That Girl and Like A Prayer. Like A Virgin sat on top for six weeks over the winter of 1984 and the album did three weeks at number one behind it. Here is the part people forget: Material Girl, the song her whole image got welded to, never reached number one. It stalled at number 2. She kept climbing anyway. True Blue took five weeks at the top in 1986, Like A Prayer took six in 1989, and the decade ended with her a bigger act than she started it. More on the reinvention machine in our Madonna in the 80s piece.
3. Prince
The single most dominant album run of the decade belongs to a soundtrack. Purple Rain hit number one and stayed for 24 straight weeks in 1984, 177 weeks on the chart all told. When Doves Cry topped the Hot 100 for five weeks, Let’s Go Crazy for two more, and the title ballad peaked at number 2. Two years later Kiss put him back on top. In 1989 he did it again from a different direction entirely, scoring Tim Burton’s Batman: the soundtrack went number one for six weeks and Batdance became a Hot 100 chart-topper, which is a genuinely strange sentence about a genuinely strange record. Read the whole story in our Purple Rain feature.
4. Whitney Houston
The most efficient chart assault of the 80s. Her self-titled debut spent 14 weeks at number one and 176 weeks on the album chart. Then came the run: Saving All My Love For You in October 1985, How Will I Know in February 1986, Greatest Love Of All that May, I Wanna Dance With Somebody in June 1987, Didn’t We Almost Have It All that September, So Emotional in January 1988, Where Do Broken Hearts Go that April. Seven number one singles back to back, with nothing in between that missed. The follow-up album, Whitney, took eleven weeks at the top. Our Whitney Houston in the 80s story has the rest.
5. George Michael
Two careers, one decade, both enormous. Wham! put three number ones on the board in seven months: Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go in November 1984, Careless Whisper that February, Everything She Wants in May 1985. Then he walked away from the biggest pop group in the world to prove a point, and Faith proved it. The title track went number one for four weeks, and Father Figure, One More Try and Monkey all followed it to the top through 1988. He also sang a Hot 100 number one with Aretha Franklin, I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me), in April 1987. See George Michael and Wham! for the full arc.
6. Cyndi Lauper
She is remembered as the fun one, which sells her badly short. Girls Just Want To Have Fun peaked at number 2 and Time After Time, the ballad she is still covered for, went to number one for two weeks in June 1984. She Bop got to 3, All Through The Night to 5, and True Colors returned her to number one in October 1986. And the one that always gets the biggest reaction in a room: her Goonies theme, The Goonies `R’ Good Enough, made the top ten, peaking at number 10 in July 1985. If that is your entry point, meet the crew in our Goonies characters guide. Her decade is covered in Cyndi Lauper in the 80s.
7. Duran Duran
The band that understood the video age fastest. The Reflex went number one for two weeks in June 1984, and A View To A Kill took a James Bond theme to the top of the Hot 100 for two more in July 1985. The Wild Boys peaked at 2, Hungry Like The Wolf at 3. The surprise in the ledger: Rio, the song with the yacht, the sax and the single most 80s video ever committed to tape, only reached number 14. Legacy does not always follow the chart. More in our Duran Duran in the 80s feature.
8. Tina Turner
The greatest second act in the decade, and it started small. Let’s Stay Together crept to number 26 in early 1984 after years away. Then What’s Love Got To Do With It went to number one for three weeks that September and hung around the Hot 100 for 28 weeks. Better Be Good To Me hit 5, Private Dancer hit 7, and We Don’t Need Another Hero, out of Thunderdome, reached number 2 in 1985. She was 44 when What’s Love topped the chart and she outworked everyone half her age.
9. Phil Collins
Quietly, the most inescapable man of the decade. Seven Hot 100 number ones with 80s peak dates: Against All Odds in 1984, One More Night and Sussudio in 1985, Separate Lives with Marilyn Martin that November, Groovy Kind Of Love in 1988, Two Hearts in 1989, and Another Day In Paradise closing the decade with four weeks on top in December 1989. Easy Lover, with Philip Bailey, got to 2. And the drum fill everybody on earth can hum? In The Air Tonight peaked at number 19. Our Phil Collins in the 80s piece has more.
10. Bon Jovi
New Jersey’s finest turned a third album into a career. Slippery When Wet went to number one for eight weeks in 1986 and spent 118 weeks on the chart. You Give Love A Bad Name topped the Hot 100 that November and Livin’ On A Prayer took four weeks at number one in February 1987, which is the exact moment a hard rock band became a household act. Wanted Dead Or Alive, somehow, only reached 7. New Jersey repeated the trick in 1988, four weeks at number one, with Bad Medicine and I’ll Be There For You both going all the way. See Bon Jovi in the 80s.
