Talking Heads, B-52s, Eurythmics, Human League = all mainstream, all amazing

No.

This. Not to mention Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Madonna, Adam & The Ants, Bow Wow Wow, Gary Numan, The Cure (were they mainstream at the time?), I mean come ON. There was PLENTY of good mainstream music in the 80s!

Well, out of those you mentioned, Cure and Prince are the only ones I dig. "Mainstream" could probably be used to describe them.

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no NO NO NO!!!!!!!!

God No!

Prince was alright. But everything else that could've been played on pop radio---

NO.

The '30s and '40s were a much better decades for mainstream music. Prince fucking wishes he was Cab Calloway, and Weird Al ain't got nothing on Spike Jones and the City Slickers!

People can't even spell '80s right, the apostrophe belongs before the 8 not before the S! It's an abbreviation, not a possessive!

First I'll say that Prince and his music are both awesome, especially the revolution. I honestly can't decide between the '80s and '90s. They both had excellent music. But I seem to find that '80s rock gets a really bad rap when there was so much excellent stuff in the mainstream. Michael Jackson, Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, B52's, The Church, The Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, David Bowie, Devo, Jane's Addiction, Fishbone, Prince, "Sparkle in the Rain" by Simple Minds, And The Jesus & Mary Chain even if they weren't mainstream, they were mainstream enough

See, this fella makes sense!

All music decades suck and rule equally at the core. For every shitty generic hair metal band, there were a dozen who dared to be different. For every laughable pop group, there were those bands that actually got radio play and sounded good on it. For every token radio-ready grunge band, there was that one special band in Seattle....

You get the point I'm sure. And oh yeah, I can't believe nobody has mentioned New Order yet in the "Good (kinda) mainstream band" posts.

~Jeremy~

Ah I completely forgot about Gary Numan

It's okay, I completely forgot about New Order.

Gary Numan was awesome.

True, one can never forget about the greatness of Queensryche...

If only the forum was always as entertaining as this thread. Ha!

The Cure was awesome and I enjoy some of Robert Palmer's 80s stuff. Well of course early Depeche Mode were awesome aswell but apart from those mentioned I can't think of any good "mainstream" 80s music.