Over what will likely be the next few years I’m going to be ranking and reviewing the top 5 albums - plus a fair few extras - according to users on rateyourmusic.com (think IMDB for music) from every year from 1960 to the present. If you want to know more, I wrote an introduction to the ‘challenge’ here. You can also read all the other entries I’ve written so far by heading to the lovely index page here.

It’s time to musically tackle 1982, the year the space shuttle Columbia made its first mission, Steven Spielberg’s E.T. and the Commodore 64 was released, the Falklands War happened, and Ingrid Bergman died.

We’re here for the music though right? Well, here’s what rateyourmusic.com’s users rate as their top 5 albums of 1982:

#1 The Cure - Pornography
#2 Kate Bush - The Dreaming
#3 Michael Jackson - Thriller
#4 Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
#5 Dead Kennedys - Plastic Surgery Disasters

I’m also grabbing this lot from further down the list:

#6 Glenn Gould - The Goldberg Variations
#9 Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska
#13 The Fall - Hex Enduction Hour
#18 Hiroshi Yoshimura - Wave Notation 1: Music for Nine Post Cards

And we’ve also got an extra album from NPR’s best albums by female artists list (Kate Bush’s Dreaming is also on that list, but we already have it above):

Laurie Anderson - Big Science (#80 in NPR’s 150 Best Albums Made by Women)

10 albums, let’s go.

10. The Number of the Beast

Iron Maiden

The English heavy metal outfit’s third album was their last with drummer Clive Burr and first with vocalist Bruce Dickinson.

At this point it’s all a bit of a blur, but I assume I’ve talked about how I’m not a massive fan of the kind of howly, heavy rock that Iron Maiden are famous for, and I’m definitely not a fan of their cover art, this one being partricularly bad. That said, I’ve enjoyed my listens of The Number of the Beast with tracks like Children of the Damned being thoroughly daft and enjoyable. There’s no doubt that Dave Murray knows how to write powerful guitar riffs and ripping solos (see The Prisoner) and that Dickinson’s howled vocals add the required drama to proceedings, it just hasn’t got me past my prejudice towards the genre - something others have managed more effectively.

Song Picks: Children of the Damned

6/10

9. Plastic Surgery Disasters

Dead Kennedys

The Dead Kennedy's second album is lead singer Jello Biafra's favourite and sees them expand further into the high speed hardcore chaos that made Holiday in Cambodia such a great track.

East Bay Ray's guitar riffs are so frantic one imagines his left hand must be a blur while he's playing them, while Biafra’s vocals give off the vibe of someone imminently about to fall off a cliff frantically blurting out as much as they can before they do. Lyrically it’s a mix of political and social commentary, with Biafra’s battling against social norms being as present as ever.

You could certainly critiscise Plastic Surgery Disasters for being samey, and the songs do seem to blend into one a bit, but if you’re after fast songs ranting about a whole range of topics in a relentlessly energetic manner, look no further.

Song Pick: Government Flu

7/10

Kate Bush’s fourth album is often considered her most experimental, and it’s easy to see why. The poppy melodies of her other releases haven’t disappeared entirely, but they are much less frequent and replaced with a playful creativity.

The Dreaming’s tracks feature Kate Bush duetting with herself regularly, in fact - as on the superb Suspended in Gaffa - she’s often singing in four or more distinct styles. Combined with the rhythmic and often staccato instrumentation this creates a really unique sound, and one that I’d struggle to find anything comparable to even today. Bush has herself called the album ‘mad’, and indeed it is. There’s a feeling of freedom to the way the compositions skitter from melody to melody, instrument to instrument and section to section, in a way that is largely unpredictable and unvonventional.

I’m in no doubt that many will find this album a bit too challenging, it’s not as immediately gripping as 1978’s The Kick Inside for example, and there’s not all that much to latch onto or even remember particularly, but to those who give it time this is a really rewarding album that you’re unlikely ever to get bored of.

The Dreaming cements Kate Bush as not only someone who can write great songs - we already knew that from previous entries to these lists - but someone who is completely unafraid to be herself. Bush was already pretty singular before The Dreaming, with its release she became one of the most remarkable artists to grace our airwaves.

