5 Songs That Prove 1985 Was The Decade's Best Year For High School Hits

If you were a teen in the '80s, you know better than anyone that 1985 was the best year for high school hit songs, tunes that locked in the soul of a generation trying to define themselves. Caught between boomer parents and millennial siblings, Gen X adolescents craved understanding and authenticity and found a voice in post-new wave rock, edgy new pop sounds, and John Hughes soundtracks that sewed it all up into one messily honest package of sonic bliss.

We tapped our memory bank to determine which songs gave 1985 its uncanny knack for summing up the social, emotional, and cultural tone of mid-'80s high schoolers. An anthem like "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds is a mainstay in the memories of anyone hitting high school that year, while "Take on Me" by A-ha added a splash of upbeat Euro-pop that taxed the decade's awkward, kicky dance moves. With an aspirational mega-work like "We Are the World" by USA for Africa and socio-political explorations like "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears, this set encapsulates the complexities faced by high schoolers in the '80s without pandering or condescension. Each song on this list is the real deal.

If the movie "The Breakfast Club" was peak teen '80s angst cinema for misunderstood high schoolers, then "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds from the soundtrack was its glorious theme song. This anthemic bit of pop culture treasure was one of those rare tunes that captured the uncertainty and desperation of teens who just wanted to find a place to belong. In the film, it was a gaggle of misfits sentenced to Saturday morning detention who realized their struggles were far too similar. In the song, it's a description of loneliness and longing that cuts to the heart of what it was like at the time to think you're the only one who doesn't know how to connect but desperately wants to.

It was the band's only No. 1 Billboard hit, a certified  hit '80s song that almost didn't get made. The Fixx singer Cy Curnin, rocker Billy Idol, and ex-Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry had all been approached about recording the song before Simple Minds begrudgingly accepted the task ... but not before the band initially passed on it, too. Leader Jim Kerr was adamant at the time that the band was responsible for writing its material and wasn't too keen on recording a tune written by someone else. Ultimately, Simple Minds was able to make the song their own, and the finished version turned out to mark a seminal moment in music for high schoolers of the day.

Madonna had been shaking up the music scene for a few years when she released "Crazy for You" from the soundtrack of the 1985 film, "Vision Quest."  The tune was a downturn for the otherwise dance-oriented songstress, a love song that showed the world there was more to this future icon than just lace gloves and fancy footwork. If you were on the scene, you remember the excitement of hearing a slowed-down version of what the singer was capable of, pinning the proper emotion onto every line, and capturing the spirit of young love at a time when high school romance was a pinnacle experience.

The easy-going groove gave high schoolers an ultra-cool slow dance soundtrack as well as great make-out music, with lyrics about overwhelming infatuation that fulfilled the brief. It proved that Madonna could not only elevate your heart rate on the dance floor, she could also get your pulse racing with a tender love song, but in a whole different way.

Audiences loved the shift and helped Madonna rack up her second No. 1 hit with this dreamy ballad, in a trend that would go on for over a decade. It would set the tone for later ballads like "Take a Bow" and "Live to Tell" while helping mark 1985 as a milestone year for high school music fans.

On an exhausting, exhilarating night after the 1985 American Music Award ceremony, songwriters Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson, along with producer Quincy Jones, gathered the best and brightest of the music sphere for an all-night recording session to create a charity single called "We Are the World," billed under the name U.S.A. for Africa. Actor, singer, and activist Harry Belafonte lit the match to bring attention to famine on the continent and launched a fundraiser that became a defining moment for the musical world and the generation that watched and listened.

For high schoolers developing a social conscience, seeing their favorite musicians and singers gathered in a single studio, lending their voices to an idealistic sing-along to raise funds for an international hunger crisis, was a dream come true. In fact, the making of "We Are the World," with its one-time choir of mega-stars and newcomers destined for icon status, was as intriguing as the song itself. The commercial potential was realized as well; "We Are the World" topped the charts for four weeks in spring 1985, drawing the social attention its creators intended and the funds they hoped for to start making a difference.

Along with the previous year's U.K. sing-along charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which inspired USA for Africa, high schoolers found a focal point for their inner activists. 

It wasn't just the audio aspect of "Take on Me" that caught the high school crowd's attention, though the high-spirited bop was plenty catchy on its own. A-ha released one of the most innovative and iconic music videos of the MTV era to go with the tune, an animated fantasy-romance that drew inspiration from the cult classic film "Altered States." The song and its singer literally came to life in the clip as a comic book character who escapes his frames in sketched form to unite with a young woman in the real world. Gen Xers had never seen anything like it; nor had anyone else, for that matter. It became a core memory for high schoolers who'd become accustomed to watching their music instead of simply listening to it.

A-ha achieved their only No. 1 single with "Take on Me," but it was enough to fuel the nostalgia of a whole generation for the rest of their lives. The song opens with a bouncing ball of a synth riff, which taps into so many core memories that just thinking about it is enough to start a dance party for a former Gen X high schooler.

High schoolers who were being clued in on the ruthless nature of geo-global politics in history class perked up when "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears hit the airwaves. The Cold War era was in full effect, with the looming threat of nuclear war impacting the already-angsty vibe of high school in a major way. This chiming piece of ear candy came along to prove that songs about big topics could come in a sweet, shiny package.

The sunshine tones of the song stood in stark contrast to the band's previous single, the also-No. 1 "Shout," a goth banger about the cathartic release of primal scream therapy. With the band's lighter touch on this new single, high schoolers had a politically tapped-in tune they could dance to and sing along with, a tricky feat to pull off. And to think it all started with songwriter and singer Roland Orzabal fiddling with two chords that took the simple motif of Miles Davis' "So What" into completely new territory.

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" bestowed a No. 1 gold star on Tears for Fears. The breezy shuffle and earnest yet knowing delivery of lyrics that open, "Welcome to your life / there's no turning back" struck just the right balance of optimism and canny, clear-eyed realism that would help define life for high schoolers as they headed into an uncertain future, singing all the way.