And finally the last contributions for albums of 1980 I listened to:
- Vienna by Ultravox (nr 49 on the overall BEA top chart of 1980): first I would like to say that to me only the first 9 tracks belong to the original version of this album and adding 2 German versions of tracks have not a lot of excess value. And of course I have to begin here with Vienna which perfectly reflects the atmosphere of a damp Vienna night during the cold war although I don't even know if that's the theme of this song. In any case I have always liked this song and I still do. Also All Stood Still and Sleepwalk are good hits from this album. Not every track is of this high quality but still this is one of the highlights of the year.
- Signing Off by UB40 (nr 50 and the last album in this BEA year chart with an overall BEA rank better than 2500): who doesn't like Food For Thought and although it isn't dub, a number of the tracks like the long Madam Medusa have a dub like atmosphere but to me these two songs are the only highlights because to me the different tracks sound a bit too much alike to be good. So after a bit of doubt I decided not to include this album in my personal year chart of 1980.
And this concludes my journey through albums of 1980, again a year of which I included a lot of new albums in my personal year chart: 22 in total which is not bad if you consider that there are (only 50 albums of 1980 in the BEA top 2500. I was familiar with most of these albums but had never listened to the complete albums so again: a good year.
This is the final list with at the start the overall BEA rank and after that the BEA year rank and my rank before and after this listening journey:
BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before To My Rank after
49 Remain In Light By Talking Heads 1 - 1 To 1
623 Making Movies By Dire Straits 10 - 2 To 2
822 Ace Of Spades By Motörhead 16 - 3 To 3
2843 Emotional Rescue By The Rolling Stones 59 - 4 To 4
92 Back In Black By AC/DC 3 - To listen To 5
615 Sandinista! By The Clash 9 - 5 To 6
289 Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables By Dead Kennedys 4 - To listen To 7
63 Closer By Joy Division 2 - 6 To 8
2516 Wild Planet By The B-52's 52 - 7 To 9
22870 Going Deaf For A Living By Fischer-Z 311 - 8 To 10
1117 Gaucho By Steely Dan 23 - 9 To 11
1823 Black Sea By XTC 42 - To listen To 12
571 Pretenders By The Pretenders 8 - 10 To 13
2191 Super Trouper By ABBA 46 - To listen To 14
1042 Blizzard Of Ozz By Ozzy Osbourne 22 - To listen To 15
1951 Kaleidoscope By Siouxsie And The Banshees 43 - 11 To 16
724 Boy By U2 15 - 12 To 17
1000 Los Angeles By X 21 - To listen To 18
2422 Vienna By Ultravox 49 - To listen To 19
832 Get Happy!! By Elvis Costello & The Attractions 17 - 13 To 20
1731 Crocodiles By Echo & The Bunnymen 41 - To listen To 21
3700 Gentlemen Take Polaroids By Japan 74 - 14 To 22
947 Zenyatta Mondatta By The Police 19 - 15 To 23
418 The River By Bruce Springsteen 6 - 16 To 24
1280 Iron Maiden By Iron Maiden 30 - 17 To 25
1420 Heartattack And Vine By Tom Waits 35 - To listen To 26
2045 Jeopardy By The Sound 44 - To listen To 27
2137 Killing Joke By Killing Joke 45 - To listen To 28
640 Seventeen Seconds By The Cure 11 - 18 To 29
1373 I Just Can't Stop It By The Beat 31 - To listen To 30
1434 British Steel By Judas Priest 37 - To listen To 31
698 Heaven And Hell By Black Sabbath 14 - To listen To 32
974 Sound Affects By The Jam 20 - To listen To 33
1144 The Game By Queen 24 - To listen To 34
1394 Underwater Moonlight By The Soft Boys 33 - 19 To 35
5586 Arc Of A Diver By Steve Winwood 101 - 20 To 36
661 Crazy Rhythms By The Feelies 13 - 21 To 37
1209 In The Flat Field By Bauhaus 28 - To listen To 38
4007 The Correct Use Of Soap By Magazine 79 - 22 To 39
