Musically in pop culture, the 80's was the time that killed creativity in Popular music. FM Rock radio started focusing on a style, format. If you look in the 70's (not saying it was perfect), but many rock stations played Steve Winwood, Stevie Wonder, GD, it was all over the place. More variety, more styles.
Then it seemed, FM rock became, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, then all of the hair bands. Metallica, I mean really, how did they become a great band.
80's just really made many listeners narrow minded towards music across the board.