In the mid-80s, new wave, the subgenre that combined fun pop hooks with synth sounds, took over the charts. Here are a few songs from this era that we still blast today.
“Take On Me” by A-ha
“Take On Me” was the song that made a-ha a household name and also one of the first to really establish the new wave sound.
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When “Take On Me” was merely a concept of a song, the group had just moved to London from Norway and was struggling to make enough money just to eat. From the get-go, though, it seemed like the song had strong potential. Lead singer Morten Harket told The Guardian:
“We’d already written ‘Take on Me’ but hadn’t recorded it. Paul had first played it to me in his parents’ house, down in the basement. He had a crappy old nylon-stringed guitar with hippy paintings on it and he strummed the chords with Magne playing the riff on piano. The moment I heard it, I knew it was the one that would break the whole thing open.”
“Don’t You Want Me” by The Human League
In many ways, “Don’t You Want Me” was ahead of its time sonically. This was the first song to be made with an LM-1 drum machine, which actually used real drums instead of sampled sounds.
Lead singer Phil Oakley explained to NME that with this song, the magic is in its simplicity. “The key to that song is that we didn’t spoil it, I think,” he said. “With most songs you think of a couple of nice tunes and some words and then you start working and you work until they’re not very good. We happened to stop before, stop while it was still all right. So in a strange way, it sounds complicated but it’s a pretty simple sort of song.”
“Everybody Wants To Rule The World” by Tears For Fears
Released in 1985, “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” is easily one of the most memorable songs from this decade. This song, like “Don’t You Want Me” was also ahead of its time, especially because a ton of MIDI sequencing was used in the production. At the time, this was pretty new technology.
Thematically, the song is also pretty bold. Originally, it was actually titled “Everybody Wants To Go To War”, if you can imagine.
Photo by: Dave Hogan/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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