62571 Living in the 20th Century By The Kids 684 - 23 To 40
1456 Never For Ever By Kate Bush 38 - To listen To 41
401 Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) By David Bowie 5 - 24 To 42
472 Peter Gabriel III By Peter Gabriel 7 - To listen To 43
1256 Searching For The Young Soul Rebels By Dexys Midnight Runners 29 - 25 To 44
1193 Uprising By Bob Marley And The Wailers 26 - To listen To 45
2318 Doc At The Radar Station By Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band 48 - To listen To 46
1481 Double Fantasy By John Lennon & Yoko Ono 39 - To listen To 47
936 Dirty Mind By Prince 18 - To listen To A No
1182 Duke By Genesis 25 - To listen To A No
1385 Kings Of The Wild Frontier By Adam And The Ants 32 - To listen To A No
1433 Glass Houses By Billy Joel 36 - To listen To A No
1654 The Turn Of A Friendly Card By The Alan Parsons Project 40 - To listen To A No
2240 Empty Glass By Pete Townshend 47 - To listen To A No
2436 Signing Off By UB40 50 - To listen To A No
The next year I will listen to is, after skipping 5 years, 1985.
After 1980 I'm now on albums of 1985, to me an interesting year especially with albums of Husker Du and REM which were at the top of their abilities. But not so much for the BEA community: I've only got 17 albums to listen to of this year which is not a lot.
This is the complete list of albums of 1985 within the overall BEA top 2500 with at the start the overall BEA rank and then the BEA year rank and my rank (or to listen) at the beginning of this listening session:
BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before
105 Rain Dogs By Tom Waits 1 - 17
123 Hounds Of Love By Kate Bush 2 - To listen
224 Brothers In Arms By Dire Straits 3 - 8
233 Meat Is Murder By The Smiths 4 - 6
275 Psychocandy By The Jesus And Mary Chain 5 - 11
485 The Head On The Door By The Cure 6 - 18
486 Tim By The Replacements 7 - 14
540 Songs From The Big Chair By Tears For Fears 8 - To listen
628 Misplaced Childhood By Marillion 9 - To listen
688 Low-Life By New Order 10 - To listen
705 This Nation's Saving Grace By The Fall 11 - To listen
747 Steve McQueen By Prefab Sprout 12 - To listen
755 Rum, Sodomy, And The Lash By The Pogues 13 - To listen
1053 New Day Rising By Hüsker Dü 14 - 4
1067 This Is The Sea By The Waterboys 15 - To listen
1076 Fables Of The Reconstruction By R.E.M. 16 - 2
1364 Nail By Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel 17 - To listen
1382 Love By The Cult 18 - 12
1564 Around The World In A Day By Prince And The Revolution 19 - Already listened
1589 Hunting High And Low By a-ha 20 - To listen
1641 First And Last And Always By The Sisters Of Mercy 21 - 3
1676 Little Creatures By Talking Heads 22 - 5
1711 Live At The Harlem Square Club, 1963 By Sam Cooke 23 - Live Excluded
1767 Live After Death By Iron Maiden 24 - Live Excluded
1778 Suzanne Vega By Suzanne Vega 25 - To listen
1906 The Dream Of The Blue Turtles By Sting 26 - To listen
1946 No Jacket Required By Phil Collins 27 - To listen
2009 Scarecrow By John Cougar Mellencamp 28 - To listen
2322 Power Windows By Rush 29 - To listen
2447 Flip Your Wig By Hüsker Dü 30 - 1
2468 Halber Mensch By Einstürzende Neubauten 31 - To listen
2478 Once Upon A Time By Simple Minds 32 - To listen
I also started to the first albums in the list:
- Hounds Of Love by Kate Bush (nr 2 on the BEA year chart of 1985): Running Up That Hill and Cloudbusting are great tracks but the rest of the album is not so great. However she is never less than good so I will however include this album in my personal top chart of the year
- Songs From The Big Chair by Tears For Fears (nr 8 ): Everybody wants to Rule the World is a good track but songs like Shout and so on are a bit dated to me. I'm not gonna include it.
