Being born in 1979, my musical taste wasn't fully fledged out in any part of the 80s.
For most of the decade I only had the local radio stations as influence (my parents suck at music). When I finally got MTV, I was obviously influenced completely by music videos.
Some of my favourite artists were Michael Jackson (pure awesomeness), ZZ Top ("Legs" and "Shark (why didn't Weird Al see that?) Dressed Man" amongst others), Madonna (still pretty good music) and Paula Abdul (well... I was young and she was hot).
My first level of maturity and first real love for rock music took shape when Appetite was released. That triggered a chain of events leading to ACDC, van Halen etc.
Turned out to be perfect timing, since pop music died with the 80s and rock music turned interesting again.
Oh, most memorable musical moment of the 80's for me: Whitney Houston's "One moment in time". Huge fan of the Olympics at that time and that song carried the event.
--------------------
Since this topic is completely depending on how old you actually were in that decade, the biggest achievement of the 80's is not what you were listening to at the time but what 80's music you're still listening to today.
There's probably no better decade music-wise in the history of mankind. The 60's only really started in the latter half of the decade, the 70's burned out in the first half.
The 80's on the other hand were amazing throughout the entire decade if you see the big picture, not only rock music but also pop, rap, new wave...
