It's easy for us guitarist to bitch about not having solos, but to be fair, no one outside the guitar fraternaty really cares..
there is some AMAZING music from the 80's, sadly very little of it is paid attention to by us guitarist (see: Stone Roses, Talking heads, (early) Sonic youth, Blondie, late Joy division, New order (although i'm not that keen on thier lyrics), Paul Newman, the smiths, the early house/ hip hop music of the time, etc etc).
There is also some great experimental sounds which most guitarist here dont really know. bands like, "My bloody valentine" (listen to "loomer" or "swallow" to see what i mean)...
There are also just great POP TUNES, like "video killed the radio star", "the international language of screamning" by the super furrie animals, "been caugh stealing" by janes addiction, etc etc, These are great SONGS, not 30 seconds of OTT solo...
THe great thing about writting a song, is that your creative freedoms are FAR FAR greater than trying to figure out a solo... A song is ANYTHING you can think of, which what it so great about it... it's not about being able to practice scales 5 or 6 hours a day, only to make some seriously cheesy over produced hair metal cack...
Lol, but seriously, check out "my bloody valentine".. once you start to hear this stuff, most other music you've heard will pale in comparison.. it's just very cool