Song Picks: Suspended in Gaffa, Sat in Your Lap

8.5/10

The Fall’s fourth album is described by the lead singer, Mark E. Smith, as a satirical stand against "bland bastards like Elvis Costello and Spandau Ballet ... [and] all that shit", and features his standard abrasive vocal style and lyrics rooted in ‘kitchen sink realism’, a movement from the 50s and 60s in the arts that saw protagonists disollusioned with life and living in cramped working-class conditions, portraying a harsh and more realistic style than the art that had come before it. The album was mainly recorded in a disused cinema in Hertfordshire.

The album starts with the fantastically brash The Classical, which unfortunately drops the ‘N’ word within the first few lines, something that was not uncommon at the time. Mark E. Smith has claimed he’s singing as if it’s not him saying it - believable considering his lyrics are often built up of random outbursts coming from seemingly different people - but it’s still problematic as is explored in much more depth than I have room to here. That aside though, the song demonstrates the band’s ability to create an infectiously ramshackle sound - with the melody often coming from the guitars rather than Smith’s vocals, which snarl and grate in a way that’s so brash you can’t help but love them.

Jawbone and the Air-Rifle is another superb track with a guitar riff that you can imagine people bouncing around to aggressively in 80s clubs, Smith’s vocals carry more of a melody this time, something he’s more than capable of doing, while still never loosing that razor sharp edge he has. The track feels entirely unconventional, while also remaining very accessible. It sounds like a band playing in a room far too small for them, so the drums pound over everything else, while the guitars bounce off the grime on the walls and Smith has to thin his voice to make himself heard. It’s a rough, perfectly British mess that’s punker than punk itself. Hex Induction Hour’s remaining tracks are probably less memorable, and certainly less dance-able and infectious, but they’re still the musical equivalent of showing your teeth to the system.

Song Picks: The Classical, Jawbone and the Air-Rifle

8.5/10

The English band’s fourth album wasn’t well received critically, though it was their most succesfull up to that point commercially. It has since garnered plenty of critical acclaim, and is seen as an important album in the development of gothic rock. It was their final album with Simon Gallup, whose departure meant that all of the band’s following albums had a poppier, and lighter feel. This one is very dark though, and was written and recorded during what songwriter and vocalist Rober Smith called “an extremely stressful and self-destructive period”.

The Cure have always been the masters of atmosphere and it doesn’t take long to realise this album is no different, with the opening One Hundred Years’ guitar part sounding positively massive, with so much reverb put on it that you’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve fallen into a cave, “One and one we die one after the other” Smith sings as the guitar echoes this with suitably doomed notes. The Hanging Garden is a great example of the uptempo but downbeat thing that The Cure do so well, as the song chugs along at a fair clip while Smith sings lines like “Fall, fall, fall, fall out of the sky / Cover my face as the animals die” in a manner that suggests he’s had enough. But it’s not all doom and gloom… no, actually it is, every minute of Pornography is unapologetically devoid of hope. It’s a dip into the mind of someone at their lowest point, and yet in all the gloom and sadness, Smith’s melodies still fly. On the title track which closes the album, Smith is practically screaming as the drums march ominously on one side and a doom synth plays like a church organ signifying the end of time in the other, then it all cuts to black. Smith has cited this as the album that turned things around for him personally, and I see that cut at the end as the moment he’s got so low, that the only way is up, a flicker of hope that ignites a fire.

Song Picks: The Hanging Garden, One Hundred Years, Siamese Twins

9/10

Laurie Anderson’s debut is comprised of a selection of highlights from her eight-hour production United States Live - a performance piece in which music was only one element.