- Misplaced Childhood by Marillion (nr 9): maybe I'm a bit prejudiced about Marillon because this is normally music I stay away a mile from and Kayleigh is a number one example of that. But in fact on some of the tracks their some good atmospheric guitar playing. But not good enough to include it.
- This Nation's Saving Grace by The Fall (nr 11): I'm not very familiar with this band although they are compared a lot with Pavement, a band of which I'm a big fan. But the albums upto now were not really this good. This one is an exception: the weirdness of the band comes out very good in many of the tracks especially on the longer ones like LA and Gut of the Quantifier. I must say I liked it.
- Steve McQueen by Prefab Sprout (nr 12): Faron Young is a good song but overall I find this album a bit dull also because I'm not a big fan of the singing voice of Paddy MacAloon.
The next album to listen to is Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash by the Pogues.
My previous contribution seems to have disappeared so I will cover a lot of ground here (until the end of 1985):
- Rum, Sodomy, And The Lash by The Pogues (nr 13 on the overall BEA top chart of 1985): my favorite Irish drunks but they sounded great also on this album which features one of their best: Dirty Old Town. Also the rest of the album is very good so a welcome addition to my 1985 top chart.
- This Is The Sea by The Waterboys (nr 15): much less so for this band which I have never really gotten into. Of course The Whole of the Moon and the like are not bad songs but not completely my cup of water.
- Nail by Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel (nr 17): I like some industrial but not all industrial and certainly not this kind which is a bit all over the place except where they should be: in good song territory.
- Hunting High And Low by a-ha (nr 20): I had to listen a bit too much to this band on the radio and certainly also to the tracks on this album.
- Suzanne Vega by Suzanne Vega (nr 25): and also Suzanne Vega was a lot on the radio in these days but this was more to my liking. Her voice is great and so are her songs which are in lots of instance sorta mini-novels especially in the best tracks like Marlene on the Wall and Undertow.
- The Dream Of The Blue Turtles by Sting (nr 26): this is not the best sting and I was almost going to toss this one away until I heart the two last tracks: Moon Over Bourbon Street has a great jazzy atmosphere and Fortress Around Your Heart rocks like the best Police. So finally decided to add it anyway to my personal top chart of 1985.
- No Jacket Required by Phil Collins (nr 27): dad-rock without a lot of competition.
- Scarecrow by John Cougar Mellencamp (nr 28 ): I really like Small Town but that's about the only track that really sticks out so finally no addition to my list for this album.
- Power Windows by Rush (nr 29): another boring album by Rush: sorry this is really not my kind of band.
- Halber Mensch by Einstürzende Neubauten (nr 32): if all the tracks were of the same quality as the middle section (Z.N.S., Seele Brennt and Sehnsucht (Zitternd)), I would certainly include this album in my personal top chart but not all the tracks are good so I finally decided not to include it.
- Once Upon A Time by Simple Minds (nr 33 and the last album with an overall BEA top rank better than 2500): New Gold Dream was great but this one is a step down the ladder. Even the many hits on this album like Sanctify Yourself sound a bit bland however much Jim Kerr sings them with that typical fire in his voice.
