A lot of what you guys are mentioning I don't consider "cheesey"; I thought there was a lot of cool stuff going on in the 80's...certainly cooler than today's pop music. Duran Duran's musicanship was excellent, and bands like the Smiths, the Cure, and Loverboy were great! And Adam Clayton from U2 is one of my top 5 bassists; I love his simplicity and his lower than low sound. Besides, what else you gonna do with a drummer like Mullen and the Edge, Mr. Arpeggio? He fits perfectly.
I would also like to toss in INXS for some excellent bass lines, from almost anywhere in their catalogue, but I especially like the album, "The Swing." Outstanding. Modern English' "After the Snow" album had some great stuff, too, and is an excellent album: "Life In the Gladhouse" is a good example of delay on a picked-P-bass, sounds cool
There is some very melodic yet simple bass playing on that album.
I also liked some of the Go-Go's lines...Valentine played some sweet lines that really propelled the music.
One I'm a little reluctant to admit I like is "Primal Scream" by Motley Crue. I don't care for them, but I do like that one song alot, and the bassline rocks.
I still like to play along occasionally with "Suddenly Last Summer" by the Motels, or some Missing Persons, too.
"Atomic" and "Dreaming" by Blondie will both keep your hands busy, too. Great tunes.
I could go on, but my point is that I liked a lot of 80's music, and the bands' seemed to be more diverse then than they are now. Too many soundalikes in the 90's. There were some soundalikes in the 80's but not nearly as bad.
Oh, don't get me started on the this...Anyway, those are some pop tunes from the 80's that I thought had some cool lines
