New Wave/Progressive Music in the 80s

I love Depeche Mode and New Order's older singles and remixes. Depeche Mode and New Order still had good singles into the early 00s which is impressive.

The B-52's

The Pretenders, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, The Call, Tears For Fears, Simple Minds, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Police, The Fixx, Blondie, Joe Jackson

the Descendants, Husker Du, Cristina

violent femmes

The Smiths, Morrissey (solo), New Order, Blondie,.

New Order’s Music Complete from a few years ago is my favorite by them!

The English Beat

R7 I was just typing TEB. Damn. Let me add Eurythmics, Simple Minds and Flock of Seagulls. AFOS I know but I think they get a bad rap and I love their stuff.

I should have added Oingo Boingo to The English Beat.

Much of what others have posted: The Smiths, New Order, Style Council, English Beat, Psych Furs, Echo and the Bunnymen, Cocteau Twins, Prefab Sprout, Bananarama, Blancmange, ABC, Scritti Politti, OMD, The Cure, Pet Shop Boys, Thomas Dolby

I have to add Erasure to what's here.

I love Depeche Mode. Fantastic live show. Otherwise, I was really into the music -- but didn't care for the groups in that modern/new wave movement and really couldn't stand their fans.

Yazoo (Yaz in the US), Landscape, Teardrop Explodes, The Human League, OMD, Propaganda, Etienne Daho, Jeanne Mas, Talk Talk, The Buggles

The music back then with amazing! I feel sorry for the kids that came after us… Even just 8 to 9 years later the music was crap! The late 90s was all about diva worship and boy bands.

Heaven 17 (originally the other half of The Human League)

Heaven 17...

Laurie Anderson, Depeche Mode. Where would Devo fall? 70s or 80s?

Heaven 17 produced, arranged and played this classic for Tina Turner. Her first Top 40 but as a solo artist .

Don't forget The Replacements - a band full of guys who were so messed up they make most of my exes look only slightly loonie.

Fun Boy Three. Never caught on in the US. I can never decide if I like their version of "Our Lips Are Sealed" better than the Go Gos.

The Motels

The Smiths, The Cure, New Order, The Damned, Bauhaus, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Sugarcubes, Violent Femmes, DEVO

I forgot about Yaz! What about ABC's Lexicon of Love!?

R23 love yaz!

R20 And Terry Hall was not just in Fun Boy Three but The Specials before that and Colourfield after.

Started off with the Cure as my favorite but slightly migrated to Depeche Mode. Then it was New Order. Also loved Cocteau Twins, Jesus and Mary Chain and Smiths. Late 80's into early 90's, Pixies, Saint Etienne, Stones Roses, Happy Mondays and Ride.

Love 80's Pet Shop Boys but didn't really appreciate them until the mid-late 90's retroactively. I think their music has aged the best.

Regret Echo and the Bunnymen, liked them late in their career (original 4) but they broke up just as I was getting into concerts. I never saw them live. Saw Ian McCulloch solo and the Bunnymen recently. Wished I had gotten into them earlier in the 80's when they were in their heyday. They're currently the only 80's band I listen to. Loved their album covers.

Funny I never liked Siouxie during the 80's but love her now. Squeeze is another group I like now more than I did back in the day.

Squeeze and Oingo Boingo both had great singers, but the UGLIEST album covers.

Blondie always had great album covers, sleek and cool and timeless.

The Sundays, Dead Can Dance, Hunters and Collectors, Yello, Everything But the Girl.

I love Everything But The Girl. I don't think they are 80s new wave/modern rock. They didn't do danceable music until the late 90s.

Still listen to and love this music. Remarkable how much of it holds up very well.

The Police, Duran Duran, The Cure, Inxs.

R19 The 'Mats - still one of the greatest under-appreciated, forgotten bands in rock history. I still want Swinging Party played at my funeral, a lovely, deeply felt song about joint suicide.

Other bands not listed here: Concrete Blonde (Joey!), Midnight Oil, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, XTC, Soft Cell, The Church

Blue bands: The Blue Nile, Blue Aeroplanes, Blue Rodeo

Love with version

Not an Aztec Camera fan but loved their single "Oblivious".

Here's Roddy Frame backing Ian McCulloch during a brief promo trip in Spain. Frame said they were drunk the entire time.

Joy Division’s ‘Closer’ reissued and remastered to mark 40th anniversary:

Thompson Twins you fat whores!

Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Depeche Mode, New Order, Yazoo, (some) Erasure (their 1995 album is their best), PSB, The Smiths (though I've really soured on Moz, can't stand that cunt anymore)

My cat loves them all.

Amazing this music takes me back. The music now is so horrible… I can’t imagine being in my teens or 20s listening to the garbage that’s out now.

Bronski Beat - Age of Consent 80s Sparks!!!!

I love almost all the groups listed. Depeche Mode are my #1 of all time. I bought tickets for PSB/New Order this fall, but I suppose they will cancel the tour...sigh.

Other favorites not mentioned thus far: Associates, Fields of the Nephilim, Alphaville

[quote]I bought tickets for PSB/New Order this fall, but I suppose they will cancel the tour...sigh.

I did too -- pit tix so we can dance on the floor all night. They just announced all dates are being rescheduled for Fall 2021. I don't know how I'll survive until then.

Also love a-ha (probably my favorite "80s band" even though they're still very much active) and have tickets to see them in LA in September. Prepared to postpone that trip too :-(

I loved Pixies so much. I was born a bit too late to catch them in concert pre-breakup, but I did finally see them in Victoria, BC in a curling rink of all places when they did their first reunion tour whatever year that was, 2007? It was a great show, for an encore they did the slow version of Wave of Mutilation, made my year. New Order, Depeche Mode, the usual suspects, loved them too, but Pixies were my #1. They were a huge inspiration for Kurt Cobain, too. There's a decent doco about them called loudQUIETloud. Hard to describe the niche they occupy in my imagination to this day, they're somehow to me the essence of a certain American suburban middle class *occult* undercurrent of the 80s and 90s that I found and still find fascinating. Interesting to think about what cultural forces came together to produce a songwriter like Frank Black and a band like Pixies.

Holy crap the Pixies reunion was 2004, feels like yesterday. Time, holy fucking hell does it fly.

Yaz - Upstairs at Eric’s

Plasmatics - Maggots: The Record

Great concept album. For our moment. Fake horror movie soundtrack with skits!

This is the first track.

R46 one of fav albums

Christian Death, G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies, and Anal Cunt.

This was also the last era vinyl was the norm.

Also was the last era album cover art was taken more seriously. Album covers were big, like a small work of art you might hang on a wall, and with less media all around... maybe all you had to look at while you listened to the record!

Also I think of devotion to labels in this decade (if you were into 'alternative and indie' rock and pop). If you liked Cocteau Twins you began to pay attention to all the bands on 4AD. If you liked Joy Division you began to follow other bands on Factory records. Same with ZZT, SST, Some Bizarre, Industrial Records, and later Wax Trax and Netwerk labels. Each label had a "look" (often dictating what their bands' album covers would look like), and attracted similar-sounding artists. And fans picked up on this.

*ZTT, not ZZT