Big Science is avant-garde and hard to define. It’s electronic, but more concerned with soundscapes to back Anderson’s spoken word vocals than songs in the traditional sense. Having said that there are still melodies and hooks in there, often provided by other vocalists, as on the eerie title track, which brilliantly conveys the expansion of humankind in the following verse. Here Anderson cleverly turns direction giving on its head, referencing buildings that will be built rather than ones that are/were there:

Well just take a right where they're going to build that new shopping mall
Go straight past where they're going to put in the freeway
Take a left at what's going to be the new sports center
And keep going until you hit the place where
They're thinking of building that drive-in bank

O Superman, which became a surprise hit in the UK after John Peel championed it, is the album’s centrepiece and - in my opinion - masterpiece. Repeated ‘Ha’s’ in two different notes create the song’s spartan musical backdrop as Anderson talks enigmatically, and breaks into eerie melodies as she sings ‘here come the planes’. Originally inspired by the Iran hostage crisis in 1979 - the one depicted in the hit film Argo - it resonates far beyond that calmly presenting the fall of the world into some Orwellian nightmare:

'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice
And when justice is gone, there's always force
And when force is gone, there's always Mom.

Anderson begins to sing more after this song, and the album’s second half shines because of it. There’s a sense that Anderson has freed herself of self-consciousness as she bursts into a gentle, melodic flame.

Big Science is a bit like a 50 minute meditation session, but where instead of ‘scanning’ your body and feeling present, you follow Anderson’s soothing voice into an infinitely interesting and timeless void. It’s a kind of less on the nose, more beautiful 1984 in musical form. One of the most creative albums of the decade.

Song Picks: O Superman, Example #22, Let X=X

9/10

Springsteen’s sixth studio album is made up of songs that were initially intended to be demos that the E-Street band would flesh out, but he decided to release them as they were. It was recorded using just two SM57s and a 4-track recorder, as many a nerdy, wannabe sound engineer forum poster will tell you. Springsteen’s decision to keep the whole thing raw was a stroke of genius, and has played no small impact in the album being one of his most well regarded. Due to the sombre nature of the record, Springsteen never toured it.

Nebraska’s songs are about murderers, working class people, corrupt cops, or Springsteen’s childhood. He’s always been an exceptional storyteller, and when his songs are reduced to simple melodies, sparse acoustic guitar and harmonica arrangements and his voice, it’s his ability to get into the head of his subjects and portray their stories that makes this album shine so brightly. Bruce’s vocals are low and sombre, with none of the energy of Born to Run for example. There’s a resigned longing to all the songs, as if the songs’ subjects are always hoping for more, though they know they’ll never get it.

Such dark and intimate stories are presented here with no frills beside an atmospheric reverb. The lack of backup from a band makes the whole thing more intimate, you’re there with The Boss as he tells his stories. As Pitchfork’s review states, and indeed Bruce himself, Nebraska is as much about the presentation as the content. It was written in the environment it was recorded, and the songs would have lost something when taken out of that context. Nebraska is the perfect document of a moment when Bruce Springsteen sat down in his rented house in New Jersey, and unbeknownst to himself, wrote one of the most touching acoustic albums of all time.

Song Picks: Nebraska, Mansion on the Hill

9/10

3. Music for Nine Postcards

Hiroshi Yoshimura

Yoshimura’s debut album was initially intended to be played in the Hara Museum for Contemporary Art building, but was given a wider release after it garnered interest from the visitors. The album uses only a Fender Rhodes (a type of electric piano) and a piano. In the liner notes Yoshimura stated that he was inspired by “the movements of clouds, the shade of a tree in summertime, the sound of rain, the snow in a town." The album was only released in Japan in 1982, and was not given a release outside the country until 2017, when it was picked up by the Empire of Signs label and re-issued. It’s re-release was highly critically acclaimed.

Music for Nine Postcards is minimalistic, letting each note echo into your ears, it’s sad and yet hopeful, it sparkles and hums. A triumph in minimalism it sounds well ahead of its time, and could just as well have come out this year. The whistful twinkles of Clouds, the almost childish simplicity, but sheer beauty of the melody on Blink, and the quiet euphoria of Dance PM are just samples of the treat that you’re in for if you listen to this gem. The latter is perhaps my favourite album of the track, with certain notes being just out of time enough to feel real, natural, unprogrammed, and human - whilst maintaining a level of repetition that leaves me in a gentle trance. Dance PM is everything this album does so well. Unassuming, simple, really moving and bloody gorgeous from start to finish. Music for Nine Postcards has gently weaved its way into my heart, and I can’t see it ever leaving again. In a decade of excess, it hums along quietly and patiently, waiting for everyone to notice just how damn pretty it is.

