Best Albums of 1981

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1.

Moving Pictures 

 Rush

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"Moving Pictures was a last hurrah for prog rock, which was falling out of favour by the early 80s. Rush had never, and would never again, achieve the greatness they did on Moving Pictures. Perfectly balancing their hard rock and softer electronic sounds. Featuring some of their best know hits in ...""Moving Pictures was a last hurrah for prog rock, which was falling out of favour by the early 80s. Rush had never, and would never again, achieve the greatness they did on Moving Pictures. Perfectly balancing their hard rock and softer electronic sounds. Featuring some of their best know hits in "Limelight", "YYZ", and "Tom Sawyer", as well as other highlights "Red Barchetta" and "The Camera Eye", as well as the also great "Witch Hunt", and "Vital Signs". Not a weak track or lull on the album, it's what Rush will be best remembered for, and that's ok by me."  [More]  Reply  
- souplipton | 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:

1981

Appears in:

1,023 charts

Rank Score:

8,805

Rank in 1981:

1

Rank in 1980s:

21

Overall Rank:

162

Average Rating:

 83 (1,303 votes)

Comments:

87

2.

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:

492 charts

Rank Score:

3,419

Rank in 1981:

2

Rank in 1980s:

77

Overall Rank:

501

Average Rating:

 80 (553 votes)

Comments:

33

3.

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."  [More]  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:

3,313

Rank in 1981:

3

Rank in 1980s:

78

Overall Rank:

527

Average Rating:

 80 (626 votes)

Comments:

25

4.

Juju 

 Siouxsie And The Banshees

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"The only album I'll practice witchcraft to"  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:

1981

Appears in:

413 charts

Rank Score:

2,970

Rank in 1981:

4

Rank in 1980s:

87

Overall Rank:

567

Average Rating:

 79 (453 votes)

Comments:

26

5.

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts 

 Brian Eno & David Byrne

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"I really did not see this coming. Of course there is a relationship with "Remain in Light" by TH, but the combined talent of Eno / Byrne makes this album the best and most innovative music of 1981. The processing of samples (tape loops, because digital technology was not yet available) is extraor...""I really did not see this coming. Of course there is a relationship with "Remain in Light" by TH, but the combined talent of Eno / Byrne makes this album the best and most innovative music of 1981. The processing of samples (tape loops, because digital technology was not yet available) is extraordinary. Feverish. The voices of the outside world merge seamlessly with the haunting music."  [More]  Reply  
- leMonk | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +2 votes (2 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:

388 charts

Rank Score:

2,641

Rank in 1981:

5

Rank in 1980s:

102

Overall Rank:

647

Average Rating:

 77 (436 votes)

Comments:

32

6.

Time 

 Electric Light Orchestra

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"WOW, I've always considered by self to be a casual fan of ELO, but never thought that they were amazing, but this was incredible, easily their best album and possibly one of the best albums of the 80s"  Reply  
- hereforashortime | Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +6 votes (7 helpful | 1 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:

289 charts

Rank Score:

2,359

Rank in 1981:

6

Rank in 1980s:

110

Overall Rank:

735

Average Rating:

 76 (400 votes)

Comments:

38

7.

Faith 

 The Cure

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"Cannot decide between this and Pornography. Both are masterpieces of the darkest and the most "goth" Cure period. Holy Hour against One Hundred Years, All Cats Are Gray against A Strange Day and so on..."  Reply  
- LedZep | 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:

394 charts

Rank Score:

2,122

Rank in 1981:

7

Rank in 1980s:

125

Overall Rank:

811

Average Rating:

 77 (607 votes)

Comments:

24

8.

Dare 

 The Human League

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"I believe that the relatively low score of 73 for this album reflects the number of purists or 'rockers' - or whatever you want to call them - who want to immediately attack it because it's heavily based on the synthesizer. Or, they know only the hit song and can't appreciate it (see comment rega...""I believe that the relatively low score of 73 for this album reflects the number of purists or 'rockers' - or whatever you want to call them - who want to immediately attack it because it's heavily based on the synthesizer. Or, they know only the hit song and can't appreciate it (see comment regarding 'worst single ever'). Make no mistake, it is a great single: fantastic hook, well-constructed, wonderfully produced. The album is actually a lot more forward-looking than its slightly dated synth makes it sound. A very good album, almost a great one."  [More]  Reply  
- ninecurses | 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:

415 charts

Rank Score:

2,057

Rank in 1981:

8

Rank in 1980s:

130

Overall Rank:

836

Average Rating:

 75 (473 votes)

Comments:

35

9.

Damaged 

 Black Flag

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"The sound of depression had been done before. But never like this. This is the sound of a man fighting for his life with everything he's got. With bile. With rage. He doesn't want to die & he's pist as all hell at being sick. At being attacked by his own body, his own mind. He screams out for hel...""The sound of depression had been done before. But never like this. This is the sound of a man fighting for his life with everything he's got. With bile. With rage. He doesn't want to die & he's pist as all hell at being sick. At being attacked by his own body, his own mind. He screams out for help from anyone completely naive that no one can help him. So he just becomes more angry, more confused. One of the best albums ever at depicting mental illness and sickness in general. Shit, this is music's In a Bell Jar. And I love who the album itself is completely manic-depressive itself! Besides Bowie's Low, has there ever been two sides of an album so divergent, yet so inexorably meant to be together? "  [More]  Reply  
- | 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:

1981

Appears in:

400 charts

Rank Score:

2,043

Rank in 1981:

9

Rank in 1980s:

131

Overall Rank:

840

Average Rating:

 76 (512 votes)

Comments:

28

10.

Deceit 

 This Heat

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"One of the most haunting rock albums ever recorded. Absolutely different that the post punk scene was creating at that time. Experimental, beautiful and gives u a lot to think about. Makeshift Swahili must be one of the best rock songs ive ever heared."  Reply  
- Mr.Music | 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:

1981

Appears in:

260 charts

Rank Score:

1,830

Rank in 1981:

10

Rank in 1980s:

144

Overall Rank:

939

Average Rating:

 78 (264 votes)

Comments:

18

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Total albums: 1,000. Page 1 of 100

Best Albums of 1981 composition

Top 1,000 Top 500 Top 250 Top 100

Artist	Albums	%
Various Artists	15	2%
Frank Zappa	5	1%
Simple Minds	3	0%
Gary Numan	3	0%
Herbert von Karajan / Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra	3	0%
Scientist	3	0%
Tangerine Dream	3	0%
Show all

Country	Albums	%
	315	32%
	271	27%
	62	6%
	41	4%
	35	4%
	30	3%
	28	3%
Show all

Compilation?	Albums	%
No	942	94%
Yes	58	6%

Live?	Albums	%
No	968	97%
Yes	32	3%

Soundtrack?	Albums	%
No	991	99%
Yes	9	1%