And this concludes my journey through 1985 albums. To me this is a again a great year however with not a lot of new additions (5) to my personal top chart. This is the final list with at the start the overall BEA top rank and after that the BEA year rank and my personal rank before and after this listening session:
BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before To My Rank after
2443 Flip Your Wig Hüsker Dü 31 - 1 To 1
1080 Fables Of The Reconstruction R.E.M. 16 - 2 To 2
1633 First And Last And Always The Sisters Of Mercy 21 - 3 To 3
1049 New Day Rising Hüsker Dü 14 - 4 To 4
1672 Little Creatures Talking Heads 22 - 5 To 5
233 Meat Is Murder The Smiths 4 - 6 To 6
10882 Gas Food Lodging Green On Red 142 - 7 To 7
223 Brothers In Arms Dire Straits 3 - 8 To 8
22494 Talk about The Weather Red Lorry Yellow Lorry 270 - 9 To 9
4392 Centerfield John Fogerty 55 - 10 To 10
1778 Suzanne Vega Suzanne Vega 25 - To listen To 11
276 Psychocandy The Jesus And Mary Chain 5 - 11 To 12
704 This Nation's Saving Grace The Fall 11 - To listen To 13
1382 Love The Cult 18 - 12 To 14
684 Low-Life New Order 10 - Already listened To 15
6555 Dinosaur Dinosaur 89 - 13 To 16
758 Rum, Sodomy, And The Lash The Pogues 13 - To listen To 17
487 Tim The Replacements 7 - 14 To 18
2500 Up On The Sun Meat Puppets 34 - 15 To 19
2424 Bad Moon Rising Sonic Youth 30 - 16 To 20
105 Rain Dogs Tom Waits 1 - 17 To 21
472 The Head On The Door The Cure 6 - 18 To 22
1920 The Dream Of The Blue Turtles Sting 26 - To listen To 23
121 Hounds Of Love Kate Bush 2 - To listen To 24
538 Songs From The Big Chair Tears For Fears 8 - To listen To A No
622 Misplaced Childhood Marillion 9 - To listen To A No
747 Steve McQueen Prefab Sprout 12 - To listen To A No
1065 This Is The Sea The Waterboys 15 - To listen To A No
1363 Nail Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel 17 - To listen To A No
1597 Hunting High And Low a-ha 20 - To listen To A No
1944 No Jacket Required Phil Collins 27 - To listen To A No
2000 Scarecrow John Cougar Mellencamp 28 - To listen To A No
2326 Power Windows Rush 29 - To listen To A No
2463 Halber Mensch Einstürzende Neubauten 32 - To listen To A No
2485 Once Upon A Time Simple Minds 33 - To listen To A No
And again I will skip 5 years to come to one of my favorite years in rock music: 1990
This is the start of a new year of album discoveries in which I will 1990. Overall a strong year for me and with lots of albums in the top I own already (except strangely enough the first two).
This is the list of 1990 albums with an overall rank better than 2500 with at the start the overall BEA rank and after that the BEA year rank and my rank before this listening session (with to listen if not yet listened):
BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before
136 Violator By Depeche Mode 1 - To listen
355 Heaven Or Las Vegas By Cocteau Twins 2 - To listen
365 Nowhere By Ride 3 - 34
383 Bossanova By Pixies 4 - 8
440 Rust In Peace By Megadeth 5 - 40
477 Goo By Sonic Youth 6 - 3
486 Ritual De Lo Habitual By Jane's Addiction 7 - To listen
599 Fear Of A Black Planet By Public Enemy 8 - To listen
649 The La's By The La's 9 - 19
679 Repeater By Fugazi 10 - To listen
756 Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches By Happy Mondays 11 - 27
880 Cancion Animal By Soda Stereo 12 - To listen
900 Flood By They Might Be Giants 13 - 23
1004 I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got By Sinéad O'Connor 14 - 14
1056 The Good Son By Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds 15 - 28
1139 Shake Your Money Maker By The Black Crowes 16 - 30
1146 Reading, Writing & Arithmetic By The Sundays 17 - 6
1364 Painkiller By Judas Priest 18 - To listen
1368 Ragged Glory By Neil Young And Crazy Horse 19 - Live Excluded
1389 Pod By The Breeders 20 - 7
1422 Bona Drag By Morrissey 21 - 29
1592 Cowboys From Hell By Pantera 22 - To listen
1617 Behaviour By Pet Shop Boys 23 - To listen
1621 Twin Infinitives By Royal Trux 24 - To listen
1632 Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 By George Michael 25 - To listen
