The “King of Pop” is still scaring his way up the charts all these years later. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” returned to the Billboard charts — 40 years after it was officially released as a single.

Cyndi Lauper emerged as one of the decade’s more colorful figures with the 1983 release of a career-defining breakthrough called “She’s So Unusual,” which sent four singles to the Top 5 on the ...