So we've had a bit of a 80s week over at GIITTV zine. Mainly focussed upon alternative acts but here's some of the features we so far revealed:

Simon Raymonde With 1980s week aproaching we threw out the question to our readers, what were the most influential alternative albums of the 1980s? And time and again Cocteau Twins albums 'Garlands' and 'Treasure' cropped up as a seminal influence upon modern day artists....

http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/content/content_detail.php?id=4709&type=Interviews

I am of the age where I can recall the eighties from personal experience, rather than from the mis-slantings of other writers, listening to the hordes of recent regurgitations or from watching 24 Hour Party People. I came into the decade with the view that the punk movement was prematurely losing momentum, the new Thatcher government were muscling up to stamp on us and the future looked pretty bleak. Music can always provide the shroud to shelter under such adversity, but oh how it failed me then! To this day, I believe it to have been the weakest musical decade in history and without a few notable shining lights, would have been a complete write-off.

The Cure entered the eighties on the back of a debut album that had cut against the punk grain and created a stir of optimistic expectancy. It was nothing more than an underground movement at that stage, but the band went on to, not only become the most prolific and engaging act of the decade, but for this writer at least, the absolute finest rock n roll venture ever to capture my imagination, soul and passion. This then is the story of The Cure’s decade.

http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/content/content_detail.php?id=4710&type=Features

25 Classic Songs of the 80s
Madonna, The Chameleons, New Order, The Stone Roses, Public Image Limited

So, as part of our week of features about the 1980s, here are twenty five classic songs from the decade itself. Such a short list can in no way be a definitive list (i.e. THE best), or a complete one, given the thousands of classic songs released during the era, instead it can really only hope to offer a taster of some of my personal favourites of some of the more popular numbers.

1980-1989 was an exciting and innovative time for music, beginning with post punk, new wave, the emergence of hip hop and two tone movements at the beginning of the decade. While the mid-Eighties belong to slick pop music and hair metal, by the end of the decade, it was all about indie and dance music, certainly in the UK. All this against the background of Thatcherism, race riots, mass unemployment, Irish terrorism and the miners strikes, made for a decade with a powerful, enduring soundtrack. Here goes.....

http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/content/content_detail.php?id=4703&type=Features