Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s by 
buzzdainer 
These days, when people talk about "eighties music" as if it were a genre, mainly they're referring to Michael Jackson and Madonna and George Michael. Maybe some of the one-hit wonders like Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the Georgia Satellites. Or the Pretty in Pink soundtrack. Or hair metal, which ruled the musical culture of my hometown in Maine with bands such as AC/DC and the Scorpions. None of those things quite describes my own musical experience of the eighties. On the one hand, I definitely knew about the stuff that was popular; it was the water in which we all swam. On the other hand, as a teenager I actively sought out music that moved me differently--the things that felt a little edgier, a little riskier, a little more emotionally charged without being completely overwrought. Well, okay, and some of the overwrought stuff, too.
A representative moment I still remember well is from fall of my eighth grade year. My English teacher gave us an assignment to bring to class a cassette tape including a song we liked for its lyrics, and we had to distribute a transcription of the lyrics to our classmates and give them an interpretation of what we thought the lyrics meant. When you're a teenager, music is tied closely to identity, or at least it was for me, and I spent a lot of time thinking of what song I should bring. I eventually settled on Hüsker Dü's "Pink Turns to Blue," because I wanted something I figured nobody else had heard, something that felt more rebellious and badass than Def Leppard or Bon Jovi. My classmates, and my teacher, were visibly uncomfortable trying to listen to the opening lines, "Going out each day to score, she was no whore but for me / Celebrating every day the way she thought it should be." If my goal was to signal to my classmates that I wasn't to be messed with, mission accomplished. Which is funny to think about now, since I now think of music as a means for bringing people together, not alienating them. Nevertheless, and maybe paradoxically, I still love a lot of that same music I loved then--perhaps because it connects me to a past version of myself that I still have a certain affection for.
- Chart updated: 03/26/2024 14:45
- (Created: 02/16/2016 18:26).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
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I first heard Fun and Games during the fall semester of my freshman year of college, when a guy from Atlanta who lived downstairs from me in my freshman dorm couldn't stop raving about it, and about the Connells more generally. The band was a sensation on college radio at the time, and were all the rage in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. They were "fratty," as another buddy of mine has said more recently. Yet what strikes me, listening to this album all these many years later, is how sweet, melodic, and sensitive these alternative rock songs are--sort of the antithesis of the fraternity scene of their origins. The Connells were never brilliant lyricists, but they more than make up for it with memorable melodies and guitar hooks you'll carry around with you for the rest of the day.
[First added to this chart: 02/17/2016]
2
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This self-titled album, Indigo Girls' second full-length, is one of the most iconic of my college years, and the album that my high school sweetheart loved more than any other. In terms of production, it's a big step forward from their self-produced debut Strange Fire, and it includes some well-chosen guest appearances from members of fellow Athens, Georgia, natives R.E.M. The formula here is pretty simple: acoustic guitar-driven folk music with a slightly dark edge and an air of Emory University pretention. That sounds a lot like criticism than it really is. What I mean is that the Indigo Girls aspire here to something more than Appalachia-infused contemporary folk; they're looking to make art. And for the most part, I think they've succeeded.
[First added to this chart: 03/10/2016]
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The Cult was one of my favorite rock bands of the eighties, with Ian Astbury's Jim Morrison-like persona and Billy Duffy's scorching work on the guitar leading the charge. The Cult managed to weave together New Wave eighties vocal stylings, the loudness and grittiness of metal, and the New Age mysticism of post-punk, producing on their second full-length album one of the most undeniably great albums of the eighties. The high point here is the mysterious and hard-rocking "She Sells Sanctuary," one of the best, if not also one of the most lyrically impenetrable, songs of its generation. Unfortunately, The Cult never came close to making another album anywhere near this great, and they've gradually settled back into obscurity. But for the brief time that they shined, they sure did shine brightly.
[First added to this chart: 03/21/2016]
Year of Release:
1985
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Rank Score:
1,122
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Australian jangle pop legends the Go-Betweens really just had this one great album. Everything else they've done has felt patchy to me. I think what makes 16 Lovers Lane such a success is its simplicity and unity of vision: heavy on mellow guitars, light on synths, and jam-packed with the poetry of their native Queensland. The end result is an album emotionally split somewhere between the giddy pleasure of a newfound crush and unabashed heartbreak.
