Top 73 Music Albums of the 1980s
by DriftingOrpheus

There is 1 comment for this chart from BestEverAlbums.com members and Top 73 Music Albums of the 1980s has an average rating of 88 out of 100 (from 4 votes). Please log in or register to leave a comment or assign a rating.

View the complete list of 57,000 charts on BestEverAlbums.com from The Charts page.

Share this chart
Collector's summary (filtered)Log in or register to discover the great albums that are missing from your music collection!
This chart is currently filtered to only show albums from 1985. (Remove this filter)
Sort by
Buy album United States
  • Amazon
  • eBay
  • iTunes
  • Spotify
  • #Sponsored
For years, Tom Waits constructed a visage of a midnight, woebegone crooner slouched over a piano which supported a glass of hard liquor home to a school of swirling cigarette ash. For years, that character would morph and contort into something less and less conventional until the 1980's ushered in a Waits completely detached from society who resembled a vagabond guttersnipe that embraced a new sonic identity. Hobo Waits would first surface in earnest on 1983's Swordfishtrombones, a record characterized by unorthodox percussion motifs, reminiscent of a subterranean city of banished circus mutants planning their ascent. Still, on that LP, he embodied the role of a freak show ringmaster parading his ostracized compatriots through the streets. On Rain Dogs, Waits' ninth full-length release, he more closely examines the lives of the disenfranchised, alleyway dreamers who live in sky-blackening squalor. The album approaches this as a purveying construct rather than a single track one-off that Waits commonly flirted with earlier in his career. However, instead of employing the prior method of getting shit-faced in downtown L.A. while mining for narrative inspiration from Skid Row's finest, Waits decided to put himself in their shoes on Rain Dogs. The music produced seems decidedly out of place when set against the backdrop of a 1980's music landscape dominated by new wave and synth pop tunes. Waits rarely gets enough credit when discussing music's most triumphant reinventionists, but the man who claimed to be born in a taxi cab was guilty of metamorphizing more than once in his checkered career. Rain Dogs just happens to be his finest reawakening.

The record begins with "Singapore" which functions as a gothic sea shanty of sorts (if you can imagine such a thing). Similar to the opening track of Swordfishtrombones, "Singapore" shines light on a theatrically-rendered sub-culture with a ragtag group of sailors as his subject. Waits declares, "The captain is a one-armed dwarf, he's throwing dice along the wharf; In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." The track chugs at a steady pace, lead by trumpet and junkyard percussion and invites the listener into the world of Rain Dogs. Second track, Clap Hands, continues the trend of unorthodox percussion, employing the marimba as the spine of the song. The piece is centered around a grotesque locomotive trip through the Big Apple with Waits himself attaching backstories to fellow passengers to pass the time. "Cemetery Polka" arrives third and it features a bizarre roll call of the most aberrant family members one could have. At this family reunion, accordion and farfisa organ take center stage. Waits describes, "Uncle Bill will never leave a will, and the tumor is as big as an egg; He has a mistress, she's Puerto Rican and I heard she has a wooden leg." On "Jockey Full of Bourbon", he recants a tale of a drunken, fragmented evening with the help of conga drums and a baritone sax. Waits invokes the spirit of his idol Jack Kerouac here with his prose, "Schiffer broke a bottle on Morgan's head and I've been stepping on the devil's tail; Across the stripes of a full moon's head, through the bars of a Cuban jail." Waits' lyricism displays shades of influence from Bob Dylan to Allen Ginsberg while effortlessly being raw, idiosyncratic and indigenous. Fifth track, "Tango Till They're Sore" is a waltzy, crooked ballad seemingly played by the town drunk on a 300 year old grand piano. The track is seemingly the last will and wishes of a destitute, easily visualized on the curb near a dive bar as light from the nearest window backlights him for his small gathering of similars. Waits promises, "I'll tell you all my secrets, but I lie about my past; Send me off to bed forevermore." It's a proposition that receives further treatment later in the LP.

