By the end of the ’70s, body-moving genres like disco and funk may have overtaken the rage for heady, reflective tunesmiths like John Prine and Cat Stevens, but the era of the singer/songwriter was far from over. Rather, the arrival of MTV on the cultural landscape in 1981 signaled a new era in pop music—think larger-than-life personalities and flashy production—and the decade’s troubadours embraced this bold aesthetic. Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen framed heartland hopes and broken dreams in soaring melodies and chiming guitar chords; Bruce Cockburn and Billy Bragg reinvented protest songs with New Wave flair; Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel turned to global collaborators to tell expansive stories; Tracy Chapman’s urgent, plaintive narratives spoke to misfits longing to escape—or belong. The directness, diversity, and innovation that inflected the genre helped crystallize a new kind of singer-songwriter for a fast-paced era.