[First added to this chart: 09/30/2017]
Year of Release:
1988
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Rank Score:
1,877
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When I was a teenager, I absolutely loved The Police. They were the quintessential cool three-piece band, and their instrumental virtuosity seemed only rivalled by their lyrical sophistication. Then Synchronicity arrived, and the band's popularity soared. With that increased popularity came increased scrutiny, and they came to be seen both as a little too milquetoast and a little too pretentious for a lot of people's tastes. Perhaps rightfully so. Upon revisiting this album recently for the first time in a while, I find myself still appreciating so many things about it: some delightfully ironic songwriting, brilliant instrumentation, and a lingering appreciation for the simple elements of rock music. It's neither as perfect as I once thought it was, nor as imperfect as a lot of people would have you believe. And "Every Breath You Take" remains a great song, not because it's an unambiguous great love song, but because it understands the desperate depths to which love can bring a person, even to the point of something like stalking.
[First added to this chart: 03/28/2016]
Year of Release:
1983
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Rank Score:
5,504
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XTC had a run of excellent albums in the eighties, among which Skylarking was their best. The turmoil between technically brilliant singer/songwriter Andy Partridge and record label-appointed producer Todd Rundgren behind the scenes during the recording of this album is well documented, and perhaps explains the artistic tension that makes the album a masterpiece. For me the more interesting story is the way this album, and particularly the great pop song "Earn Enough for Us," has come to feel so much more relevant (at least to me) since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it poignantly illustrates the tension between one's beautiful romantic aspirations and the realities of economic downturn: "I can take humiliation / And hurtful comments from the boss / I'm just praying by the weekend / I can earn enough for us."
[First added to this chart: 02/17/2016]
Year of Release:
1986
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Rank Score:
4,927
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Several other Bruce Springsteen records--Nebraska, Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, and Born in the U.S.A.--are all candidates for my favorite from his catalog. But I'm going with The River because I think it is the album where his artistic vision is most fully realized. Here Springsteen shows how most of our todays are the tragicomic sum of a scattered series of yesterdays that had once hoped to become better tomorrows. His lyrics fuse past and present, desire and destiny, laughter and longing, in ways that speak directly to today's economically troubled, and disappearing, middle class. Nowhere is this poignancy better seen than on the title track, a quintessentially American tragedy told from the perspective of a working-class everyman whose life is turned upside down by an unplanned pregnancy.
[First added to this chart: 02/17/2016]
Year of Release:
1980
Appears in:
Rank Score:
4,058
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Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ deftly combined punk, folk, Southern rock, and country long before other, more successful bands that came out later ever thought of blending the genres into what later became known as alt-country. Kevn Kinney and company could rock as hard as anyone, as shown on tracks such as "Wild Dog Moon" and "Malfunction Junction." But their real strength lay in great melodies and songwriting, as on the the affecting homeage to Southern spring "Honeysuckle Blue" and the outsider singalong "Straight to Hell." The band has always enjoyed a cult following among those in the know, but it's still a little heartbreaking to me that they never really got the love they deserve from listeners and critics. It's the curse of being just a tiny bit ahead of their time.
[First added to this chart: 02/17/2016]
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Big Harvest was the one and only album released by Indio, the solo project of Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Peterson. It's long been rumored that Peterson has had other material to be released, but so far the only thing that's materialized is the 2007 single "No Way Down." Despite this ever-tantalizing history, Peterson's achievement on Big Harvest is pretty impressive. This album contains the great single "Hard Sun," which was later recorded by Eddie Vedder for the Into the Wild soundtrack, as well as several other songs that built upon the eighties work of Paul Simon, Sting, and other artists who capitalized on the "world" music trend that was dominating North American pop music by the mid-eighties, thanks to the Live Aid concert and other international efforts and collaborations. The album sounds a little dated now, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for it because of its earnestness and environmental themes. An unjustly overlooked record.
[First added to this chart: 02/18/2016]
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The independent record store where I worked during college was the place where I first heard a tremendous amount of great music. I wouldn't say we listened to a lot of ska revival, but the owner of the store was a huge fan of most any slap bass-driven alternative rock: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus, even the Spin Doctors. Not all that stuff has aged well. But for me, Fishbone still sounds as fresh and innovative as they did then. I love how easily they move between the rapid-fire ska freakouts of, say, "Subliminal Fascism" to the acoustic ballad "Change." This is a skillful, deeply soulful album, with nods to every genre from sixties soul to seventies punk to eighties reggae. Seeing Fishbone live a decade later made me appreciate them that much more, as they managed to get a roomful of white people in Asheville, North Carolina, to dance like it was the last night of their lives.
