Favourite Album For Each Year Of The 80s

Great list, most of tbe titles in mine or just missing:

1980 Angel Witch - Angel Witch
1981 Venom - Welcome to Hell
1982 Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
1983 Mercyful Fate - Melissa
1984 Iron Maiden - Powerslave
1985 Helloween - Walls of Jericho
1986 Megadeth - Peace Sells
1987 Anthrax - Among the Living
1988 Queensryche- Operation: Mindcrime
1989 Annihilator - Alice in Hell

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'80 East- Cold Chisel
'81 Business As Usual - Men At Work
'82 10 to 1- Midnight Oil
'83 Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
'84 1984 - Van Halen
'85 LIsten Like Thieves - INXS
'86 Slippery When Wet - Bon Jovi
'87 Kick - INXS
'88 Appetite For Destruction - Guns’n’Roses
'89 Hysteria - Def Leppard

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Rebel Yell and Hysteria.
Nice to see them get a run.

Ah, missed Annihilator somehow!

The 80s is a bit of paradox, the music I need struggled for air time and yet it saw the birth of the greatest band I’ve ever heard, and for me that means Jarrett dominates the decade…again.
80 Elvis Costello Get Happy Twenty tracks on one album, go on count em. Can just imagine Nick Lowe, the legendary producer, yelling, NEXT. I nearly wore this one out.


81 Keith Jarrett Concerts Miraculous spontaneous composition and pretty with it

82 Elvis Costello Imperial Bedroom. The modern era’s Cole Porter. And a long term vegetarian.

83 Keith Jarrett Trio Standards Vol 1 Jarrett enlisted his former colleague, the great drummer Jack Dejohnette, and enticed the legendary bassist Gary Peacock out of retirement to literally breath life into improvised music. The best band I have ever heard. Here they take Billy Holiday’s classic for a ride.

84 Arvo Part Tabula Rasa ECM does modern classical with one of the great composers.

85 Prince All Around the World in a day. Glorious pop fluff

86 Keith Jarrett Trio Still Live The band in full flight, although I read Jarrett didn’t like the sound mix.

87 Tough year, so I’m including the album that basically dead heated in 82. Donna Summer self titled. Donna gets the Quincey Jones makeover.

88 Keith Jarrett Paris Concert Jarrett was playing classical concerts around this time, it literally made him sick, and his classical roots show through here, bits of Handel and Bach and Mozart.

89 Keith Jarrett Trio Tribute One of my favourite bitter sweet songs and a wonderful solo from Peacock

1980 Motörhead - Ace of Spades
1981 Black Flag - Damaged
1982 The Misfits - Walk among us
1983 Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal Tendencies
1984 Minor Threat - Minor Threat
1985 The Meat Puppets- up on the Sun
1986 Slayer - Reign in Blood
1987 Dinosaur Jnr - you’re living all over me
1988 Beasts of Bourbon- Sour Mash
1989 Fugazi - 13 Songs

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Planned to listen to my ten albums this morning, after an overnight shift, it’s going well.
Just realised Gossip is a double album, though.
Not as confident of getting through them all as I was.

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God damn I love Big Science.
2nd favourite album of all time.
10-1 is my third.
Released the same year.
That’s why this format is so mean.

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I’ll have to give Big Science another listen, I tried years ago and never clicked with it.

It’s not for everyone: trumpets, bagpipes, vocoder, and poetry.

No point me recommending it to anyone.
Either you get it or you don’t.
It’s like people recommending the Minutemen to me.
I get that you like it.
But, for me, yeah-nah.
And I totally get people feeling that way about this album.

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1980: Talking Heads - Remain in Light
1981: Prince - Controversy
1982: Midnight Oil - 10… 1
1983: Metallica - Kill 'em All
1984: Mercyful Fate - Don’t Break the Oath
1985: The Cult - Love
1986: Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill
1987: Faith No More - Introduce Yourself
1988: Janes Addiction - Nothing’s Shocking
1989: Godflesh - Streetcleaner

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Well, crap.
Nothing’s Shocking was in the eighties.

Edit: also surprised by the distinct lack of …And Justice For All.
I mean it’s not really my thing, but still.
Come to that I think I’ve only seen Master of Puppets once.

Edit: edit: Also, no Sonic Temple.

It’s tricky with the years. Some have an abundance of choices, some are a bit light on. Paul’s Boutique was 1989 as well. Hard to pass that up. I’ve spread mine out a bit - ie. no way Controversy is better than Purple Rain or Sign o the Times, but etc.

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I feel bad about Purple Rain and Born in the U.S.A.
Because I’m a big fan of pop, and I want to represent.
I could argue against me really well for those two albums.

I probably would have tried to sneak Floodland in there somewhere.

Also: FNM - the real thing, 1989.

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That album helped them get really big but it wasn’t their best. 1988 was also a really strong year for metal releases so this wouldn’t be an automatic selection for metalheads

In retrospect, 1989 was a freakin nuts year for great albums.

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1989 (and this is just me with a cursory look at the lists):

Paul’s Boutique
The Real Thing
Disintegration
Pretty Hate Machine
Sonic Temple
Altars of Madness
Agent Orange
3 Feet High and Rising
Beneath The Remains
Slowly We Rot
Stone Roses
Bleach
Dr. Feelgood (yep)
Louder Than Love
13 Songs
SUCK ON THIS!!!

and it goes on…

The dawn of the 90’s, indeed!

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Off the top, from best to worst, and always changing:

1989 The Stone Roses
1988 Worker’s Playtime
1984 The Smiths
1987 Kick
1986 The Queen is Dead
1980 Back in Black
1982 Thriller
1985 Meat is Murder
1981 Business as Usual
1983 Soul Mining

Clearly the decade gathered momentum. Meat is Murder might have been the Smiths’ worst studio album, but lacked competition and went to No. 1 in the UK. 1983’s Soul Mining miles behind many 1989 releases (Disintegration, the Big Don’t Argue, Doolittle, etc).

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