"Big Black Mariah" showcases a howling Waits describing this Mariah as a black hearse coming for New Orleans' recently deceased. The song includes an appearance from Keith Richards on guitar which is a match made in heaven with Waits' one of a kind vocal delivery. Waits concludes, "He's got a wooden coat, this boy is never coming home." Eighth track, "Hang Down Your Head", is far more digestible than previous entries. Waits recruits a softer touch in the solemn, reflective track. The cut is vaguely Springsteenian, if the boss had swallowed glass while smoking a cigar.. The end result is something profoundly earnest and devoid of any decoration, strengthening the pathos within. Speaking of pathos, Waits doubles down on ninth track "Time", an understated guitar stroll evocative of his 1970's output. Here, Waits isn't trying to rekindle a former love. He knows he's incapable of it and urges his paramour to move on. It's symbolic of Waits giving himself to abstraction and leaving the world of lounges and muses behind. The title track introduces itself with wheezing accordion and chronicles a man who champions his position on the outskirts of society. These Rain Dogs are a proud bunch that shoo away taxis in favor of walking through torrential downpour and dance all night long, free of societal restraints and commitments. It's also a track that doubles as a rallying cry for Earth's outcasts during Waits' live sets. The LP winds down with one of its most enduring cuts. "Downtown Train" was made famous by Rod Stewart's rendition, but it's Waits' original that retains the piece's soul and depth. Waits pens a siren song for a nameless beloved as he rides a New York City train in the hopes that she will be amongst those in attendance. He questions if he himself would be good enough for his soulmate and how she'll be illuminated amongst all the "Brooklyn girls looking to break out of their little worlds". Waits' delivery here is so remarkably passionate and vulnerable that it provides lucidity to his character's eternal strife. The record culminates with the hyper-appropriate "Anywhere I Lay My Head", a jubilant, triumphant funeral march celebrating the life and times of defiant transient. Sonically, it wouldn't be out of place at Mardi Gras, with brass tones sending the narrator off into the great beyond. He declares, "I don't need anybody because I learned, I learned to be alone and I say anywhere, anywhere, anywhere I lay my head, boys; I will call my home." It's a glowing, stirring epitaph that symbolizes America's homeless and calls upon to the listener to undergo a paradigm shift. A miraculous end to a poignant record.

Waits' prophetic prose on Rain Dogs would be distinctly pertinent both within the walls of a philosophy classroom and sketched onto the stall of a subway toiletry. Few men can walk such a thin line and Waits' approach to this principle was never more dynamic than on Rain Dogs. His provocative commentary and crystal clear imagery are bolstered even further by the daring sonic experimentation that helped define the album. In a few short years, Waits graduated from barfly, lonesome anthems to concept albums about hobo culture and sideshow empowerment. Only Tom himself could make the transition between these two abstracts an unbridled success. Even with the runaway acclaim garnered with Rain Dogs and subsequent albums, Waits has rarely seen consistent recognition as one of history's finest songsmiths and innovators. However, to those who know his work well, it never fails to shine as brightly as a silver dollar intertwined amongst the discarded waste of a city's populace. His underground appeal is his lifeblood and Rain Dogs is his inspirational tale to endlessly entertain an audience of three that feels like three-hundred huddled around a barrel of fire to escape old man winter's scorn.

"Well it's 9th and Hennepin
And all the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
And the moon's teeth marks are on the sky
Like a tarp thrown all over this
And the broken umbrellas like dead birds
And the steam comes out of the grill
Like the whole goddamned town is ready to blow"

-9th & Hennepin

1. Anywhere I Lay My Head
2. Tango Till They're Sore
3. Time

92.5
[First added to this chart: 04/27/2020]
Year of Release:
1985
Appears in:
Rank Score:
11,687
Rank in 1985:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album United States
  • Amazon
  • eBay
  • iTunes
  • Spotify
  • #Sponsored
When discussing The Smiths within musical circles, many would cite The Queen is Dead's politically-laced barrages of sound or perhaps the shyly-communicated romantic and physical insecurities of the band's brilliant debut record. When Meat is Murder eventually surfaces in conversation, it comes embroidered with the tagline, "The one where Morrissey pontificates about vegan ideals?" While it's certainly true that the album's title track is just as preachy as it is powerful, the record stands (albeit mostly unseen by most) as one of the band's most consistently brilliant outings. One could certainly attest to this album being the most varied in the discography, fluctuating between windswept, idyllic ballads and guitar-driven, rebellious canticles. This stylistic grab bag usually results in an uneven sonic experience, however, with the collective talent on hand, The Smiths deliver a master stroke markedly representative of their entire body of work.

