This Athens band's initial mix of Velvet Underground strum, Byrds-like Rickenbacker jangle, and charismatically oblique singing, became the sound of the 1980s as legions of bands followed suit. But even as imitators codified R.E.M.'s approach into th…

U2's Bono was one of the few real rock heroes of the 1980s, leading the Irish band to international recognition with a charged, political approach to music. The band's early efforts brought a stadium-size presence to alt-rock, with Bono's expressive …

Depeche Mode (French for "hurried fashion") was one of the first and best of the British synth-pop bands, combining breathless, melodic pop with perky electronics. With main songwriter Vince Clarke's departure for Yaz, Martin Gore took the reigns, an…

Like many groups that achieved mainstream success in the 1980s, Australia's INXS was kinetically inspired by the British punk scene. Led by charismatic singer Michael Hutchence and the musically gifted Farriss brothers, INXS began as a new-wave rock …

Led by depressive pop prince Robert Smith, the Cure have taken their legions of fans on a journey from post-punk to gothic to new wave to art rock, stopping only for refills of hairspray along the way. An amazing band both live and in the studio, the…

Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith's debut album as Tears For Fears appeared smack dab in the middle of the '80s UK synth-pop invasion, but it was no mere pop trifle. THE HURTING is full of sophisticated production and accomplished songwriting, using the …

Scotland's Simple Minds rose from the ashes of the punk group Johnny & the Self Abusers to experiment with art rock and electro-dance rhythms. Eventually their post-Roxy Music sound grew more anthemic and by the mid-'80s they achieved worldwide succe…

Pair a disciple of Oscar Wilde (Morrissey) with an innovator of the electric guitar (Johnny Marr) and you have the most clever cult band of the 1980s, the Smiths. Though they made some of the most effortlessly catchy music of the era, the tension bet…

Proving you could rock despite having attended the Rhode Island School of Design, Talking Heads' innovative brand of downtown art-pop featured David Byrne's manic yelp, pointed lyrics about mundane subjects, and R&B-meets-Velvet Underground grooves, …

At the dawn of the 1980s, Duran Duran was part of Britain's "futurist" or "new romantic" scene, which merged glam-rock attitude with disco beats and synthesizers to form an intensely fashion-conscious variant on new wave. With their good looks and po…

With Genesis, Peter Gabriel was the most theatrical of 1970s progressive rockers. On his own, he's been one of the most ambitious and eclectic, incorporating world music and political protest into both his pop-oriented solo albums and his more abstra…

Bruce Springsteen came out of New Jersey in the early 1970s sounding like a cross between Bob Dylan and early Tom Waits, backed by the rambunctious E Street Band. After toughening up his sound, Springsteen created his 1975 masterpiece, BORN TO RUN, w…

The Clash was one of the first and most important British punk bands. In the 1970s, they were the Beatles to the Sex Pistols' Stones, and went on to incorporate elements from all the roots music they loved--reggae, rockabilly, soul, blues--without ev…

The Cult began life as a British post-punk/goth outfit in the early '80s called the Southern Death Cult. In due course, Ian Astbury trimmed down not only the band's name but its sound, embracing '70s-style riff-driven hard rock with the help of forme…

Born in the early 1980s out of the ashes of U.K. post-punk pioneers Joy Division, New Order became one of the first electro-pop bands to find mainstream success in the US. Their single "Blue Monday" was a landmark in dance music, and subsequent recor…

This Australian quintet are one of their country's top rock bands, having scored several hit albums and singles so far. Taking their name from a Neil Young song, Powderfinger was originally formed in Brisbane, Queensland, during 1989 by high school f…

Their innovative rock/reggae fusion, superb songwriting, and crossover appeal put the Police light-years ahead of many of their 1980s new-wave colleagues in terms of artistic resonance. Emerging just after the punk explosion of the late '70s, the tri…

The mercurial David Bowie is the original pop chameleon. He's been everything from inoffensive pop singer to glam icon to white soul man to art-rocker and more in the course of his long, prolific career. Although Bowie's first hit was 1969's "Space O…

Led by Black Francis (AKA Charles Thompson), this Boston band reveled in the raw, loud energy of punk, but harnessed it in service of catchy melodies laced with bizarre lyrics. Their 1989 album, DOOLITTLE, is widely considered to be one of the best a…

New Zealand singer/songwriter Neil Finn started out playing in his older brother Tim's band, Split Enz, in the early 1970s. When that group splintered, Neil and Enz drummer Paul Hester founded Crowded House, whose sophisticated but highly accessible …