You sang along with them at the top of your lungs when they came on the radio and danced in front of the TV when the videos played. But many of the rock songs from the '80s were anything but innocent, even if the lyrics were sly and concealing. As long as the melody was catchy and the beat was solid, you were happy to side step the subject matter, which in many songs turns out to be far more troubling decades later than it was when it first hit the airwaves.

Songs about stalkers, men being mistaken for women, and the icky attraction of adult men to teenage girls were not only fodder for rock fans; they also led to chart success and ridiculous wealth for some of the best known bands in the business. But the messed-up truth about the 1980s music industry is that very few topics were off l

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