I’m 38. 80s music sucked bad. I will take many of todays bands over the 80s and many from the earlier classical era as well. Of course there were the greats but a lot of the music from the 60s and 70s was near identical. Using lady gaga as a reference for todays music and comparing her to van halen in the 80s is not an apt comparison. As I recall the top 40 stations were playing a lot of madonna. Try some different radio stations.
There was crappy pop and metal in the 80s, but the second albums from Skid Row and Ugly Kid Joe are two of my favorites.
I grew up on Zeppelin, Sabbath, Aerosmith, Boston, and Kiss.
I like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pantera and some of the more modern stuff, but “Nu” metal sounds like they are just imitating Pantera, Slayer, and Megadeth.