Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s
by 
Romanelli 
- Chart updated: 11/19/2025 21:45
- (Created: 12/04/2011 20:38).
- Chart size: 100 albums.
There are 15 comments for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s has an average rating of 84 out of 100 (from 29 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.
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This chart is currently filtered to only show albums from Pixies. (Remove this filter)
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Produced By STEVE ALBINI
1. Bone Machine
2. Break My Body
3. Something Against You
4. Broken Face
5. Gigantic
6. River Euphrates
7. Where Is My Mind?
8. Cactus
9. Tony's Theme
10. Oh My Golly!
11. Vamos
12. I'm Amazed
13. Brick Is Red
At the end of rock's strangest transitional decade (the 80's), the Pixies delivered one of the best one-two album punches ever with Surfer Rosa and Doolittle. Surfer Rosa sounds like nothing else from the 80's...dark, hilarious, scary, fun, and rocking all in one package. Definitely not pop or music for the masses in any way, those who discovered The Pixies in 1988 were in for something new and exciting. Black Francis was like no one else in rock, and Kim Deal (who was credited on the album as Mrs. John Murphy) became the coolest girl in music ever.
"Bone Machine" and Deal's "Gigantic" are the highlights, but the rest is very good as well. An almost perfect album from an almost perfect band, The Pixies were never better than at the end of the 80's. You should have both this and Doolittle in your collection. [First added to this chart: 12/21/2011]
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Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s composition
| Year | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
|
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| 1980 | 14 | 14% | |
| 1981 | 7 | 7% | |
| 1982 | 11 | 11% | |
| 1983 | 7 | 7% | |
| 1984 | 8 | 8% | |
| 1985 | 5 | 5% | |
| 1986 | 10 | 10% | |
| 1987 | 11 | 11% | |
| 1988 | 14 | 14% | |
| 1989 | 13 | 13% |
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
 |
|
|
| Talking Heads | 3 | 3% | |
| Bruce Springsteen | 3 | 3% | |
| R.E.M. | 3 | 3% | |
| X (US) | 3 | 3% | |
| U2 | 3 | 3% | |
| The Cure | 2 | 2% | |
| The Jesus And Mary Chain | 2 | 2% | |
| Show all | |||
Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s chart changes
| Biggest climbers |
|---|
| Up 4 from 20th to 16th Double Nickels On The Dime by Minutemen |
| Biggest fallers |
|---|
| Down 1 from 16th to 17th After The Snow by Modern English |
| Down 1 from 17th to 18th Disintegration by The Cure |
| Down 1 from 18th to 19th Appetite For Destruction by Guns N' Roses |
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Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s ratings
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
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Showing latest 5 ratings for this chart. | Show all 29 ratings for this chart.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Chart ratings | Avg. chart rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 80/100  | 02/06/2025 15:30 | BorderFreeAndrew | | 81/100 |
| 85/100 | 01/31/2025 14:12 |  SomethingSpecial | | 85/100 |
| 70/100 | 01/23/2022 16:11 |  IlMala | | 95/100 |
| 80/100 | 10/22/2020 01:13 | leniad | | 85/100 |
| 85/100 | 09/05/2020 14:13 | MasterOfPuppets | | 91/100 |
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).
(*In practice, some charts can have several thousand ratings)
This chart has a Bayesian average rating of 83.9/100, a mean average of 81.4/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 83.2/100. The standard deviation for this chart is 13.4.
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Top 100 Music Albums of the 1980s comments
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Nice to see Adam Ant's "Friend or Foe" so high (a seriously underrated album), along with several other forgotten classics that tend to be ignored when most people make an 80's chart.
Respect
some solid picks m8.
Liedzeit 11/24/2018 10:49
It is nice to see an 80s chart as chart of the day for a change. And what a pathetic decade it was if even someone like you who obviously knows a lot of stuff cannot come up with better records than these. TW are okay but as no. 1? The first decent LP enters at place 23, in my opinion.
ForegroundNoise 11/24/2018 09:24
Really like your notes!!
buzzdainer 07/16/2016 15:13
I love your take on the eighties! I really appreciate your #1 pick, as supergroups tend to be written off as inferior to the works of their individual members--an assumption that the Traveling Wilburys blew out of the water. Full Moon Fever, Disintegration, Doolittle, and The River are all great albums, too. Also really nice to see Blue Earth in your top ten, as I've been a huge fan of the Jayhawks for many years and love that album. Excellent work overall, especially on your notes!
Great albums I guess some I wouldn't play so much. We have quite a few similar choices
tgarritsen 01/13/2014 15:59
Interesting number one pick.
Nice chart!
Good choice at #1.
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