From a musical sense, the 80s didn’t truly begin on January 1, 1980. It took a few years before the sounds of the 70s were mostly ushered out in favor of the music and artists that would define the new decade.
And how did we get to that point? You can point to these four songs as the ones that truly started to give the 80s its own musical identity.
“Cars” by Gary Numan
If you want to get technical about it, Gary Numan actually released “Cars” as a single in August 1979. But it didn’t find its footing on American soil until 1980, as if it were waiting for the new decade to make its mark. Numan, both as a member of Tubeway Army and then as a solo act, proudly wore the fact that he wasn’t a guitar-playing rocker on his sleeve. Instead, he built his music via a passel of synthesizers, which were then starting to become more affordable and manageable. Numan’s icy vocal on this track plays into the robotic effect. The fact that “Cars” did so well in America indicated that audiences were ready to try something inorganic and futuristic.
“Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes
How ironic that one of the songs that helped the 80s separate from the decade before it was a cover of a 70s song. Jackie DeShannon co-wrote and first performed “Bette Davis Eyes” in 1974. Kim Carnes started circling the song in the late 70s, but it took her a little while to secure the rights to record it. Carnes loved the lyrics. But she wanted to make a radical departure from DeShannon’s jaunty, piano-driven original. She and producer Val Garay tore it apart and put it back together via slinky keyboard lines and white-noise percussion. Meanwhile, in her vocals, Carnes found a sultrier way into the words. “Bette Davis Eyes” took off and brought the new decade with it.
“Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield
Much like Kim Carnes, Rick Springfield seemed unlikely as an 80s torchbearer because of his musical history with songs in the previous decade. That included his teen-idol years in the early part of the 70s. Springfield recorded several of the songs that would make up his 1981 album Working Class Dog, including “Jessie’s Girl”, before taking on a role on General Hospital. He was hedging his bets that his new sound wouldn’t catch fire. As it turned out, his acting gig only fanned the flames for the single that made him a superstar. Springfield found a sweet spot in the song between power pop and New Wave that many other 80s acts would soon occupy.
“Don’t You Want Me” by Human League
After “Cars” set the template, you might have thought that many other synth-dominated songs would have stormed the airwaves in America. But there was a bit of a lull in that respect for a year or two. Over in Great Britain, however, those sounds were dominating the pop music world. Finally, in 1982, “Don’t You Want Me” came storming across the pond. It did so with a he-said, she-said structure that brought some human drama to the mechanized beats. Not long after that, it seemed like every other song on the radio was synth-driven. Give credit to Human League for tweaking the formula ever so slightly to help the style break through.
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