20 Landmark Songs Of The 80s

20. U2 - Pride (In The Name Of Love)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHcP4MWABGY So the story of the 80€™s starts with a boat coming into shore, and that€™s how it will finish. It was a period of discovery and ambition and in this context, U2 found their perfect moment. €˜Pride€™ was their breakthrough single in the US and the start of their march towards stadiums. It was the moment where U2 solidified what they were; a band who was politically focussed with an ear for an anthem and the knowledge to do exactly what was needed to become massive. Watch Bono in this video and you can see a man rehearsing for his appearance at Live Aid. That€™s not dismissing them by the way, whilst they were a band that always had their eyes on the prize - despite making their name as post-punk agitators - in Bono they had a political pontificator who wanted to set the world to rights, but more importantly in The Edge they had a guitar player who knew his way around amp effects that were required to make the band sound literally huge. U2 have never been the most loveable of bands, and at times their hubris can be overwhelming, but with Pride they had one focus and that was to tell the story of an amazing cultural trailblazer - Martin Luther King - and in doing so they made the protest song cool again, framing it in a sound that would define stadium guitar bands up to the present day. And that was a ridiculously cool thing to do in anyone€™s language.