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The 1980s ISN'T my favourite decade of film music, pop music or anything else in general that was considered hip in those days. It's a terrible decade in my book on so many levels I have a hard time to see where to beginn and where to stop. But I try to look at things that I actually can enjoy from this period of time.
For me the most promising composer for action film music in the 1980s was the then steadily emerging Michael Kamen. In that category I would also include Alan Silvestri -- but he was for me just not as interesting. I have to say that I've never cared for Kamen's guitar-pop flavoured sound à la Lethal Weapon because I'm more in with his fully symphonic style (Die Hard, Brazil etc.).
My favourite action film music composer in the 1980 was John Williams with Indiana Jones and Star Wars. There's no second guessing for me. Then comes Goldsmith -- a decade earlier, Jerry was the king of that genre, a time when action films were less childish and grittier.
Thanks to a couple of Bond films we should also include John Barry who has always brought different sensibilities to the action genre, or its sub-genres. Imagine Barry scoring Predator. People might hate it.
Sylvester Levay should also be included in this list - but I don't enjoy his music. For me, anyway, the 1980's is the synth music guys' decade - they paved the way for the Zimmer machine.
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Mid 70's thru mid 80's rule! 80's over all my favorite decade for films and film music.
I think it's fair to say the 1980s had the best action movies in a historical sense because culturally it was a period of time when the United States was coming off of the defeat of the Vietnam War, with the US losing a lot of its perceived strength across the world. The action movies of the 80s were a reassertion of that strong-USA mythos, with over-the-top heroes. The gritty realist films of the 70s paved the way for more violence on-screen and the Bond films already established big action set pieces. The action films of the 80s just ratcheted all of those up on hyper-patriotic steroids. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone also brought about that sense of the hero being big and muscly, which became a defining quality.
When we're saying "the best", it would be lots of shooting and explosions, crazy action set pieces, ridiculous muscle-driven hijinks, colorful settings, and a barrage of one-liners.
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