If you're into Gothic rock, hardcore punk, dream pop, College rock, Indie pop, Post-Hardcore, Noise rock and Industrial, the 80s also rule. Every decade has it's awful chart music, the 80s is no worse than the 70s, 90s or 00s. In fact, the 60s was the only decade wherein pop music was of a consistently high quality, and even then there was a lot of shit

I'm in to all that! What is college rock?

Alternative rock that developed from post-punk/hardcore. It got its name from the popularity it gained in youthful college radio audiences. See The Replacements, REM, Husker Du (post-Zen Arcade) and Violent Femmes for more info.

'80s were also good for post-punk and deathrock.

Hell yeah, Christian Death and the like were great.

I think the utter **** of hair metal and new wave (not that I don't listen to all of it without an ounce of shame) actually led to the formation of the underground music scene that we know today. Without A Flock of Seagulls, would Slayer or The Melvins have felt as much desire to be so different?

Pop was best in the 80's. Styles were varied (e.g., New Wave, power ballads), keyboards were fresh, and auto-tune hadn't yet been invented. Also, rap had yet to crowd out other types of music on radio and music TV.

hardcore punk and metal were pretty ****ing amazing in the 80s.

Goofy maybe to those who didn't live throught the music at the time, to those who did it was quite normal.

Ozzy Osbourne produced some of his best solo material during the 80s along with Ronnie James Dio, and Judas Priest as well (just to mention a few), so the 80s Heavy Metal genre was at some of its best during this particular era in my opinion.

I always liked the New Wave from the 80s as well, with bands like Tears For Fears and The Cure.

The only reason someone might suggest that the 80s produced "lame" music during the 80s would maybe be because of the introduction of MTV and the use of music video's by almost every popular artist at the time.
So we now have "classic music video's" that coincide with the music itself. And I personally don't see that as being a bad thing for the music industry of the 80s. Instead, musical evolution.

I disagree also that the 80s was the era of jazz fusion. Maybe the development of contemporary R&B witch later lead to the Neo-Soul genre later on in the 90s, but jazz orientated rock music had been around decades before the 80s.

As for the Glam/Hair Rock & Metal genre and bands are concerned, this is only a label that was given to certain bands because of appearance more so than the music itself. I will admit that a lot of the music sounds "Bubblegum" these days but never the less, in my opinion there is some good rock music that came out of the Glam/hair era.

I would personally think that the 90s produced more "Weak" genres of music and bands/artist than the 80s did, but that's just my opinion, and to be honest, good music can be found in all decades. Some decades may have just produced and evolved more so than others musically with importance and influence to the era of the present day.