Back to the 1980s - Madonna, Michael and beyond Mainstream

While recording the USA for Africa song We Are the World, Cyndi Lauper apparently remarked, “this song sounds like a Pepsi commercial”, which is hilarious for two reasons:

She was chosen to be part of the project, while Madonna, along with Michael Jackson one of the biggest faces of Pepsi at the time, was not. And Madonna was, unsurprisingly, not thrilled. She was later invited to perform at Live Aid, but held a grudge and reportedly said that if they didn’t want her for the recording, they certainly couldn’t have her for the concert.

A similar rivalry dynamic played out between Michael Jackson (locked in from day one) and Prince. Prince was actually invited but declined. Quincy Jones had envisioned the two of them sharing a microphone. Whether Prince didn’t want to be number two (or three), or whether, as he later suggested, there were simply “too many people in the room,” we’ll never quite know. What we do know: both were extraordinary artists, and sadly, both are gone now.

Fun fact: Apparently, Prince would even stop mid-song at his own concerts to lecture the audience for singing off-key. Make of that what you will 😉

With Prince out, someone had to take his line. Enter Huey Lewis. “He had a nervous breakdown, his legs were shaking,” Lionel Richie later recalled.

But while some stars were busy being Pepsi faces or charity megastars, others quietly dominated the music world with sheer talent: Bryan Adams, The Alan Parsons Project, Queen, Phil Collins / Genesis, Nik Kershaw, Kim Wilde, and Foreigner, just to name a few; no corporate deals, no mega choruses, just pure music.

And then there was MTV. Launched in August 1981, it turned music into a visual feast. Suddenly, how you looked mattered almost as much as how you sounded. Artists who understood this, think Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, or even the quirky, synth-driven sounds of Nik Kershaw, had a megaphone that radio could never match. MTV didn’t just play videos; it broadcasted culture. A hit wasn’t just a song anymore, it was a style, a persona, an attitude, and for Madonna aka Material Girl, it was the perfect stage to become the M of the ’80s.

So, while Madonna ruled MTV, Michael and Prince kept us guessing, and Bryan Adams and friends quietly reminded us that raw talent never goes out of style... What do you think? Who was the ultimate “M” of the ’80s music world: the megastars everyone knew, or the underrated legends who didn’t need the spotlight to shine?