I just looked at the top 5 songs from 1985, and I will gladly take WAP or Old Town Road over Careless Whisper or Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. Top of the billboard has mostly always sucked IMO.

Janelle Monàe may be this generations Bowie. And Kendrick Lamar can definitely hold his own in comparison to dire straights.

Wasn’t 80’s pop music disco?

Disco died pretty early on in the 80s. Flock of Seagulls and Tears for Fears are quintessential 80s IMO.

The 80s were the era of synth-pop/new wave/new romantic. Initially emerging from late 1970s punk, diverting into sub-genres and refining its sound until around 1987. Generally dark and touching music with a very intellectual text.

Probably disco was still important, but the mentioned artists were hugely popular and influential, despite not being strictly in the "pop" category.

Also disco, when it first appeared on the scene was strongly associated with an LGBT audience, and the Moral Majority crusaders then absolutely denigrated it.

Good art is by definition subversive, and you won't find subversion in the Billboard Top 40. Which is why conservative criticisms of stagnation in art/science feel so blatantly hypocritical too.

Early 80's. Top 100 charts of like '80, '81 had a lot of disco-inspired songs. This fizzled out around '85-'86.