Also thinking of the 1980s. Look at this, it's like crying wojack meme: the music video played unironically:
https://youtu.be/ypMnBuvP5kA

There was also Bruce Springsteen. Also Bono. (Both boomers.) There was a lot of over-the-top operatic emotionality, but I don't believe the stories. I hear them trying to bludgeon me over the head with them, but they were a bunch of theatre kids trying to sound authentic and from the streets and also, apparently, the mythical embodiment of America. Phooey.