Best Albums Of The 1980s, Pt. 1

It’s August and that means it’s time for the third segment in my series showcasing some of my favorite albums throughout the past four decades. This time around, we’re tackling the much-maligned 80s, a decade synonymous with hair metal, insufferable synth pop and Ronald Reagan dreaming of shooting missiles out of the air with space lasers. While some of us might not want to give up on that last one, the 80s are mostly remembered for their supposed lack of great culture. However, of all the decades I’m covering, the 80s proved the most difficult to assemble, since there were far more than fifty albums I wanted to talk about. Sadly, fifty was my self-imposed limit and many great albums are now littering the metaphorical cutting room floor of my mind. The following represents just a thin slice of the great treasures the 80s had to offer. On that note…

The requisite disclaimer:
This list is just a matter of my own opinion. This list is less about saying one album is “better” and another and more about just presenting music that I’ve enjoyed over the years. If you disagree with anything on here, feel free to comment and say so. Polite disagreement is always appreciated, however.

Want to catch up with the rest of this series?

Best Albums Of The 1960s: Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, Pt. 4, Pt. 5
Best Albums Of The 1970s: Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, Pt. 4, Pt. 5

Also, I realize that last week I posted a manifesto decrying people who focus on the music of the past. What am I doing right now? Well, umm, I’m…focusing on the music of the past. However, I swear I’m not a hypocrite. The point of what I wrote about Woodstock was that all eras of music should be embraced, including the present AND the past. This is why I’ve broken my own tastes down into decades for this blog. There’s good music in all eras and it all deserves a fair and equal treatment. So, without further ado…

#50
Psychocandy
The Jesus & Mary Chain
1985

On paper, it doesn’t sound like anything that would change the world: Beach Boys-worthy melodies getting molested by a wave of feedback, fuzz guitar and howling noise. Yet, Psychocandy contains the seeds of a solid chunk of all the alternative rock that would pop up in the twenty years following the album’s release. Few bands had so successfully married poppy tunefulness and avant-garde art-rock. With this debut, the Jesus & Mary Chain accomplished in a heartbeat what Lou Reed spent the better part of the 70s trying to pull off.

#49
The Sky’s Gone Out
Bauhaus
1982

Bauhaus probably didn’t anticipate the sprawling extremes that goth culture would reach in later decades, but in the early 80s, this dramatic quartet of Englishmen created the template for what it meant to be “goth.” Led by singer Peter Murphy (half-Bowie, half-Karloff) and the pyroclastic strangeness of Daniel Ash’s guitar, The Sky’s Gone Out is Bauhaus’ finest blend of theater, terror and good, ol’-fashioned catchy songs. They’re also the world’s finest band named after architecture. That’s worth something, yeah?

#48
Nebraska
Bruce Springsteen
1982

Sandwiched between two pinnacles of the Boss’s career (The River in 1980 and Born In The U.S.A. in 1984), Nebraska is a weird little oddity in Springsteen’s hallowed career. Recorded on a four-track cassette as Bruce traveled across the country, this collection of skeletal, eerie songs was meant to be fleshed-out into a more traditional Springsteen album. But, somewhere along the line, Bruce decided these sparse sketches were just fine as they were and thus the world was graced with Nebraska. People accustomed to Bruce as a loud, proud, flag-waving patriot would be wise to check out the darkness pervading songs like “Atlantic City” and “State Trooper”.

#47
Your Funeral… My Trial
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
1986

The majority of Nick Cave’s early work with the Bad Seeds sounds like it was recorded by a particularly unstable Leonard Cohen, which makes sense, being that Nick was grappling with an intense heroin addiction while being holed up in Berlin, the drug capital of Europe. There’s a recipe for success if I’ve ever heard one. However, Your Funeral… My Trial channels all of that experience into a stunning work of art, full of claustrophobic atmospheres and self-loathing. From the broken title track onward, it remains Nick’s greatest early-Seeds album and a ferocious testament to human suffering and coping.

#46
My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
Brian Eno/David Byrne
1981

A collaboration to end all collaborations, Eno and Byrne had already spent the better part of the past five years writing the book on what would become the music of the 80s. However, they did themselves one better with My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, an album which pioneered sampling in music, looping together stray rhythm tracks, recorded vocals and found sounds into one surprisingly danceable collage of noise. This cut-and-paste style of musical creativity prefigured much of the technology that would allow the hip-hop explosion in the 80s to happen.

#45
Halber Mench
Einstürzende Neubauten
1985

Einstürzende Neubauten are like any other traditional rock band. Oh, except they don’t have drums. They hit sheet metal with hammers instead. Oh, and they don’t really play guitars much. They hit them with hammers too. But beyond that, no differences. Oh, except their singer usually sounds like a cat being strangled…in German. And their songs are impossibly aggressive, mechanical and dark. And their performances are astonishing pieces of performance art with dramatic changes in tone from one moment to the next. And they helped put the “industrial” in “industrial rock.” But beyond that…just like any other, run-of-the-mill band.

#44
EVOL
Sonic Youth
1986

There’s no point denying the fact that Sonic Youth’s records have seen a steady slide toward calmer sounds over the course of their legendary, three-decade career. Those rare few who were lucky enough to see the band in their primordial stage in the early-80s are always talking about how things just aren’t the same anymore. Yet, their third album, EVOL, is one of their quietest. What’s going on here? Well, EVOL may sound calm, but the tension is so palpable throughout the album that listening to these ten simple tracks can be an emotionally exhausting experience. More so than any other Sonic Youth album, the band’s trademark wacky tunings and elliptical songwriting sound just plain warped on EVOL.

#43
Reign In Blood
Slayer
1986

Obscenely fast thrash metal shredding? Check. Howling, gruff vocals about Nazis, devil worship and blood raining from the sky? Check. Released on the hip-hop-centric Def Jam label? Check. Wait, what? One of the most extreme metal albums in history was released on Def Jam? You betcha, thanks to forward-thinking producer Rick Rubin, who also mainstreamed Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys for the world’s enjoyment. Under Rubin’s watchful eye, Slayer actually created something oddly catchy and listenable despite the overt “we’re scary!”-ness. An accomplishment on all fronts.

#42
The Only Fun In Town
Josef K
1981

You can generally group bands together judging by their drugs/drinks of choice. Heroin music tends to sound very different from amphetamine music and, of course, music by alcoholics has a sound all its own. However, Scotland’s Josef K were fueled by two unusual stimulants: caffeinated soda and existential literature. The resulting sound was a jittery, staccato blend of guitars and rhythm, with Paul Haig’s world-weary voice pondering the meaning of existence. Imagine Joy Division without the depression, replacing pints at the pub with a nice bottle of Coke. Mortal dread never sounded this adorable.

#41
Colossal Youth
Young Marble Giants
1980

Not many bands have come along that sound like Young Marble Giants. Maybe that’s because most people who sound like them would be told they have no musical skill whatsoever. Between Phillip Moxham’s minimal bass, his brother Stuart’s scratchy, tentative guitar and Allison Statton’s clearly unpolished, naïve singing, Young Marble Giants do sound a bit like a garage band that left the garage about three months before they were ready for public consumption. However, as you listen to their music, it becomes clear that it’s not lack of ability that’s keeping the Giants’ songs this spare; they’re playing like that by choice. Their only album, Colossal Youth, is the ultimate “less-is-more” statement of the post-punk era.