Best Albums of the 1980s

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71.

Music For The Masses 

 Depeche Mode

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"DM's best album and the one that saw them finally enter stadium land. Tough and uncompromising, Masses was a further evolution of their sound - revisiting some of their favourite themes i.e. love, sex, death, and religion."  Reply

- johnner | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +4 votes (4 helpful | 0 unhelpful) 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:

500 charts

Rank Score:

3,586

Rank in 1987:

8

Rank in 1980s:

71

Overall Rank:

477

Average Rating:

 80 (619 votes)

Comments:

33

72.

Green 

 R.E.M.

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"Green is a funny little album. It marks the end of the IRS years, and the beginning of the more mainstream Warner Bros. period. It seems a lot of people have fond memories of Green as an album, and it is that sort of friendly album. Perhaps coupled by it's green tour, it has a real sort of commun...""Green is a funny little album. It marks the end of the IRS years, and the beginning of the more mainstream Warner Bros. period. It seems a lot of people have fond memories of Green as an album, and it is that sort of friendly album. Perhaps coupled by it's green tour, it has a real sort of community feel to it. It's the sort of album that you'd have on cassete and listen to in the car, it has such variety that everyone would find something to like. But it just lacks something. R.E.M.'s attempts at pop songs sound daft rather than up-beat, with the exception of pop-song 89. "Stand", for instance, I've always felt sounded too fake-cheery for such a seemingly ernest band. Some songs really stand out though, however, namely World Leader Pretend - a unique song with a Pink Floyd's The Wall-esque to it. It has a good handful of mandolin tunes as well, reminding me of Led Zepplin IV. The one thing that has always gotten my goat, however, is that the album never seems to end. "I Remember California" is an almost uncomforatbly dark song, juxtaposing with it's name, that simply fades out. It's then followed up by an untitled hidden track which, whilst has that end-song-feel to it (a happy ending), it fades out too. Some albums can pull off the fade-out album ending, such as Achtung-Baby, but it just doesn't work here. Shame too, would have be much higher in the list otherwise, but I still love it. "  [+]  Reply

- | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +3 votes (3 helpful | 0 unhelpful) 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:

528 charts

Rank Score:

3,566

Rank in 1988:

8

Rank in 1980s:

72

Overall Rank:

481

Average Rating:

 78 (756 votes)

Comments:

56

73.

Bleach 

 Nirvana

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"Not quite good enough to be considered a great album in it's own right but certainly more than just a historical artefact. That the band that wrote Negative Creep became the biggest band in the world can't fail to make me smile."  Reply

- Mr November | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +8 votes (8 helpful | 0 unhelpful) 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:

648 charts

Rank Score:

3,534

Rank in 1989:

7

Rank in 1980s:

73

Overall Rank:

484

Average Rating:

 76 (1,326 votes)

Comments:

61

74.

Lifes Rich Pageant 

 R.E.M.

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"I was just talking with my dad the other day about what a great album Lifes Rich Pageant is. We're of very different generations musically, and this is one of those rare points of total agreement. The song he singled out for particular praise was "The Flowers of Guatemala," and I couldn't agree m...""I was just talking with my dad the other day about what a great album Lifes Rich Pageant is. We're of very different generations musically, and this is one of those rare points of total agreement. The song he singled out for particular praise was "The Flowers of Guatemala," and I couldn't agree more; it might be the single greatest song R.E.M. ever recorded. It's a haunting political song about the horrific refugee crisis in Guatemala during the early eighties, largely a product of the Reagan administration's meddling in central American political and military affairs. The song itself is an incredibly warm and compassionate depiction of the refugees affected by this situation, with its evocative metaphor of deadly amanita mushrooms as "flowers." Pete Buck's searing guitar solo in this song gives me goosebumps even now, even after listening to this album for the thousandth time. Just a brilliant piece of work."  [+]  Reply

- buzzdainer | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +4 votes (4 helpful | 0 unhelpful) 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:

1986

Appears in:

524 charts

Rank Score:

3,487

Rank in 1986:

8

Rank in 1980s:

74

Overall Rank:

493

Average Rating:

 80 (769 votes)

Comments:

47

75.

Pretty Hate Machine 

 Nine Inch Nails

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"Pretty Hate Machine is Nine Inch Nail's first album, and it is awesome. Much dancier than any other NIN record, Pretty Hate Machine mixes synthpop with the industrial influences that would dominate the rest of his work. However, this album is not lacking in humanity, but incorporates it in the ly...""Pretty Hate Machine is Nine Inch Nail's first album, and it is awesome. Much dancier than any other NIN record, Pretty Hate Machine mixes synthpop with the industrial influences that would dominate the rest of his work. However, this album is not lacking in humanity, but incorporates it in the lyrics seamlessly with the industrial dance music beneath. "Head Like A Hole" is a classic, but the song that best showed Trent's potential is "Something I Could Never Have". An excellent album, and even though his subsequent releases wouldn't adapt this same sound, I think it's an incredible debut."  [+]  Reply

- souplipton | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +10 votes (10 helpful | 0 unhelpful) 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:

500 charts

Rank Score:

3,462

Rank in 1989:

8

Rank in 1980s:

75

Overall Rank:

496

Average Rating:

 79 (715 votes)

Comments:

45

76.