[First added to this chart: 02/17/2016]
Total albums: 100. Page 2 of 10
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Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s composition
| Year | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
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|
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| 1980 | 7 | 7% | |
| 1981 | 7 | 7% | |
| 1982 | 8 | 8% | |
| 1983 | 9 | 9% | |
| 1984 | 7 | 7% | |
| 1985 | 12 | 12% | |
| 1986 | 9 | 9% | |
| 1987 | 9 | 9% | |
| 1988 | 15 | 15% | |
| 1989 | 17 | 17% |
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
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|
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| Talking Heads | 6 | 6% | |
| R.E.M. | 5 | 5% | |
| Hüsker Dü | 4 | 4% | |
| Bruce Springsteen | 3 | 3% | |
| Pixies | 3 | 3% | |
| The Replacements | 3 | 3% | |
| U2 | 3 | 3% | |
| Show all | |||
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buzzdainer (2017)Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s ratings
91/100 (from 22 votes)
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Showing latest 5 ratings for this chart. | Show all 22 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 90/100  | 03/26/2024 13:14 |  Goliath | | 86/100 |
| 90/100 | 03/26/2024 09:06 | Moondance | | 84/100 |
| 85/100 | 02/19/2023 13:31 |  Tamthebam | | 85/100 |
| 95/100 | 02/19/2023 11:01 |  MadhattanJack | | 84/100 |
| 90/100 | 02/19/2023 09:43 | Johnnyo | | 80/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
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This chart is rated in the top 2% of all charts on BestEverAlbums.com. This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 91.1/100, a mean average of 93.4/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 93.4/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 5.7.
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From buzzdainer 03/26/2024 14:37
buzzdainer 03/26/2024 14:37
Thank you, Moondance, for those suggestions. I've heard a couple of those albums, but the others are new to me. I do like that Robbie Robertson album quite a bit, and of course Dire Straits was a staple of my eighties music listening. I probably could have added a few more Australian bands to this list, since there was so much great Aussie rock from that period.
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90/100
From Moondance 02/19/2023 21:50
I always admire the thoughtful quality of charts & comments from buzzdainer and this is no exception. The inclusion of 6 Australian artists is quite excellent!
A couple of suggestions: ex The Band's Robbie Robertson - Robbie Robertson; Andy Pawlak - Shoebox Full of Secrets; Kauffamn & Caboor - Songs From Suicide Bridge; ex Talking Heads' Jerry Harrison's - Casual Gods; Dire Straits.
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90/100
From Johnnyo 02/19/2023 09:44
Great chart and love the descriptions that accompany the entries
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From buzzdainer 04/24/2021 20:49
buzzdainer 04/24/2021 20:49
Larcx13, I don't think you're at all off base to say Talking Heads were a strange band. For me that's part of their appeal. I think as a teenager I gravitated to them because I identified with their weirdness, their decidedly outside-the-mainstream aesthetic, because like most teenagers, I didn't feel like I fit into the mainstream. Nowadays I care less about that, and I just appreciate Talking Heads for fusing together elements of new wave and funk to create really well-made pop music. Although I have Remain in Light rated my favorite Talking Heads album, I might recommend starting with Little Creatures, which is a bit more accessible, or Stop Making Sense, which captures their live sound in a way that might enable a new listener to "get" them a bit better than their albums from the seventies and early eighties.
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95/100
From 
Larcx13 12/05/2020 15:56
Larcx13 12/05/2020 15:56
I should give talking heads some time. What i heard up to now was quite strange.
Nice list.
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100/100
From emptysquares 08/30/2020 11:01
Love your chart and there's a few entries I need to check out. Special respect for getting Billy Bragg in there - I didn't think our Bill travelled that far!
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From buzzdainer 07/18/2016 15:57
buzzdainer 07/18/2016 15:57
Thanks for the nice comment, pa! Doolittle is definitely worth checking out, especially given your appreciation for the likes of Fugazi, Meat Puppets, Yo La Tengo, Hüsker Dü, and others. It's plenty challenging and weird in its own way, but also melodic and likeable. Happy listening, and thanks for visiting my chart!
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100/100
From 
pa 07/18/2016 15:47
pa 07/18/2016 15:47
Hey there :)
I really like your chart too and I love the inclusion of Zen Arcade and California by AMC.
Doolittle is still on my wishlist...I'll check it out soon!
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
95/100
From stangetzaway 07/17/2016 22:36
Excellent mix of headliners and blue collar alternative acts. Quite a few I haven't heard so will have to check out.
Helpful? (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From buzzdainer 07/17/2016 21:15
buzzdainer 07/17/2016 21:15
Thanks, garycottier, for rating and commenting on this chart! Greg Brown is a bluesy, nostalgic singer-songwriter from Iowa who sings about the midwestern landscapes of his youth and a wide range of other topics. He's funny and irreverent, and a great guitar player. I'd recommend starting with some of his albums from the nineties, especially Further In, Dream Café, and The Poet Game. And yes, I love The Trinity Session--such a languid, dreamy, haunting listening experience. Margo Timmins is, in my opinion, one of the great vocalists of her generation.
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