Best Albums Of The 1980s, Pt. 2

#40
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Midnight Oil
1982

After spending their early, formative years playing vicious, political post-punk, Australian musical agitators Midnight Oil pulled out all the stops for their fourth album, the monumental 10, 9, 8… (if ever there was an album title to abbreviate, it’s this one). It may sound a bit dated to modern ears, with the pulsing keyboard fills and dry, clattering drum sound, but the songs the band pulled together are still jaw-dropping. From the fury of “Only The Strong” to the sadness of “Tin Legs And Tin Mines”, Midnight Oil hit every point along the emotional spectrum in their quest to raise awareness for Australia’s political issues. The politics weren’t just sloganeering, though. Singer Peter Garrett went on to actually serve in the Australian House of Representatives. Suck it, Bono.

#39
English Settlement
XTC
1982

XTC’s last album before Andy Partridge’s Valium-withdrawl breakdown, English Settlement sits nicely on the fence between the band’s early, spastic punk and their later, more measured art-rock. The nervy rhythms and off-the-wall lyrical style (“the insect-headed worker wife will hang her washing on the line”) are still there, but Partridge’s new discovery of the twelve-string acoustic guitar pushes the music strongly in the direction of more-traditional English folk. Songs like “Jason And The Argonauts” and “Yacht Dance” represent previously unexplored territory for XTC. It’s amazing how comfortable they sound there.

#38
Hex Enduction Hour
The Fall
1982

The Fall are…difficult. They just never do what you want them to, mostly thanks to world-class curmudgeon and band leader Mark E. Smith. If you listen to the Fall, you basically just have to accept whatever weird tangent Smith is falling down at that moment and enjoy the ride as much as you can. Hex Enduction Hour is the band’s earliest listenable album, but it still features such anti-accessible qualities as a two-drummer line up, shattered, trebly guitars and Smith’s ever-present atonal yelping and whining. The Fall are somewhat of an acquired taste, but they offer a unique musical experience for those brave enough.

#37
Bummed
Happy Mondays
1988

Almost a decade after he recorded one of the coldest, most dehumanizing bands in history (Joy Division), Martin Hannett found himself producing one of the sunniest, most upbeat albums to ever escape the industrial shithole known as Manchester, England. Life is funny like that sometimes. However, Hannett showed some incredible versatility by gracing Happy Mondays and Bummed with a bright, organic production that shone the perfect amount of light on all the weird, dark corners of their music. The result was an album that set the gears in motion for Happy Mondays, allowing them to become the ultimate soundtrack for the English rave culture that swept through as the 80s morphed into the 90s.

#36
16 Lovers Lane
The Go-Betweens
1988

I’ve already written about this wonderfully graceful album several times on this blog, but I just can’t say enough nice things about this stately, mature take on the classic “break-up album” archetype. Grant McLennan infuses these songs with enough tension and desperation that you know he’s serious, but the end result is actually very serene and just plain beautiful. Avoiding all the ugly finger-pointing that usually comes with intra-band breakups (*cough* Fleetwood Mac *cough*), 16 Lovers Lane is proof that even rock musicians can act like adults sometimes.

#35
You’re Living All Over Me
Dinosaur Jr.
1987

Punks are supposed to hate guitar solos. They’re big, indulgent and synonymous with the lethargic dinosaur bands of an older era that Johnny Rotten so famously railed against with his (in)famous “I Hate Pink Floyd” shirt. However, for at least one punk chilling over in Amherst, MA, solos were still the shit. And thus J Mascis, alt-rock’s first true guitar hero, was born. However, the appeal of Dinosaur Jr. doesn’t lie in technical virtuosity or delicate strumming. Mascis plays like his hands are on fire, ripping great holes through his songs with his distorted-beyond-all-reason guitar. You’re Living All Over Me remains the band's greatest moment, when the band managed to get the musical ghosts of hardcore punk and Neil Young to sit in the same room as each other without tearing each other to pieces. Perhaps that’s because they’re not too different after all…

#34
Pretty Hate Machine
Nine Inch Nails
1989

Picking up the pieces where Depeche Mode left them at the end of the 80s, Trent Reznor took dark synth pop and took it where most of his English contemporaries never dared go: straight into the seething, experimental wasteland known as industrial rock. The end result was Pretty Hate Machine, an album full of terrifying sounds and oppressive noises…that’s really fun to dance to. This combination would create a bona fide music superstar out of Reznor in the angst-filled 90s and would spawn zillions of knock-offs, with varying degrees of quality. Reznor’s original still remains the cream of the crop, though.

#33
Songs About Fucking
Big Black
1987

I mean, with an album title like that, how can you go wrong? Big Black’s last campaign in their war against the world honed their razor-edged assault down to something even sharper. Steve Albini’s lean, mean, sonic pummeling machine wasn’t willing to go down without a fight and Songs About Fucking features some of the band’s best material, from the grinding “Pavement Saw” to the uncontrolled shitfest of “Ergot” (“mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, bread”). Oh, and there are also Kraftwerk and Cheap Trick covers, proof that Big Black could be wonderfully funny when they weren’t singing about sleeping sickness.

#32
Crocodiles
Echo & The Bunnymen
1980

THIS is how you do debut albums! Crocodiles is so perfectly formed and complete that it’s almost impossible to believe it’s the first sample the world ever got of the Bunnymen’s music. Balanced wonderfully between darkness and light, these elegant, immediate songs should have made the Bunnymen stars the world over. Sadly, things didn’t exactly work that way, but Crocodiles is still a refreshing listen, full of stunning instrumentation and Ian McCulloch’s soaring voice.

#31
The Smiths
The Smiths
1984

By 1984, Morrissey’s whole persona was still in an embryonic state. He hadn’t quite perfected all the maudlin drama, poetic flair and effortless-yet-dour coolness that he’s spent the better part of the past twenty years surrounding himself with. However, The Smiths is still one hell of an album. Anchored by Johnny Marr’s winding guitar mastery, the band reels off song after song, laying the bedrock for all the success the Smiths would go on to enjoy (or not-enjoy, in Morrissey’s case). Special props go to the unbeatable trio at the heart of the album: “This Charming Man”, “Still Ill” and “Hand In Glove”, three songs that made every misunderstood teen’s life a bit brighter when they first heard them.