Best Albums of the 1980s

Listed below are the best albums of the 1980s as calculated from their overall rankings in over 58,000 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
"OMD with more than a nod towards Kraftwerk...quite different to Architecture & Morality, more industrial but a good listen. Difficult to rate tracks individually but as a whole I like it. The whole album rating more than just a sum of its parts. Oh, and Radio Waves most definitely should have bee..."  [+]  Reply
- Rich150 | 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:
1983
Appears in:
Rank Score:
362
Rank in 1983:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"Not only best album of the year, but one of the best albums of the decade and of latin american music. Listening to this, the amazing music and emotional lyrics from poems by Pablo Neruda is breathtaking. You actually feel on top o Machu Picchu. Trascendental experience and really worth checking."  Reply
- TheNowhereGuy | 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:
359
Rank in 1981:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"Midnight Oil are underrated as heck. Third favorite album of theirs. Becoming one of my favorite 80s bands for sure. Catchy, quite unique and fun as heck. His vocals and their style are addictive to my brain. One of those rare artists that impressed me right off the bat when I finally listened to..."  [+]  Reply
- ExTeaSea | 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:
1984
Appears in:
Rank Score:
359
Rank in 1984:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"An album that absolutely shreds from start to finish. In 1988, a year with hard rock and metal everywhere, this stands above its peers as the most powerful and catchiest of the bunch."  Reply
- NCanon | 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:
1988
Appears in:
Rank Score:
357
Rank in 1988:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Year of Release:
1981
Appears in:
Rank Score:
356
Rank in 1981:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Year of Release:
1987
Appears in:
Rank Score:
356
Rank in 1987:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Year of Release:
1982
Appears in:
Rank Score:
355
Rank in 1982:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Year of Release:
1988
Appears in:
Rank Score:
355
Rank in 1988:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"The debut album by The Replacements is a rip roaring punk rock record that fizzes by in a flash. Sorry Ma, is a superb record full of energy and hunger. Some tracks, or at least moments sound uncannily like The Clash or the Sex Pistols, but at the end of the day it's still the Replacements. Thril..."  [+]  Reply
- garycottier | 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:
1981
Appears in:
Rank Score:
354
Rank in 1981:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
"My introduction to the retro sounds of The Hoodoo Gurus - and I will forever feel blessed. A combination of Beatlesque chiming guitars, tribal drumming, and Cramps-like cemetery humor, "Stoneage Romeos" plays it hard and fast, and gives notice that this group from down under would be around for a..."  [+]  Reply
- TheDude85 | 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:
1984
Appears in:
Rank Score:
354
Rank in 1984:
Rank in 1980s:
Overall Rank:
Average Rating:
Comments:
Total albums: 1,000. Page 60 of 100

Best Albums of the 1980s composition