Best Albums of the 1980s
Explore the best albums of the 1980s, based on over 2 million album rankings across 61,000 charts
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"The best of U2's early albums. The songs on War are held together with a theme about struggle. They take the universal concepts about War and strife in their homeland and relate them to the inner struggle going on within each of us to be something better." Reply
Year of Release:
1983
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,432
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"This album is definitely something new for Bowie at that point, instrumental experiments are mostly successful and they sound incredible, but vocal experiments are either incredible or horrible. Best tracks are Up The Hill Backwards, Scary Monsters, Ashes To Ashes, Fashion and hidden gem - Becaus..." Reply
Year of Release:
1980
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,408
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"Wow! Jesus just heard all way through probably first time since the 80s, and it's amazing! I knew it well which wasn't what I expected. I always had it down as just ok. The working hour is best of the lot." Reply
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Graeme2 | Helpful? (Log in to vote) · 5
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:
1985
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,217
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"As someone who tends not to like indie rock bands with weak singers and disturbed lyrics, you might expect me not to like this album. However, I can unreservedly say that the first 7 tracks here are simply incredible. First: the songwriting is excellent. The poppy moments in 'in a jar' (after 'ju..." Reply
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Caesar01 | Helpful? (Log in to vote) · 2
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Year of Release:
1987
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,217
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"Probably Metallica's last really great album. The first half is one of metal's best 30 minutes or so. The second half can drag, but at their pinnacle few could match their raw power. Let's also not forget that by the hair band standards of the time Metallica stood out as actually a fairly intelli..." Reply
Year of Release:
1988
Appears in:
Rank Score:
5,062
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"Not as good as Remain In Light but still a great Talking Heads release" Reply
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discojets1 | Helpful? (Log in to vote) · 3
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Year of Release:
1983
Appears in:
Rank Score:
4,970
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"The Cure can go two ways: either very gothic or extremely pop sounding. The Head on the Door is the latter and it's the best Cure pop album. I once read somewhere that every song in this record could easily be a single and I strongly agree. Every time I listen to this my love for it only deepens...." Reply
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lleon79 | Helpful? (Log in to vote) · 7
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Year of Release:
1985
Appears in:
Rank Score:
4,653
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"Words cannot describe my love for this album! Who knows what they would've achieved if D. Boon hadn't gone at such a young age... It's pretty damn close to perfection, if only there were bands like this still around..." Reply
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Patman360 | Helpful? (Log in to vote) · 5
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Year of Release:
1984
Appears in:
Rank Score:
4,595
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"One of my favorite punk albums ever. It's an album that pretty much embodies punk as a genre. It's fast, wild, rebellious, anti-establishment, and everything else thats great about punk. Holiday In Cambodia is an absolute classic punk track" Reply
Year of Release:
1980
Appears in:
Rank Score:
4,535
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Average Rating:
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"This for me is the album where REM really started to find their sound" Reply
Year of Release:
1987
Appears in:
Rank Score:
4,518
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Total albums: 1,000. Page 5 of 100
Best Albums of the 1980s composition
| Year | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | 118 | 12% | |
| 1981 | 120 | 12% | |
| 1982 | 108 | 11% | |
| 1983 | 96 | 10% | |
| 1984 | 100 | 10% | |
| 1985 | 87 | 9% | |
| 1986 | 93 | 9% | |
| 1987 | 87 | 9% | |
| 1988 | 99 | 10% | |
| 1989 | 92 | 9% |
| Artist | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
| The Cure | 10 | 1% | |
| Elvis Costello | 8 | 1% | |
| The Smiths | 8 | 1% | |
| Rush | 8 | 1% | |
| XTC | 8 | 1% | |
| Prince | 8 | 1% | |
| Iron Maiden | 8 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
| Country | Albums | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
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 |
411 | 41% | |
| |
391 | 39% | |
 |
40 | 4% | |
 |
28 | 3% | |
 |
23 | 2% | |
 |
21 | 2% | |
 |
11 | 1% | |
| Show all | |||
Best Albums of the 1980s chart changes
| Biggest climbers Biggest climbers in top 100 since last month |
|---|
Up 4 from 70th to 66th |
Up 4 from 62nd to 58th |
Up 3 from 94th to 91st |
| Biggest fallers Biggest fallers in top 100 since last month |
|---|
Down 4 from 57th to 61st |
Down 2 from 33rd to 35th |
Down 2 from 38th to 40th |
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