1689 The Complete Recordings By Robert Johnson 26 - Greatest Hits Excluded
1726 The Rhythm Of The Saints By Paul Simon 27 - 32
1743 Twin Peaks By Angelo Badalamenti 28 - Already listened
1770 Frizzle Fry By Primus 29 - To listen
1778 Seasons In The Abyss By Slayer 30 - To listen
1811 Naked City By John Zorn 31 - To listen
1871 Songs For Drella By Lou Reed & John Cale 32 - 18
1876 Blue Sky Mining By Midnight Oil 33 - 2
1988 Facelift By Alice In Chains 34 - To listen
1995 The Immaculate Collection By Madonna 35 - Greatest Hits Excluded
2091 Passion And Warfare By Steve Vai 36 - Already listened
2178 People's Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm By A Tribe Called Quest 37 - To listen
2286 Bellybutton By Jellyfish 38 - To listen
2454 Crazy World By Scorpions 39 - To listen
2494 Social Distortion By Social Distortion 40 - To listen
And I have already listened to the first few albums in this list:
- Violator by Depeche Mode (nr 1 in the overall BEA top chart of 1990): this is still very much an album of the eighties. Of course I know and like Enjoy the Silence and also Personal Jesus is a classic although I like the Johnny Cash version better. The rest of the tracks are not of the same quality but overall I can't ignore this album and it should and will be in my personal top chart of 1990.
- Heaven Or Las Vegas by Cocteau Twins (nr 2): I'm sorry but not this one. As always I like the general atmosphere of the Concteau Twins albums but that is just not enough for me.
- Ritual De Lo Habitual by Jane's Addiction (nr 7): I have never much liked Jane's Addiction and certainly not the voice of Perry Farrell. The only track which is not bad is Three Days but overall this is not my cup of tea which is a bit going against the general spirit that this should be one of the best alternative rock records of the decade.
- Fear Of A Black Planet by Public Enemy (nr 8 ): rap is not my thing and neither is this album.
- Repeater by Fugazi (nr 10): a very sold (means good) Fugazi album with Turnover as the highlight.
- Canción Animal by Soda Stereo (nr 11): I can't say I dislike this album but it's all a bit derivative
- Painkiller by Judas Priest (nr 19): I'm not a big fan of the early Judas Priest, but boy, was I surprised by this album. This is just speedmetal of the very best quality and nearly every track is a killer.
The next album to listen to is Cowboys From Hell, another metal album now by Pantera.
And finally the last contributions for albums of 1980 I listened to:
- Vienna by Ultravox (nr 49 on the overall BEA top chart of 1980): first I would like to say that to me only the first 9 tracks belong to the original version of this album and adding 2 German versions of tracks have not a lot of excess value. And of course I have to begin here with Vienna which perfectly reflects the atmosphere of a damp Vienna night during the cold war although I don't even know if that's the theme of this song. In any case I have always liked this song and I still do. Also All Stood Still and Sleepwalk are good hits from this album. Not every track is of this high quality but still this is one of the highlights of the year.
Hmmmm.... Might have to explore this one. Thanks!
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
Just diving into this diary o' yours. It's solid. I think you GROSSLY underrated the luminous work which is Hounds of Love. I hope you get a chance to check it out again someday. It's an all timer for me.
AS for 1990, I always thought of it as a "lesser year" for me personally for some reason. Will follow along here to see if I'm inspired to check some stuff out.
The Self Titled Social Distortion is a particularly under-appreciated great record from 1990 in my opinion. When/if you get to listening to that, I will be much interested in your thoughts.
Cheers on this diary so far! Keep it up! _________________ -Ryan
Just diving into this diary o' yours. It's solid. I think you GROSSLY underrated the luminous work which is Hounds of Love. I hope you get a chance to check it out again someday. It's an all timer for me.
