The '80s was a really creative and brave period. Remember, it was a period of ultraconservatism, and so you needed brave people to push ahead like that.
I grew up listening to a lot of very smart pop records by artists like Kate Bush, Talk Talk, Peter Gabriel, Prince, Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, The The.
We were watching bands like the Ramones and Blondie and other bands beginning to ignite.
The '80s was a wild decade, and I had some fantastic times. And I did some really fun work.
When I was a kid, I listened to the Doors and the Eagles and bands like the Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, and Blondie.
I think Blank Generation holds up pretty well. You listen to that with headphones and there's a lot going on there with the guitars- it's the product of a lot of fighting.
I love Devo. There's nothing not to like.
Like, Mission Of Burma to me always sounded almost like they were part of the British Arty New Wave. I kind of like that. I like not being able to tell the difference.
So many of the bands that influenced me growing up were English, even if I didn't realise it. English pop ruled the world in the '80s!
I'm a huge Bruce Springsteen and Duran Duran fan.
As a kid growing up in a lower-class neighbourhood, where everyone around me was listening to hip hop, what was I doing listening to new wave, and why was that my favourite music? I don't know why, but it just spoke to me.
The '80s were wild. The hair, the clothes.
I was a child of the '80s.
I loved Duran Duran's "Girls on Film" - it was really sexy and naughty and totally weird. When you're a kid watching that stuff on television you're like, "Well, we are opening up as a society!"
The reason I like Steve Aoki is because I can trace my love of electronic music all the way back to when I was listening to not just new wave but to YMO [Yellow Magic Orchestra] which, to me, was the ultimate Japanese band and launched synth electronic music.
Music is a huge inspiration to my style. I first got into it when I was 10: the new wave mod scene.
We changed the name from Sex Gang Children to Culture Club because Jon Moss, our drummer, went to L.A. on holiday and took some demo tapes with him. -Everyone loved the music but nobody liked the name. I -remember getting a postcard from Jon from L.A. saying, "I don't think America's ready for the Sex Gang Children."
If reggae comes from another country, you can have the relationship to reggae that I have to rock. But it's something I grew up with. It's probably something I appreciate more now. In the '80s, I was all about New Wave and synth pop - New Order and Depeche Mode and Eurythmics and Michael Jackson and tons and tons and tons of Prince.
While my friends were busy listening to the Talking Heads, Police, and B-52s, I was busy teaching myself to program on the Atari.
My best friend was crazy about Culture Club. She had posters everywhere. She joined the fan club. She knew everything about them. No one else sounds like Boy George, and I have great memories of singing along in her bedroom.
Playing in London in 1979 was exciting: it was at the start of new wave, the transition period after punk, and there were a lot of radical, fashionable young people on the streets and in the venues.
The '80s were the worst period. You had these horrible pop bands growing their hair and calling themselves metal.
I started playing in my first band when I was 12. I like to date myself by saying I was in a New Age band when it wasn't ironic; it was actually called new wave because it was new.
I used to love Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, and the Human League.
Factory Records would not have existed and my life would not have been what it was without Joy Division.
