What were the first and last songs to sound like 80s songs?

Ha, cool comparison. Seriously, though, not much sounded like "Low" on the radio in 1991. I still don't think "Life Is a Highway" sounds more stuck in the 80s than most other songs on the same format from the same year but I might have lost this one. I do think Alfred is right about the interzone.

Again with Roxy/Ferry, Bryan looking fully 1985 in 1975, and commissioning 1985 Tina Turner guitar, sax and harmonica sounds from his 1975 greasers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9EbR0ckb40

"Life Is A Highway" doesn't sound 80s to me, it sounds like it was released in 1997

Even with that harmonica?

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released big singles (“Into the Great Wide Open,” “Learning to Fly”) after “Life Is a Highway”

(My point being that even if you do consider “Life...” to be ‘80s-sounding, it wasn’t the last ‘80s-sounding rock hit to have heavy MTV rotation)

In any case I don’t think any song from the 90s could qualify because people are still making songs that sound like 80s songs today. Many of them placed in the ILM poll.

Yeah, I thought the idea was “last hit song to still use ‘80s-style songwriting & production with the original intentions behind it, and not as a ‘retro’ aesthetic move,” or something.

(And I think it has to have at least charted for the answer to be interesting, because obviously some artists never stopped making ‘80s-sounding music with the original intentionality... same with every decade.)