17 Comments
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Genevieve's avatar

I love Peter Gabriel, but his sound is so unique that I don't know that I can vote for him in an 80-est contest. Like, I never hear a Peter Gabriel song and go "Is that Peter Cetera? Steve Winwood? The "Lady in Red" guy?" Doesn't happen. There's something about the way that any Gabriel song, no matter how upbeat, is sort of ethereal and makes me feel like a twinge of melancholy that both makes it so good and so recognizable (see: Solsbury Hill).

Teachers played "Don't Give Up" a lot at retreats and in classes in high school -- I feel like it may have been the "It Gets Better" of our time (or, your time? but it carried into the 90's for sure). But if you really want to brood/cry your eyes out to Peter G song, I recommend "I Grieve" from the City of Angels soundtrack.

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Genevieve's avatar

So to be clear, I think I have to go Petcetera. Which is what I'll be calling him from now on. (For all the times I casually discuss Peter Cetera.)

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The 80s-est's avatar

The accepted notation is: "Oh, lead singers of Chicago? Hmmm...Robert Lamm, Neil O'Donnell, Jason Scheff, Petc."

--K

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Margaret's avatar

Nothing wrong with Rosanna's ego.

Aside - I bawled my eyes out during Hard Habit to Break many, many times. Like, a lot. 1984 - Todd and I broke up.

Joe - were you talking about Julie the Bitch?

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Joe Wack's avatar

Not a bitch at all, dude. Truly.

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Margaret's avatar

She hurt you. Ergo, bitch.

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Joe Wack's avatar

Or maybe she just rightly realized this was not going anywhere when we were heading to different colleges and such. Seriously not a bad person at all.

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The 80s-est's avatar

Or MAYBE you made her a mixtape filled with showtunes and "The Lady in Red, and "Iko Iko," and she pulled the ripcord?

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The 80s-est's avatar

The math checks out on this one. --K

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The 80s-est's avatar

Oh shit, she's NAMING NAMES!

🫣 --K

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Deni's avatar

Tough one. In Your Eyes is so connected to one of the iconic late-80s films. But it is a timeless sound, as most of Peter Gabriel's work is.

But sound-wise nothing screams more 80s than Peter Cetera. It kills me to do so, but I'm going with Glory of Love.

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The 80s-est's avatar

Yeah this was an unexpectedly weird one for me. The more I listened to Gabriel, the more I realized that this is just a really good song that happened to come out in the 80s, and the more I realized that Petcetera (petc.) existed because of the 80s.

--Keith

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Joe Wack's avatar

This was surprisingly difficult.

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Deni's avatar

Man, between Rosanna Arquette and Daryl Hannah they pretty much fucked all the 70s and 80s rock stars.

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The 80s-est's avatar

There are also 80s rockers (like Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe) who seemed to be with every actress of the era as well. Famous people like to get down as much as the rest of us, I guess!🤣 --K

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Alejandro Saya's avatar

In Your Eyes is a wondeful song and Peter Gabriel is a legend, but I'm going with "Glory of Love" on this one: it's cheesy, catchy, it's the anthem of super 80's movie (extremely popular in Argentina, by the way), and it's really easy to sing along, which is a plus for international listeners. Also, a Tim Cappello - Peter Cetera matchup will be awesome!

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Margaret's avatar

In Your Eyes. No other choice. My favorite song of all time.

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