I've been playing around with YouTube tracking down old music videos and seeing if I can track some of my obscure favourites. A few days back, I read a Stephen Downes post that linked from a Rob Wall post starting a meme called Top 5 Of The Eighties. Although not officially invited to be part of the fun, I couldn't resist. Being of the age where the music of the eighties provided the soundtrack to my teenage and early years of adulthood, I went scurrying to my cassette collection to see what jumped out at me as being memorable (or even listenable today.) Here's my list in no particular order.

• The The - Infected
• Husker Du - Zen Arcade
• Midnight Oil - 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
• Talking Heads - Speaking In Tongues
• Public Enemy - Fear Of A Black Planet

And to give non-Aussies a taste of the Oils in the middle there, here's a live version of "Only The Strong" via YouTube. Not quite as good as the album version ... but Midnight Oil were arguably the best live band down under in the eighties.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/i78Id1BHsPY" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

No tagging - feel free to jump in and even try a different decade.