Computerwelt 

 Kraftwerk

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"There's a brilliant hook in every track with the most famous one being the one in "Computer Love" thanks to Coldplay. Ironic how an album aiming for something very futuristic ends up sounding this nostalgic. A compliment, not a complaint!"  Reply

- Mother Nature's Son | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +5 votes (5 helpful | 0 unhelpful) 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:

493 charts

Rank Score:

3,423

Rank in 1981:

2

Rank in 1980s:

76

Overall Rank:

503

Average Rating:

 80 (555 votes)

Comments:

33

77.

Avalon 

 Roxy Music

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"It took me a bit to get into this sound, but this really grew on me. Even though I didn't love it at first, this is undoubtedly one of the prettiest collection of songs I've ever heard."  Reply

- HoldenM | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +7 votes (7 helpful | 0 unhelpful) 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:

501 charts

Rank Score:

3,422

Rank in 1982:

7

Rank in 1980s:

77

Overall Rank:

505

Average Rating:

 79 (654 votes)

Comments:

32

78.

Licensed To Ill 

 Beastie Boys

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"One of the best fusions of rock and rap. This album is out of this world!"  Reply

- Pegleg | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +6 votes (6 helpful | 0 unhelpful) 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:

1986

Appears in:

622 charts

Rank Score:

3,319

Rank in 1986:

9

Rank in 1980s:

78

Overall Rank:

528

Average Rating:

 77 (870 votes)

Comments:

45

79.

Straight Outta Compton 

 N.W.A

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"Blueprint for rap and hip-hop of the 90s, sadly it havent aged well and the lyrics feel less impactful now than in the 80s. But the good songs, are REALLY good."  Reply

- Jbalbinolr | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +4 votes (4 helpful | 0 unhelpful) 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:

610 charts

Rank Score:

3,293

Rank in 1988:

9

Rank in 1980s:

79

Overall Rank:

532

Average Rating:

 78 (745 votes)

Comments:

40

80.

Discipline 

 King Crimson

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"I saw Adrian Belew play a bar in Iowa City in...had to be...1981 or 82. So, he had been on Sheik Yerbouti, Remain In Light, this album which everybody seemed to love...and there were maybe 300 people there, and he was playing with a recorded rhythm track so when we got him to do an encore, he jus...""I saw Adrian Belew play a bar in Iowa City in...had to be...1981 or 82. So, he had been on Sheik Yerbouti, Remain In Light, this album which everybody seemed to love...and there were maybe 300 people there, and he was playing with a recorded rhythm track so when we got him to do an encore, he just played the first two songs on the tape again. He said, "Who here remembers their first acid trip?" and we whooped and hollered. Amazingly small-time performance for a guy who could play arenas with three different world-class bands at the time. His vocals and his whole personality just transformed what King Crimson was capable of--Americanized the whole operation, and for the good. This album was completely on trend at the time, with the talky prose poem over music like Laurie Anderson etc, the Talking Heads-style funk on the opening track, the anagram song title like Eno had done, this was working out iterations of ideas that were in the air at the time. But Fripp was working out his own ideas musically, and his output in these years was very diverse, from his Frippertronics stuff to the album with Daryl Hall and the League of Gentlemen album. He had done the spiritual study with JG Bennett, and he was coming out with all this diverse product, plus the alternate tuning, and pretty soon he started giving holistic guitar clinics to...anybody who wanted to sign up. Every interview he gave was like words from an oracle, and every album was an important statement. Discipline, for the crowd I was hanging with, was a monolithic, landmark album, we didn't so much listen to it as study it. Stands up pretty well after all these years."  [+]  Reply

- | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +7 votes (7 helpful | 0 unhelpful) 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:

468 charts

Rank Score:

3,289

Rank in 1981:

3

Rank in 1980s:

80

Overall Rank:

533

Average Rating:

 80 (629 votes)

Comments:

25

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Total albums: 1,000. Page 8 of 100

Best Albums of the 1980s composition

Top 1,000 Top 500 Top 250 Top 100

Year	Albums	%
1980	121	12%
1981	119	12%
1982	107	11%
1983	96	10%
1984	101	10%
1985	88	9%
1986	91	9%
1987	89	9%
1988	97	10%
1989	92	9%

Artist	Albums	%
The Cure	10	1%
The Smiths	8	1%
Rush	8	1%
Iron Maiden	8	1%
R.E.M.	7	1%
Talking Heads	7	1%
U2	7	1%
Show all

Country	Albums	%
	412	41%
	392	39%
	40	4%
	29	3%
	22	2%
	20	2%
	12	1%
Show all

Compilation?	Albums	%
No	966	97%
Yes	35	3%

Live?	Albums	%
No	981	98%
Yes	20	2%

Soundtrack?	Albums	%
No	989	99%
Yes	12	1%