Song Picks: Blink, Dance PM,

9/10

I’ve talked about Michael Jackson’s problematic nature in a previous review (1979’s Off the Wall), and how I think the evidence is pretty strong following numerous documentaries on the subject that he did indeed abuse children and that that has undoubtedly tainted his legacy and music, but also - more importantly - caused a lot of children and families unfathomable pain and trauma. Nevertheless, I’m going to talk about the music here, which is completely sublime.

The term is overused but I’ve no reservations in calling Michael Jackson a musical genius, something which is displayed here where he’s at the peak of his powers. Quincy Jones’ production is superb, with crystal clear instrumentation, and instrumental flourishes filling every space in a way that doesn’t feel overblown, but infectious and tasteful. On the all-time-classic opener Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ , that sublime guitar and bass groove are accompanied not only by Jackson’s sublime vocals - effortlessly going from gritty to smooth and always bang in tune - but also an endless array of instrumental touches; that brass shake echoing the bass and guitar line, the synth taps, I could go on. It’s a dance masterpiece, running through your blood and into your heart.

I’ve always been less of a fan of Jackson’s slower songs, but even those are great here, and he conjures up one of his most memorable melodies in the smooth The Girl is Mine where his vocals work surprisingly well with Paul McCartney’s, while Human Nature is another example of Jones’ knack of accentuating Jackson’s vocals by following them with perfect little guitar jingles, with a skittering, superb synth part that appears twice where most artists would hang an entire song on it.

The mid-album trio of Thriller, Beat It and Billie Jean are quite probably the best successive trio of songs on any album ever and Thriller and Billie Jean are undoubtedly two of the greatest pop songs of all time. The former combining gothic and pop in a way that hasn’t really been equalled before or since - those brass stabs, wolf howls, and that groove and narration by Vincent Price creating an atmosphere that’s so brilliant, that despite the fact I’ve hard it countless times, I still whoop whenever it comes on. Billie Jean features what I think is my favourite bass line ever, one which Quincy Jones apparently didn’t like and was only persuaded to use when Jackson told him it ‘made him want to dance’. I guess even the greats are wrong sometimes. The way the song starts with just the drums, before that bass line comes in, those little trumpet hums in the pre-chorus, Jackson’s imperious vocal performance, and that perfect chorus combine to make a song that’ll forever grace a list of my favourites. Hell, I’ve heard it 5,555,423 times, but yet here I am dancing around in my office chair to it, every nerve in my body revitalised. Billie Jean is a freaking beacon of life and energy smashing through your weary flesh.

Oh and I’ve not even mentioned Van Halen’s stupendous solo on Beat It have I? This album is just chock full of brilliance, so apologies if I’ve missed the odd bit.

I can totally understand those who don’t listen to Thriller, but I’m here to review the music rather than its creators, and I don’t think anyone can argue against the fact that this is one of the finest pop albums of all time.

Song Picks: Wanna Be Startin’ Something, Billie Jean, Beat It, Thriller

9.5/10

Classical pianist Glenn Gould initially recorded his interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) in 1955, which sold very well for a classical album and very much launched Gould’s career. He re-recorded the variations in 1981 and died a year later in 1982, when this recording was released. Pitchfork have written an excellent comparison between the two here, but as this is an article about 1982 I’ll be focusing on the latter recording, which had sold over 2 million copies by the year 2000.

As Wikipedia states, Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) “is a musical composition for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, it is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may also have been the first performer of the work.”

I’ve always enjoyed listening to solo piano performances - Keith Jarrett’s The Köln Concert is one of my favourite live recordings of all time - but this one definitely stands out among the crowd. Gould’s virtuoisic skill eminantes from all 30 variations here, with a confident, sturdy style full of beautiful flurries. This interpretation of the Variations sounds autumnal, you can almost imagine the leaves of trees falling in time with Gould’s intricate key presses. The Goldberg Variations is a truly sumptuous piano recording, it makes for great background listening while working, but it shines when you lie down, close your eyes, and submit yourself to its joyful, hopeful music, where Gould weaves delicate worlds of piano notes seemingly effortlessly. There’s something magical about being completely transfixed by just one instrument, and that’s absolutely the case here. The Goldberg Variations is magic.

10/10