#4. "Just Like Heaven" - The Cure (1987)

That sweeping layered 50 second instrumental intro is right up there with the best intros of all time (love those cymbal splashes!).

And the rest of the song isn't too bad either. In fact, it's pure ecstasy. 

The churning, shimmering guitars, the melodic synth, the driving beat. The piano at the bridge. 

Combine this with Robert Smith's passionate vocals and poignant lyrics and "Just Like Heaven" is also probably my favorite love song. 

But of course like many of their tunes, it has a twist and not a happy ending. But that's ok because it's all about the journey, albeit a short one at three minutes and nineteen seconds.

Proof that The Cure can produce a pop song as good as anyone from an era of classics.

#5. "Something About You" - Level 42 (1986)

There's something about "Something About You" by Level 42 that's hard to pinpoint that make me look forward to hearing it again and again. 

Could be the amazing bass line. 

Those epic falsettos and the harmonies. 

Or perhaps the delicious chorus.

Can't forget about that surreal video, with the lead singer playing the Vaudeville clown in the engaging video.

In fact, it was all of those aspects and more: "Something About You" is simply a perfect pop song with a little R &B and synth tossed in. All the right hooks in all the right places.

All those little things that combine together to make me appreciate the whole of the song.

The tune still transports me back to when Dad used to drive me home for lunch back in Grade 11. The great ones will do that to you, take us back upon hearing the first note. 

Pure nostalgia.

Fave lyrics: 

"These changing years, they add to your confusion

Oh and you need to hear the time that told the truth"

#6. "Wrapped Around Your Finger" - The Police (1983)

As a young teen I'd always been mesmerized by "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by The Police. I still am, 36 years later on headphones. So mellow, yet so hypnotic.

The magic of Sting's melodic and lyrical prowess, Andy Summer's sparse effective guitar and Steward Coupland's intricate drum work all reach new heights on this textured tune.

From the lighting of the first candle, the video had always entranced me. 

The obscure literary references in the verses made me flip through the encyclopedias as Sting found a creative way to weave in such words as apprentice, Charibdes, Mephistopholes, tuition, fruition, and from the iconic bridge, alabaster.

And what a bridge! It never fails to give goosebumps. Both lyrically and musically, the tune picks up the tempo when the tables are turned on the master and servant relationship dynamics in question as "You'll be wrapped around my finger". Captivating stuff.  

The simple "I'll be wrapped around your finger" chorus shimmered. The synths are hauntingly beautiful.

Decades later, I still dream of knocking all those candles down at the end of the video like Sting did when he channeled the 'boy inside the man'. 

Fave lyric: "Devil and the deep blue sea behind me".

#7. "Strangelove" - Depeche Mode (1986)

"Strangelove" wasn't the first song I liked from Depeche Mode; but it was the one that sold me.

There is so much to appreciate here: the punchy synth, the deep bass, the entire production is irresistible. And it's moody as hell.

The original single release was deemed by the band to be too poppy and not dark enough for the Music for the Masses album, so they produced a darker mix known as "Strangelove '88" that became the group's first #1 dance hit in the US.

The dark lyrics navigate the territory between pleasure and pain; and appear to be about going off the grid, of being emotional unavailability of sorts. A perfect teen anthem.

Fave lyrics: "I'm always willing to learn, When you've got something to teach"

#8. "West End Girls" - Pet Shop Boys (1986)

Recorded in one take, "West End Girls" by the Pet Shop Boys originally missed the UK Top 40 in 1984 until re-recorded with producer Stephen Hague. Once slowed down and the story told a little clearer, the single vaulted to #1.

"West End Girls" isn't just another synth-pop song: it's intellectual pop. The song creates a cityscape in your head. 

The music was inspired by hip-hop artist Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" while the lyrics inspired by TS Eliot's poem 'The Waste Land'. The lyrics recount the class tensions and inner-city pressure in London, specifically how the boys from the East End of London pine for rich girls from the West End.

The street chatter and car horns intro followed by hypnotic synths before Neil Tennant's dead-pan vocals immediately grab our attention. But it's that unforgettable bass-synth hook and cryptic lyrics that keeps bringing me back to live vicariously in the "dead-end world". 

Watching the video as a 17-year-old verified that a much bigger world laid out there waiting to be explored.

When Joelle and I visited London in 2012, I couldn't help but point out the many famous London landmarks shown in the iconic video:

- Waterloo Station

- a No 42 red double-decker bus to Aldgate

- Tower Bridge

- Westminster Palace Clock Tower

- the South Bank

- Leicester Square

Fave lyrics: "Which do you choose. A hard or soft option"

In 1993, New Zealand-based artist Flight of the Conchords paraodied "West End Girls":