Paula Abdul
Between my wife and I, we own about 500 CDs ... and one dusty CD player that hasn't been used since we moved over a year ago. We only listen to them in the car, and since neither of us drive enough to listen to that many CDs in a year, every now and then I go down to the basement and pack up another shoebox full to sell or donate. But one remains safely enshrined in the '80s section ... Paula Abdul's “Forever Your Girl.” OK, I might not admit it's mine when the guys are over to watch football, but it's actually a pretty snazzy album. You'd have to be a Cold-Hearted Snake to judge it based on her nuttiness as an “American Idol” judge ... she just seems so happy to be Forever Your Girl, because Opposites Attract. I bought the CD in eighth grade because I liked most of the songs on it, and that holds true today. Besides, for 15 minutes in the 1980s, she was as hot an act as there was in music. Straight Up. —Craig Berman

Midnight Star
Capitol
In 1983, while I was outwardly declaring my dedication to British punk and power-pop bands like the Clash and The Jam, I secretly grooved to an odd funk band called Midnight Star. A year before Madonna ordered everyone to get into the grove, Midnight Star assured us, in its left-over-from-the-'70s way, “It’s so easy to rock it with your body.” I kept my 12-inch singles of “No Parking on the Dance Floor” and “Freak-a-Zoid” hidden from my punker friends, but could barely stand still when those songs were played at school dances or parties. Honestly, who could resist those catchy lyrics (“I’ll be your freak-a-zoid, come on and wind me up”), dated synthesizer sounds and the robotic near-rap? Two decades on, I find myself still secretly listening to the same songs, now buried several folders deep in my digital music player. —Denise Ono

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Men at Work
Sony
To most hip young kids now over 40, the only '80s groups worth remembering are U2 or REM. But in 1982, a merry band from Australia came out of nowhere with a black-humored song about alienation and paranoia titled "Who Can It Be Now," and a low-budget noir-style video spotlighting lead singer Colin Hay with his creepy lazy eye. Men at Work went to No. 1 with that song and its even odder follow-up, the relentlessly cheery Aussie anthem "Down Under." But these were no mere two-hit wonders; their first album broke the Monkees' record for best-selling debut ever, and kept placing songs in the Top 40, including "Be Good Johnny," which bore absolutely NO resemblance to "Johnny B. Good," and the punning parable "Dr. Heckyll and Mr. Jive." Their recordings were perfect party music, as long as your party didn't require a continuous 120 bpm backbeat. When "Down Under" started up, it would always turn into a sing-along. (Nobody got that "where women glow and men thunder" line right.) It's still a mystery why they fell out of favor. They were certainly weren’t repetitive. And they never took themselves too seriously. Maybe in the '80s, that was the problem. —W.W.

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