The Headmaster Ritual kicks off the record, which serves as the band's statement on corporal punishment in educational settings. Marr's guitar is promptly infectious on the track, serving as the skeleton of the song while Mike Joyce's drum hits assume the figure of a percussive heart. Morrissey's yowls can be found scattered throughout, bridging between condemning cries of "Belligerent ghouls, run Manchester schools, spineless bastards all." The frontman's personal experiences can certainly be inferred upon here. It's possible his inclination towards artistic pursuits and not athletics made his time at school tumultuous. The Headmaster Ritual is a potent opener, flaunting wondrous instrumentation and inciting social discourse. Track two entitled, Rusholme Ruffians, conjures a carnival scene set against the backdrop of a hot summer evening in Manchester. Morrissey, from a lyrical standpoint, relays his most satirical skepticisms. He beckons, "Scratch my name on your arm with a fountain pen, this means you really love me." He then recants (slightly), proclaiming that his "faith in love is still devout". Sixth track, Nowhere Fast, continues with all things snide, although far less concealed. Lyrics such as, "I'd like to drop my trousers to the Queen, every sensible child will know what this means" serve as a playful foreshadowing of political sentiments to follow. Marr's rockabilly rhythms once again propel the track reiteratively interlocked with Joyce's dependable drumming. For the quintet, Nowhere Fast acts as the musical equivalent of "cocking a snook". The album then coasts into seventh track, Well I Wonder, manifesting as part lullaby and epitaph. The appropriate visual accompaniment is that of beads of rain wandering down a windowpane as the sound of the drops patter overhead. Morrissey's vocal delivery is painful serene here as he croons, "Gasping, but somehow still alive, this is the fierce last stand of all I am." Andy Rourke's bass work creates a sense of space for the vocals, constructing a visual of Morrissey transmitting from the deepest, ghastliest alleyway where his pained but gorgeous falsettos only go as far as the wind takes them.

Morrissey's polarizing views on meat-infused diets, (comparing meat eating to child abuse and biting into your grandmother among others), often lampoon the album as an extension of those divisive statements. These snippets, nevertheless, should not detract from what an immense triumph this record still is, despite the idealogical load it must unfairly saddle. The Smiths were indeed two steps ahead of most of their contemporaries in the 1980's and routinely reduced similar-sounding groups to cut-rate emulations. Coinciding with their imminent prime was Meat is Murder, a stirring collection of some of The Smiths' finest musical exertions, layered and textured both in instrumentation and poetic capability. Ignominiously, It continues to remain back-seated when pitted against other Smiths discography entries. Oddly enough, you'll "get a crack on the head" for daring to bring it up.

"This is the last night of the fair,
and the grease in the hair,
of a speedway operator
is all a tremulous heart requires.
A schoolgirl is denied
She said : "How quickly would I die
If I jumped from the top of the parachutes?"

--Rusholme Ruffians

Standout Tracks:

1. Nowhere Fast
2. The Headmaster Ritual
3. Rusholme Ruffians

92.1
[First added to this chart: 04/27/2020]
Year of Release:
1985
Appears in:
Rank Score:
6,366
Rank in 1985:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
14. (13) Down 1
Buy album United States
  • Amazon
  • eBay
  • iTunes
  • Spotify
  • #Sponsored
85.8 [First added to this chart: 04/27/2020]
Year of Release:
1985
Appears in:
Rank Score:
2,709
Rank in 1985:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
45. (44) Down 1
Buy album United States
  • Amazon
  • eBay
  • iTunes
  • Spotify
  • #Sponsored
78.6 [First added to this chart: 05/25/2020]
Year of Release:
1985
Appears in:
Rank Score:
18,247
Rank in 1985:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Top rated album (85/100 - 1405 votes)  85 (1,405 votes)
Comments:
Buy album United States
  • Amazon
  • eBay
  • iTunes
  • Spotify
  • #Sponsored
78 [First added to this chart: 10/06/2024]
Year of Release:
1985
Appears in:
Rank Score:
414
Rank in 1985:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
52. (51) Down 1
Buy album United States
  • Amazon
  • eBay
  • iTunes
  • Spotify
  • #Sponsored
77.5 [First added to this chart: 07/15/2022]
Year of Release:
1985
Appears in:
Rank Score:
1,970
Rank in 1985:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
61. (60) Down 1
Buy album United States
  • Amazon
  • eBay
  • iTunes
  • Spotify
  • #Sponsored
74.8 [First added to this chart: 05/25/2020]
Year of Release:
1985
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5
Rank in 1985:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Buy album United States
  • Amazon
  • eBay
  • iTunes
  • Spotify
  • #Sponsored
74.8 [First added to this chart: 03/04/2024]
Year of Release:
1985
Appears in:
Rank Score:
523
Rank in 1985:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 8. Page 1 of 1
Don't agree with this chart? Create your own from the My Charts page!

