I thought this thread up whilst listening to this

other songs that come to mind are living on a prayer, pour some sugar on me and anything by MJ.

What's your favourite 80's pop song

Release in April 1980, so it qualifies:

Joy Division - Love will tear us apart

As Dogs Rule already made an excellent of all possible choices, I'll post some of my most favourite 80s songs instead (one song per artist/band only; tough choice, as I could list 5 to 10 brilliant 80s songs from single artists/Bands - such as Prince, Stevie Wonder, Kate Bush, Prefab Sprout or The Smiths):

ABC/The Look of Love
Anita Baker/Sweet Love
Blondie/Call Me
The Boomtown Rats/I Don't Like Mondays
David Bowie/Ashes To Ashes
Kate Bush/Running Up That Hill
The Church/Under the Milky Way
The Clash/Rock the Casbah
Culture Club/Do You Really Want To Hurt Me
The Cure/Close To Me
De La Soul/Me, Myself and I
Depeche Mode/Enjoy The Silence
Devo/Whip It
Dexys Midnight Runners/Come On Eileen
Echo & The Bunnymen/The Killing Moon
Eurythmics/Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
Donald Fagen/I.G.Y.
Dan Fogelberg/Same Old Lang Syne
Peter Gabriel/Games Without Frontiers
Marvin Gaye/Sexual Healing
Heaven 17/Let Me Go
Don Henley/Boys of Summer
Bruce Hornsby & the Range/The Way It Is
Human League/Don't You Want Me
The Jacksons/Can You Feel It?
Janet Jackson/Rhythm Nation
Joe Jackson/Steppin' Out
The Jam/Town Called Malice
Billy Joel/Allentown
Joy Division/Love Will Tear Us Apart
K.C. & The Sunshine Band/Don't Go
Chaka Khan/I Feel For You
Kid Creole & the Coconuts/Stool Pigeon
Kinks/Come Dancing
Knack/My Sharona
Cyndi Lauper/Girls Just Want to Have Fun
Living Colour/Cult of Personality
Madness/Our House
Men Without Hats/Safety Dance
Van Morrison/Wild Honey
New Order/Blue Monday
Randy Newman/I Love L.A.
Olivia Newton-John/Physical
Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers/Stop Draggin' My Heart Around 
Pet Shop Boys/West End Girls
The Pixies/Monkey Gone To Heaven
The Pointer Sisters/I'm So Excited
The Police/Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Prefab Sprout/When Love Breaks Down
Pretenders/Brass in Pocket (I'm Special)
Prince/Let's Go Crazy
Public Enemy/Fight the Power
R.E.M./It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
Sade/Smooth Operator
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band/Against the Wind
Paul Simon/You Can Call Me Al
The Smiths/How Soon Is Now?
The S.O.S. Band/Your Time (Do It Right)
Soft Cell/Tainted Love
Bruce Springsteen/I'm On Fire
Steely Dan/Hey Nineteen
Supertramp/Take the Long Way Home
The Stranglers/Always The Sun
The Style Council/Walls Come Tumbling Down
Talking Heads/Once In A Lifetime
The The/Uncertain Smile
Thompson Twins/Love On Your Side
Tina Turner/Private Dancer
U2/Where the Streets Have No Name
Suzanne Vega/Luka
Violent Femmes/Blister in the Sun
Visage/Fade To Grey
Wang Chung/Dance Hall Days
Steve Winwood/While You See a Chance
Womack & Womack/Teardrops
Stevie Wonder/That Girl
XTC/Senses Working Overtime
Yarbrough & Peoples/Don't Stop The Music 
Neil Young/Rockin' In The Free World

IMO Prince was the best and most important new artist of the 80s (although his career already started in the late 70s), so if had to chose one song my vote would go to Let's Go Crazy.

^^not a dire straits fan?or aerosmith? if u have public enemy on there u need to have run dmc.

I'm a huge dire straits fan, but the thread is called POP songs, not rock.

true that, but rock was very popular in the 80's

(1) No, not at all. Lover Over Gold is the only Knopfler song I still can listen to today.

(Michael Jackson, Madonna, Phil Collins, Dire Straits dominated the 80s European charts completely - together with some other of my least favorite 80s artists/bands/duos, such as Roxette, Wham and Duran Duran. It was already hard to avoid their music back then, so why should I listen to it today?)

(2) No. The only thing created by Aerosmith I ever liked is Liv Tyler.

(3) No, I don't. PE were way better than Run DMC imo.

^^lol ok. PE and run dmc are totally different, and PE aren't really that good. still a very good list

Dire Straits were a Rock band and didn't make Pop songs? Not in my opinion. They made extremely popular guitar-focused music.

I never really cared for the differentiation between Pop, Rock, Pop/Rock, Indie, Alternative, R&B, Soul, Hip-Hop and so on anyway. Most of these terms come and go (e.g. when I was young the term Soul music was already old, but still often used - the term is not used anymore to label today's music). I've always understood the term pop as popular, so nearly every song that was popular at a given time fits in a pop song list in my opinion.