AS for 1990, I always thought of it as a "lesser year" for me personally for some reason. Will follow along here to see if I'm inspired to check some stuff out.
The Self Titled Social Distortion is a particularly under-appreciated great record from 1990 in my opinion. When/if you get to listening to that, I will be much interested in your thoughts.
Cheers on this diary so far! Keep it up!
1990 was important for me because it's the start of a really interesting period in music for me although the real start was the discovery of Doolittle in 1989. The beginning of the 1990's were the years I discovered Sonic Youth, Pavement, Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, Nirvana, Sugar, etc although a few of those bands had already made albums in the eighties.
As for Hounds of Love, it's indeed mainly the two hits I like and I'm more a fan of her earlier album. But of course I realise that this project means that I'm racing through all kinds of different album too quickly and after I've finished I'll certainly go back to some of them to listen a second time.
I'll let you know what I think of the Social Distortion one.
1990 was important for me because it's the start of a really interesting period in music for me although the real start was the discovery of Doolittle in 1989. The beginning of the 1990's were the years I discovered Sonic Youth, Pavement, Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, Nirvana, Sugar, etc although a few of those bands had already made albums in the eighties.
Me too, Dihansse! Such a magical year for music. And I LOVE all those bands sooo much.
Yeah, the alt rock/college rock explosion in the late 80s was every bit as magical as the late 60s that so many people pine over!!! I feel so lucky that I got to witness the the underground music scene of the 80s live and unfettered before it became commercialized in the early mid 90s. It was amazing scene back then. Everyone knew each other because it was still a relatively small scene and their was so much excitement about the music being released. We could tell that something special was happening but had completely no idea it would get so freaking HUGE> Mosh dancing was actually fun and happy and not excessively violent. Everyone looked after each other at the small concerts. Of course, this was in Providence, RI. I can’t speak of other cities.
I’m so psyched & appreciative that I got to see it first hand. I guess our Summer of Love was when Nevermind got released. And just as their Summer of Love changed to something a little ugly after Woodstock, I guess that was sort of Lollapalooza for us. It became commercialized and some of the magic died.
But for the those 5-6 years before, Nevermind was released , the punk rock scene/concert scene/community was as great as anything. I’ve never regretted not growing up a hippie in late 60s San Francisco. lol.
Long live 80s Underground rock! 😁
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
I totally get it. And in theory I should agree, and actually I do agree that this year of 90 was was right in the midst of the great fascinating era in underground rock that spanned roughly from 80-92. I guess I just haven't been wowed by many records from 1990, especially as compared to the seemingly watershed years of 88, 91, 92, 93 94. I just need to do more exploration into 1990's works. It's on me. 😄
So I suppose this little phase of this diary could be some help there. _________________ -Ryan
I totally get it. And in theory I should agree, and actually I do agree that this year of 90 was was right in the midst of the great fascinating era in underground rock that spanned roughly from 80-92. I guess I just haven't been wowed by many records from 1990, especially as compared to the seemingly watershed years of 88, 91, 92, 93 94. I just need to do more exploration into 1990's works. It's on me. 😄
So I suppose this little phase of this diary could be some help there.
Well Mercury, maybe you're partly right: the top albums in my 1990 chart are not the very typical albums that represented this decade so well: my first is Swagger by the Blue Aeroplanes which I can really recommend but is not really the guitar driven grunge and the second is Blue Sky Mining by Midnight Oil which is fairly standard Australian rock but still very much recommended. The same goes for nr 5 and 6 (Wendy & Lisa and the Sundays).
Indeed the big highlights of the '90's only showed up later.
I also have to say that this project is maybe not really representative of my taste because it focuses on the albums I don't own yet: ex now I'm sifting through metal and fairly plain Pet Shop Boys and George Michael.But of course you can learn a lot of my musical taste in reading my comments on them.
And btw I hope that Social Distortion doesn't fall out of the top 2500 before I get to it because it's at the border of the top 2500. But I'll listen to it anyway.
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