As has been said before - It all depends on where you lived. And also what you mean by "Defines". In my mind, Huey Lewis, Def Leppard, Scorpions and a lot of similar bands indeed defines eighties music - in a bad way. Overblown, overproduced, and most of all boring samey-same. That, of course, being the american version of it - If you look to the UK music scene at the same time, there is a parallell in the oh-so-horrible Stock-Aitken-Waterman stuff, UB40, Level 42 and most of the stuff you'd find on any "Eighties collection". It defines the bad parts of eighties music.
Then again, at the same time we had the beginnings of synthpop stuff - Depeche, Bronskij Beat, OMD. Kraftwerk, the grandfathers of it all. The bits of postpunk and new romantics that were actually good - Early Ultravox, Gang of Four, and so on. The weirdos - Kate Bush (She really is, y'know), XTC - and the beginnings of industrial coming up from the underground, with Neubauten, Blue for Two...uh. My memory is failing me. I also have a kind of guilty pleasure thing with stuff like Sisters of Mercy and The Mission
And, of course, Dexys. Loads and loads of good stuff.
Most of this I wasn't aware of at the time. I was a bit late to the whole "listening to music" thing (I caught up later). But even so, in retrospect, it is a regional thing. Many of these things that people from the US cite - Asia, Foreigner, Huey Lewis, ... just draws blanks for me and most of the people I know. Not as in bad or good, more like so bland it is unrememberable
If I were to pick stuff that in retrospect somehow would represent important eighties US music, then it would most definitely lean towards Afrika Bambaataa or Run DMC kinds of things.
And, well, of course: The eighties were the decade of the superstars in a way that probably never will come again - Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, Queen, U2...All of them sort of gathered momentum enough to just continue for a decade or two more, but they're insintrically eighties. Not even US eighties - Global eighties.
Hm. I could write far too much on this subject.
