Been thinking about a response to this OP ever since it was first posted.
It's hard to think of ONE song that really touches on a bunch of the 80s' various musical movements. Lots of great songs have been nominated, and many have artfully combined contemporary musical styles to offer listeners a reasonably wide sampling of 80s fare.
Now, if we were assembling a song by committee to represent "The 80s". And we were making it a point to take from this genre, and a little from that one, and some more from over there ... what would we end up with? Something that would please everyone? Something that offered a little something to everyone's taste? Or would it be too wide-ranging and thus thin-spread and not all that appealing?
I heard a song today on the radio that has to among the 80s tunes with the greatest stylistic breadth. That song was
"Easy Lover" by Philip Bailey & Phil Collins. It's a got a little bit of New Wave synth line to open and close, it's got that persistent 80s pop rhythm guitar, it's got some soul via Bailey's falsetto, it's got Collins' pop sensibilities, and it's got a bridge solo that could've straight off a metal record. So ... could a song like "Easy Lover" be THE quintessential 80s track? Or is it more of a "
... nah..."? My vote: I dig what the Phils are doing on "Easy Lover" -- I can get behind it.
Another song with just about as much stylistic spread is
Billy Ocean's "Loverboy". It doesn't quite reach as far without having two voices to play off one another, but Ocean's producer threw a lot into the blender on "Loverboy".