Gen X 80s Top 20 Countdown: Top 20 Hits of December 5, 1981

It’s time to travel back to December 5, 1981, when soft rock ballads, arena anthems, and new wave sounds were all battling it out for chart supremacy!

🎧 This week’s Gen X 80s Countdown brings you Diana Ross reimagining a 50s classic, The Police blending new wave with reggae, Foreigner delivering one of the greatest power ballads ever, and Olivia Newton-John dominating the charts with a record-breaking smash hit!

🔥 Plus, we’ll revisit the launch of MTV and how it changed music forever, and we’ll dive into the arcade craze of 1981 with a fun bit of trivia!

🎸 And don’t forget—our exclusive Patreon series, Top 80 Protest Songs of the 1980s, is going strong! Episode 2 drops this week, so join us at Patreon for deep-dive episodes on the songs that made a statement.

📲 Follow us @GenX80sCountdown on Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, and Mastodon for even more 80s nostalgia. And if you love the show, buy us a coffee at Buy Me a Coffee—because keeping the 80s alive takes a LOT of caffeine! ☕

Intro music by Roman Orekhov from Pixabay