Best Albums Of The 1980s, Pt. 3

#30
Zenyatta Mondatta
The Police
1980

For whatever reason, Zenyatta Mondatta is the least loved Police album. This is something I simply cannot understand. It provides the perfect bridge from the band’s early, raw music to their more polished efforts later in the decade, combining the best bits of all their albums into one colorful, bright masterpiece. While it may not have any single knockout track, a “Roxanne” or a “Message In A Bottle”, it’s the only Police album that never hits a slow patch or loses your attention.

#29
Strange Times
The Chameleons UK
1986

The Chameleons often get lost amid the morass of gloomy bands that populated the 80s, which is nothing short of a travesty. After starting their career sounding like yet another Cure clone, by the time Strange Times came around, they had evolved into a majestic force of musical awesomeness. With glistening guitar work, driving bass and an astonishing grasp of atmosphere and mood, Strange Times is a beautiful monument of dark English rock, with Mark Burgess’ expressive, immediate voice lending these songs all the glory and emotive pull they need.

#28
Faith
The Cure
1981

Speaking of the Cure… they had themselves quite a decade in the 80s. Rising to fill the void left by Ian Curtis and the end of Joy Division, Robert Smith transformed his band from edgy New Wavers into the dark, spectral gloom mongers we’ve come to know and love. Faith represents the high water mark in that transformation, full of the brooding and somber tones that the emerging goth culture required. Dominated by Simon Gallup’s endlessly melodic bass, the Cure’s acclaimed career began here in earnest.

#27
Zen Arcade
Hüsker Dü
1984

Why let your musical ambitions evolve slowly over the course of several albums when you can jam every single idea, good or bad, onto one monolithic hardcore punk double album? Minnesota’s Hüsker Dü did just that with their tremendous Zen Arcade, a towering mass of punk rock energy that manages to jam ferocious, three-chord assault, confessional acoustic ballads and experimental tape loop projects into one strangely coherent whole. There’s even a narrative story about youthful escapism thrown into the mix. When punk rock started, it was all about simplicity. By 1984, things had changed beyond virtually all recognition.

#26
Double Nickels On The Dime
The Minutemen
1984

One-upping their friends in Hüsker Dü, the Minutemen weren’t content with a mere twenty-three track double album. For their 1984 double-album opus (which was apparently all the rage back then), these Californian hooligans crammed a mind-boggling forty-five (!!!) songs onto four sides of vinyl. Now, most of these tunes are less than a minute-and-a-half long, but this extreme scattershot approach allowed the Minutemen to indulge in every weird, half-baked idea they had along the way. Funk bass, skittery guitar, Steely Dan covers…nothing was off-limits. The end result is a uniquely enjoyable album, where songs whip by faster than the mind can process them.

#25
Born Sandy Devotional
The Triffids
1986

There’s a horrible truth that music lovers have to grapple with and its name is “80s production.” Apparently, at least half of the world’s music producers had complete mental breakdowns during the Reagan-era, which created hundreds of records marred by synth overuse, programmed drums and excruciating reverb. However, there are those rare albums that soar above their dated production and Born Sandy Devotional is one of those. No amount of canned synth lines can quash the epic, sweeping romanticism of David McComb’s songwriting. Finding the perfect balance between the band’s own Australian culture and more universal themes (love, loneliness, all that good stuff), Born Sandy Devotional is an album that can be enjoyed in any era.

#24
It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
Public Enemy
1988

If this was a list of “Most Important Albums of the 1980s”, this album would stand head and shoulders above just about everything else. Nation Of Millions is certainly one of the most influential albums in the entirety of music history and it deserves every accolade that’s ever been thrown at it. However…that’s not what this list is about. This list is about the music that I have personally enjoyed over the years and Nation Of Millions is an album I’ve “appreciated” more than “loved” ever since I first heard it. As amazing as this mix of pioneering sampling and radical politics is from a cultural standpoint, there are plenty of albums I’d rather listen to for fun. Nation Of Millions isn’t really meant to be enjoyed. It’s meant to educate you.

#23
Reckoning
R.E.M.
1984

Georgia’s favorite alt-rockers won over critics and college radio stations alike with their debut Murmur in 1983, an album which long ago passed into the “beyond criticism” realm. However, personally, I’d take the polished, tuneful Reckoning over Murmur any day of the week. With classic songs like “So. Central Rain” and “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville”, Reckoning can more than hold its own against any of R.E.M.’s other classics. They hadn’t quite realized how huge they were going to become yet, but the confidence and skill they play with on Reckoning is undeniable.

#22
Vs.
Mission Of Burma
1982

Boston’s Mission Of Burma were another 80s punk band not content to sit back and let this wonderful new music style progress no farther than a few chords and some screaming. The ways they stretched and warped punk music still manages to impress, though. Experimenting with tape loops, time signatures and song dynamics, the group’s sole pre-reunion album, Vs., manages to win you over on both cerebral and emotional levels. At times, Burma play amazing, intelligent art rock, wrapping melody lines around each other until everything gets tangled. But then they turn right around and play face-melting, fist-pumping anthems like “The Ballad Of Johnny Burma”. They’re part of a very select company of bands that can do both very, very well.

#21
Paul’s Boutique
Beastie Boys
1989

It feels bizarre to have the Beasties higher on this list than Public Enemy. I mean, while Chuck D was educating his listeners on the radical politics of Louis Farrakhan, the Beasties were…uhhh, rapping awkwardly about Bob Dylan and pop culture. Sure, Public Enemy were more “important.’ But Paul’s Boutique is just so much damn fun to listen to. Between the Beastie’s endlessly inventive lyricism and the Dust Brothers’ “I-dare-you-to-know-where-this-sample-came-from” style of production, Paul’s Boutique shows a different side to the rap/sampling culture that seems to have vanished almost completely from the musical landscape.