Best Albums of the 1980s

Listed below are the best albums of the 1980s as calculated from their overall rankings in over 59,000 greatest album charts. (Chart last updated: 1 hour ago).
Best albums by year or decade
Decade:
Year:
1980s decade summaryThe best artists of the 1980s were The Smiths, Prince, The Cure, Pixies, Talking Heads, U2, Metallica, Kate Bush, R.E.M. and The Stone Roses.
View chart at point in time
 Show this chart as it was on the following date
Share this chart
Collector's summary (top 1,000) Help The maximum rank used by the Collector's Summary is configurable from your profile (top 1,000 is currently selected). Log in or register to discover the great albums that are missing from your music collection!
Sort Sort by
"Very good post-punkband. IMHO this first album is better than From the Lion's Mouth. Don't understand that "I can't escape myself" never was a hit, it should have been."  Reply
- urshurak | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
1980
Appears in:
Rank Score:
854
Rank in 1980:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
302.
Koyaanisqatsi 
Soundtrack
Year of Release:
1983
Appears in:
Rank Score:
849
Rank in 1983:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"OK so he cheated by adding two old songs and 'updating' them to the sound of 1987, but even without those two songs, it is still a great album. And the video of Still Of The Night. I admit that 1987 was not a 'timeless' year and this album like Pyromania and Appetite For Destruction just don't se..."  [+]  Reply
- stevengnz | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
1987
Appears in:
Rank Score:
847
Rank in 1987:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"OK, maybe it was my more up-beat sensibility at the time (which hasn't really changed that much in the thirty-odd years since - a killer riff in an upbeat pop song is still irresistible), but I think this album is a classic and one of my all-time favourites. Basic synth pop of its time but the ba..."  [+]  Reply
- NickF | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
1982
Appears in:
Rank Score:
845
Rank in 1982:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"I thibk this is one of the best albums from 1981 and from the 80s. This was the culminate point of them carreer. There's no album sounding like this. They had a sound witch combine New Romantic and Synth-Pop with oriental music. David Sylvian's voice and compositions are amazing, Mike Karn was th..."  [+]  Reply
- Steven | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
1981
Appears in:
Rank Score:
844
Rank in 1981:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"I think this album works as a whole, rather than the sum of its parts - there are no real weal tracks and there is a nice consistency of sound and feel to the album. Afterimage, Red Sector A and Between The Wheels are the best moments."  Reply
- FieryGunHand | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +5 votes (5 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
1984
Appears in:
Rank Score:
842
Rank in 1984:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Year of Release:
1980
Appears in:
Rank Score:
838
Rank in 1980:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Year of Release:
1983
Appears in:
Rank Score:
824
Rank in 1983:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"Any Pepper album with Frusciante is better than an album without. So Mother's Milk lands 5th in their catalogue for me. This is a band still figuring out their identity with the wrong producer that wants their sound heavier than it should be. This album hits and misses as they search for what the..."  [+]  Reply
- Edwarda85 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (2 helpful | 1 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
1989
Appears in:
Rank Score:
823
Rank in 1989:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"Right as everyone wrote them off as dead after Ricky Wilson's death and the subsequent failure of the underrated "Bouncing Off The Satellites", they came back bigger than ever. I am partial to the earlier records and admit that "Love Shack" isn't one of my fave B-52's songs but as a whole a very ..."  [+]  Reply
- nf0603 | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +3 votes (3 helpful | 0 unhelpful) Help A maximum of 5 top-voted qualifying comments are selected for each album. To provide the best experience for visitors, comments are excluded if they refer to data corrections, contain excessive profanity, are written in all caps, are non-English, are too short, consist of conversations between users, or contain lists of best tracks etc.
Year of Release:
1989
Appears in:
Rank Score:
816
Rank in 1989:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 1,000. Page 31 of 100

Best Albums of the 1980s composition

Best Albums of 2012
1. Good Kid, M.A.A.D City by Kendrick Lamar
2. Lonerism by Tame Impala
3. Channel Orange by Frank Ocean
4. Bloom by Beach House
5. The Money Store by Death Grips
6. An Awesome Wave by alt-J
7. The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver Of The Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do by Fiona Apple
8. Born To Die by Lana Del Rey
9. The Seer by Swans
10. Visions by Grimes