The 1980s were really the era of cassette tapes. Music-lovers, young and old, at the very least had a cassette player in their car. The luckier ones had a portable tape player or boombox that made it possible to bring music on the go. It was a revolutionary time for portable music, one that paved the way for CDs, mp3s, and streaming. Let’s look at just a few songs that you probably listened to via cassette tapes if you were a 1980s kid.
“Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds
This new wave pop-rock jam might just be one of the most famous songs of the 1980s. Not only is this song a vital part of the famous film The Breakfast Club, but it’s also just an all-around beautifully written piece of work. “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds is a bona fide 1980s anthem, and it hit No. 1 in the US and Canada upon its release in 1985. I bet if you were a kid in the 1980s, you owned this jam on cassette and listened to it until it no longer worked.
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“Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses
The 1980s were a fantastic time for hard rock and glam metal. And Guns N’ Roses was one of the biggest bands to fit into either genre in the late 1980s. In 1988, the band dropped “Sweet Child O’ Mine” as a single, following the massive success of the 1987 album, Appetite For Destruction. This song just sounds like the 1980s. And more than a few young metalheads had this song on cassette tape at the tail end of the decade.
“Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie
Maybe I’m biased here, because I love both Queen and David Bowie quite a bit. However, I really do think this was one of the best collaborations of the 1980s. A ton of fans flocked in droves to buy this gem via cassette tapes. “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie is a gorgeous dance-rock tune with a solid message, particularly at the end of the song. It was a hefty hit, too, hitting No. 1 on the UK Singles chart and the Top 10 in quite a few countries worldwide.
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