Top 73 Music Albums of the 1980s composition

Year Albums %


1980 8 11%
1981 10 14%
1982 10 14%
1983 9 12%
1984 6 8%
1985 8 11%
1986 8 11%
1987 5 7%
1988 3 4%
1989 6 8%
Artist Albums %


Swans 6 8%
New Order 5 7%
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 5 7%
The Smiths 4 5%
Tom Waits 4 5%
Violent Femmes 4 5%
The Adicts 4 5%
Show all
Country Albums %


United States 35 48%
United Kingdom 22 30%
Australia 8 11%
Mixed Nationality 5 7%
Germany 1 1%
Japan 1 1%
Canada 1 1%
Live? Albums %
No 72 99%
Yes 1 1%
Soundtrack? Albums %
No 72 99%
Yes 1 1%

Top 73 Music Albums of the 1980s chart changes

Biggest fallers
Faller Down 1 from 11th to 12th
You're Living All Over Me
by Dinosaur
Faller Down 1 from 12th to 13th
Power, Corruption & Lies
by New Order
Faller Down 1 from 13th to 14th
Low-Life
by New Order
New entries
New entry Nigeria
by Grant Green
TitleSourceTypePublishedCountry
Top 71 Music Albums of the 1980s AvalancheGrips1980s decade chart2022
Top 60 Music Albums of the 1980sWallerand1980s decade chart2021
Top 54 Music Albums of the 1980s Timestarter1980s decade chart2022
Top 40 Music Albums of the 1980sgravityrider9991980s decade chart2019
Top 71 Music Albums of the 1980s HazeyTwilight1980s decade chart2015
Top 50 Music Albums of the 1980smarleykeys1980s decade chart2023
Top 65 Music Albums of the 1980sclarkejames941980s decade chart2018Unknown
Top 50 Music Albums of the 1980s Space-Dementia1980s decade chart2019
Top 70 Music Albums of the 1980s phantom13051980s decade chart2023
Top 37 Music Albums of the 1980sMaxStorm981980s decade chart2017

Top 73 Music Albums of the 1980s similarity to your chart(s)


Not a member? Registering is quick, easy and FREE!


Why register?


Register now - it only takes a moment!

TitleSourceTypePublishedCountry
Top 28 Music Albums of the 2020s DriftingOrpheus2020s decade chart2025
Top 100 Music Albums of the 2010s DriftingOrpheus2010s decade chart2025
Top 99 Music Albums of the 2000s DriftingOrpheus2000s decade chart2025
Top 92 Music Albums of the 1990s DriftingOrpheus1990s decade chart2025
Top 73 Music Albums of the 1980s DriftingOrpheus1980s decade chart2025
DriftingOrpheus has created 4 other 1980s decade charts - click here to explore them all.

Top 73 Music Albums of the 1980s ratings

Average Rating: 
88/100 (from 4 votes)
  Help Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

N.B. The average rating for this chart will not be reliable as it has been rated very few times.

Showing all 4 ratings for this chart.

Sort by
RatingDate updatedMemberChart ratingsAvg. chart rating
The chart has been updated since this rating was assigned   
85/100
 !
01/31/2025 14:17 SomethingSpecial   1,10685/100
The chart has been updated since this rating was assigned   
100/100
 !
08/30/2021 17:41 DJENNY   4,365100/100
The chart has been updated since this rating was assigned   
95/100
 !
07/20/2021 15:03 Larcx13   1,14486/100
The chart has been updated since this rating was assigned   
100/100
 !
04/28/2021 19:07 Rhyner   1,45499/100
Please log in or register if you want to be able to leave a rating

Top 73 Music Albums of the 1980s favourites

Please log in or register if you want to be able to add a favourite

Top 73 Music Albums of the 1980s comments

Showing all 1 comments |
Most Helpful First | Newest First | Maximum Rated First | Longest Comments First
(Only showing comments with -2 votes or higher. You can alter this threshold from your profile page. Manage Profile)

Rating:  
95/100
From 07/20/2021 15:03 | #271753
Love that Misfits album!
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Please log in or register if you want to be able to add a comment

Your feedback for Top 73 Music Albums of the 1980s

Anonymous
Let us know what you think of this chart by adding a comment or assigning a rating below!
Log in or register to assign a rating or leave a comment for this chart.
Best Artists of 1974
1. King Crimson
2. Neil Young
3. Genesis
4. Supertramp
5. Queen
6. Brian Eno
7. Eno
8. Robert Wyatt
9. Joni Mitchell
10. David Bowie
11. Jorge Ben
12. Camel
13. Sparks
14. Big Star
15. Steely Dan
16. Van Morrison
17. Kraftwerk
18. Frank Zappa
19. Gene Clark
20. Richard & Linda Thompson
Back to Top