In the 80s there were three: Prince, Michael Jackson and Madonna.

In 1984 Ms. Ciccone cemented her legacy with the release of “Like a Virgin”. Many a young lad had imprinted upon his mind the thought of what a ‘perfect bride’ should be.

Continually evolving and breaking new ground Madonna was a cultural tour de force in the 80’s.  Taken as a whole her music is the sound of the 80’s. We go deeper in our Madonna in the 80s profile.

We figured it would be too obvious if we put George #1.

Wham obviously had a tremendous impact on us as they did for millions of fans around the world.

With “Careless Whisper”, “Wham Rap” and “Freedom” they defined the upbeat 80’s sound.  Then with his release of “Faith” in 1987, superstardom was cemented.

George’s importance in the fabric of music is a little lost on the current generation, but those who grew up in the 80s know there is no one like George Michael.

When we lost him in 2016, we said our piece in our George Michael tribute. The full Wham-to-Faith run is in our George Michael story.

“I’ll be back!” Everybody knows who said that and he said it in the 80’s.

Ah-nold is nothing short of a rags-to-riches success story. Going toe to toe with Sly all throughout the 80’s with films like “Conan the Barbarian”, “Commando”, and “Predator”.

Who could forget the “Terminator”? He just keeps coming back. The ex-Governator put his stamp on the 80’s like no other..and we’re all better for it.

Now..”Get to the choppa!”

 

The 80s had exactly one King of Pop. Thriller (1982) is still the best-selling album ever made, and the night he unveiled the moonwalk on Motown 25 in 1983 is one of those where-were-you moments the decade specialized in. The red jacket, the glove, the zombies — every kid in America tried at least one of them. The whole Thriller-era arc is in our Michael Jackson in the 80s deep-dive.

“Purple Rain” was an album, a movie and an Oscar all in the same year (1984). Prince wrote, produced and played basically everything himself, then gave away hits to everybody else because he had too many. There were three names on the 80s music Mount Rushmore — Michael, Madonna, and this guy — and he might have been the most talented of the three. More on the purple one in our Purple Rain deep-dive.

We name-checked Alex P. Keaton in the intro for a reason. In the summer of 1985 Michael J. Fox had the #1 movie in America with “Back to the Future” while starring on one of the biggest shows on TV — nobody owned both screens at once like that. Marty McFly is the reason a whole generation still wants a hoverboard. We cover both sides of that year — Marty McFly and Family Ties — in their own stories.

The other half of the 80s action equation. Rocky III and IV, First Blood and Rambo II — Sly spent the whole decade trading box-office haymakers with Arnold, and the 80s were better for the rivalry. Adrian may have gotten the speeches, but Sly got the decade.

Pity the fool who leaves Mr. T off this list. Clubber Lang in Rocky III, B.A. Baracus on The A-Team, his own Saturday-morning cartoon AND his own cereal — the mohawk and the gold chains were on every screen and every shelf in America. That’s not a career, that’s a franchise. The van-and-mohawk years get their due in our A-Team story.

Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink — three years, three classics, one face of the 80s teen movie. John Hughes built his best films around her, and every high-school movie made since is still borrowing from the blueprint.

“She’s So Unusual” made her the first woman ever to pull four top-five hits off one album — “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “Time After Time” among them. She sang the Goonies theme, ran with the wrestling crowd when the WWF went mainstream, and out-weirded everyone in the most 80s way possible. If the decade had an official sound of pure fun, it was Cyndi. She’d fit right in with our top 80s hair bands on the big-hair front, too. Her full story is in our Cyndi Lauper profile.

Whatcha gonna do? Thunderlips in Rocky III got him in the door, WrestleMania (1985) made Hulkamania a national condition, and by the back half of the decade he was telling every kid in America to say their prayers and eat their vitamins. Wrestling existed before Hogan; the spectacle of the 80s version was his invention.

The icons of the 80s weren’t all people. The Rubik’s Cube humiliated an entire planet, Cabbage Patch Kids started actual riots in the toy aisles, and Garbage Pail Kids got trading cards banned from schools coast to coast.

Transformers and He-Man fought it out for the action-figure shelf, the Care Bears ran the plush division, and Teddy Ruxpin handled story time with a cassette deck in his back.

Then there was the tech: the Nintendo NES brought video games back from the dead after the 1983 crash, and the Sony Walkman put a soundtrack in every pocket. Each one of those gets its own story on the site.

Now obviously we barely scratched the surface. This was just the top few that we could completely agree on for our first post about these 80s pop culture icons.  This list is sure to get bigger as we expand upon it. It already has: Whitney Houston, Rick Astley, MacGyver, Magnum, P.I., Punky Brewster, Married… with Children, and Saturday morning cartoons all have their own stories now — and for proof the world never stopped agreeing with us, there’s our look back at ABC’s Greatest Hits with Arsenio Hall.

What do you think?  Let us know.

And if reading this flipped the nostalgia switch, that switch stays on over at the Awesome 80s Podcast episodes — same two guys, way more arguments.