Most-Recorded Tunes of the 1980s

This list ranks the top 10 most-recorded tunes during the 1980s. By carefully comparing the 2,540 individual tune recordings dated as from the 1980s which appear on the indexed recordings, I identified a total of 1,671 musically distinct tunes. The top ten of those tunes are listed below, in order of how many albums they appear on. When tunes have the same number of recordings, tunes having the oldest recordings appear first. Note that reuses of a particular cut in other anthologies are counted, which is fair, since the popularity of a recording is a good indicator both of the popularity of the tune and of the likelihood that musicians will learn the tune from that recording.