11. Def Leppard
The most patient hit record of the decade. Hysteria entered the album chart in August 1987 and did not reach number one until July 23, 1988, roughly eleven months later, then held for six weeks. Records simply do not climb like that anymore. Love Bites gave them a Hot 100 number one that October, Pour Some Sugar On Me peaked at 2, and the album that made them possible, Pyromania, had already reached number 2 back in 1983. They sit at the top of a very crowded era, which we sort out in our top 80s hair bands rundown and in Def Leppard in the 80s.
12. U2
They spent the first half of the decade as critics’ darlings with modest chart returns. New Year’s Day stopped at 53. (Pride) In The Name Of Love stopped at 33. Then The Joshua Tree arrived in 1987 and went to number one for nine weeks, With Or Without You topped the Hot 100 for three and I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For for two more. Where The Streets Have No Name, the song that opens the album and a fixture of their live show ever since, peaked at number 13. Rattle And Hum followed it to number one for six weeks in 1988.
13. Janet Jackson
She did not inherit anything. Control in 1986 announced a completely separate career: What Have You Done For Me Lately to 4, Nasty to 3, When I Think Of You to number one that October, Control to 5, Let’s Wait Awhile to 2. Then Rhythm Nation 1814 went bigger. Miss You Much held number one for four weeks in October 1989, Rhythm Nation reached 2, and Escapade, Black Cat and Love Will Never Do (Without You) all hit number one as the decade turned. Five singles into the 80s and she was nobody’s little sister.
14. Run-DMC
The entry that changed what came next. Walk This Way, cut with Aerosmith in 1986, reached number 4 on the Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for 16 weeks. You Be Illin’ followed to 29 and It’s Tricky to 57. The chart numbers are the smallest on this list and the influence is arguably the largest, because everything about how the next thirty years of American pop sounds runs back through that record.
Remember when you had to sit through an hour of videos you did not care about, finger on the tape deck, waiting for the one you did? That is the whole decade in one sentence. Nobody could summon a song. You had to wait for it, and the waiting is why you still know every word.
Why the 80s still owns the music conversation
Because it was the last decade with a shared middle. There were only so many channels, only so many stations, and one Friday night countdown. A number one record in 1984 was a thing the entire country heard, whether you liked it or not, so Thriller and Purple Rain and Slippery When Wet did not just sell, they became common property. That is also why the summer of 1985 landed the way it did. Live Aid ran on Saturday, July 13, 1985, from two stadiums at once, Wembley in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, and for one afternoon nearly every act on this list, and the audience for all of them, were in the same place at the same time. You cannot manufacture that now. There is too much choice.
The honest bottom line
Chart numbers do not measure greatness, but they do measure reach, and the reach here is not close. Thriller at 37 weeks, Purple Rain at 24, Whitney’s seven in a row: those are not good years, those are records that a fragmented listening world is unlikely to produce again. The catch is that the same fragmentation also means the 80s gets graded on a curve. Rio at 14 and In The Air Tonight at 19 tell you the charts and memory keep separate books, and forty years on, memory is the one that actually decides who the icons are. Both books agree on these fourteen. That is the rare part.
FAQ
Who is the biggest music icon of the 1980s?
Michael Jackson, by the numbers. Thriller spent 37 weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 and has logged 726 weeks on the chart, and his follow-up Bad produced five Hot 100 number one singles.
How many number one singles did Whitney Houston have in the 80s?
She scored seven consecutive Billboard Hot 100 number ones between October 1985 and April 1988, starting with Saving All My Love For You and ending with Where Do Broken Hearts Go.
What was the biggest album of the 1980s?
By weeks at number one, Thriller at 37 weeks, followed by Prince’s Purple Rain at 24 weeks and Whitney Houston’s debut at 14 weeks.
Did Duran Duran ever have a number one song?
Two. The Reflex went to number one in June 1984 and their James Bond theme A View To A Kill did the same in July 1985.
How many number one hits did Phil Collins have in the 80s?
Seven Hot 100 number ones with 1980s peak dates, from Against All Odds in 1984 through Another Day In Paradise in December 1989.
Which 80s hard rock album took the longest to hit number one?
Def Leppard’s Hysteria entered the chart in August 1987 and did not reach number one until July 1988, then stayed there six weeks.
Was Run-DMC really an 80s icon?
Yes. Walk This Way with Aerosmith reached number 4 on the Hot 100 in 1986 and stayed on the chart for 16 weeks. The chart numbers are the smallest here; the influence is arguably the largest.
This music was the soundtrack of our own dance floor years, so picking these names was personal. Want the whole decade, not just the music? Start with our 80s pop culture icons countdown, or take the side door and see which songs came and went in a single summer in our 80s one hit wonders roundup.