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.

And so we begin with the 1980s. I’m going to make a couple of changes (don’t worry they’re not that radical!) to the format of these going forward:

I’m going to make a concerted effort to make reviews shorter, so probably more of a summary feel than the song by song narrative I’ve been relying on fairly frequently. I’m still very much finding my review style, something I hope this challenge will help me with, so I’ll keep experimenting with this until I find a style that seems the most ‘me’.
Instead of doing a roundup at the end of a decade, where I check other lists and review any from the decade that have passed me by I’m going to try and incorporate a few from other lists - particularly female artist lists - as I go.

So, before we get onto music, what happened in 1980? Ronald Raegan was elected President of the USA, John Lennon was shot dead in New York City, CNN was launched as the first all-news network and Janice Brown made the first long-distance solar-powered flight in the Solar Challenger.

Onto music, here’s the top 5 rated albums for 1980 on rateyourmusic.com, which - as usual - automatically get added into my list:

#1 Talking Heads - Remain in Light (Also #5 on Pitchfork best of 1980s list)
#2 Joy Division - Closer - (Also #12 on Pitchfork best of 1980s List)
#3 Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
#4 John Williams - Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back
#5 Peter Gabriel - Melt (Peter Gabriel 3)

Of course, we can’t stop at five, so I’ve grabbed a few from further down the list:

#6 Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
#9 Rush - Permanent Waves
#12 David Bowie - Scary Monsters
#14 Kate Bush - Never for Ever
#20 The Cure- Seventeen Seconds

Then, in a futile attempt not to miss anything I’m grabbing the below from a mix of Pitchfork’s best of the 80s list (anything from their top 40 not already included), NPR’s greatest albums by female artists list, and a reader version of the same NPR list.

Prince - Dirty Mind (#33 on Pitchfork best of the 1980s list)
The Pretenders - Pretenders (#60 NPR’s 150 Greatest Albums Made by Women list)
X - Los Angeles (#87 NPR’s 150 Greatest Albums Made by Women list)

And finally a recommendation from a friend: The Cramps - Songs the Lord Taught Us.

That brings the total to a hefty 14 albums. I’d best get on with it. Let’s see who emerges victorious.

Black Sabbath’s 9th album is their first without Ozzy Osbourne, and first with replacement vocalist Ronnie James Dio. It’s also where the 2006 band, again featuring Dio on vocals, gets its name from. The album sold well, becoming the band’s third best selling album, and best selling since 1975’s Sabotage. Critically, a lot of reviews at the time seemed to focus on whether it did or didn’t sound like Black Sabbath.

I’d say it doesn’t sound like Black Sabbath massively. Dio can certainly sing, and his style suits well here, but he doesn’t have Osbourne’s vocal charisma in my eyes (or ears), and sounds a bit cookie-cutter 80s metal to me. I think Heaven and Hell is a really enjoyable album, it’s not as interesting or varied as the previous Sabbath albums we’ve looked at, but it is quite infectious. Iommi’s guitar riffs are on point, and his soloing on tacks such as Die Young is stratospheric. Bill Ward’s drumming pounds more than ever, and Butler’s ever reliable bass playing provides a great foundation to everything.

Heaven and Hell sounds a bit like a band that are really bloody good at what they do playing it safe. Everything sounds clean and rather predictable, but their considerable sonic skill still makes it a very fun listen.

Song Picks: Children of the Sea, Heaven and Hell, Lonely is the Word

7.5/10

Rush’s seventh album see them them turning away slightly from longform songs and towards a more radio friendly format, though the closing song, Natural Science, is still over 9 minutes long.

Permanent Waves is probably one of the band’s most accessible albums, opener Spirit of the Radio is one of their most poppy songs, featuring a wavy arpeggio from Alex Lifeson on the electric guitar, and fluttering and yet completely on point drums from Neil Peart. It’s a pop song written by a band with considerable instrumental talent who aren’t afraid to show off. When the instrumental section lifts off and shifts effortlessly between reggae and metal as the track closes, it’s clear the band have lost none of their inventiveness. Lyrics are never Rush’s strongpoint I feel, and it’s the slightly on the nose nature of Freewill - which is otherwise excellent, especially Lee’s high pitched finish, which was the last time he’d sing like that on a recording - and other songs like Entre Nous, that make the album less interesting than it could be in my opinion. On the epic closer, Natural Science, the band focus on what they do best, flitting from one time signature to another like restless children who also happen to be musical virtuosos, it’s another surprisingly moving epic from the band.

Song Picks: Spirt of the Radio, Natural Science

7.5/10

X’s debut album was produced by ex-The Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek and ranked at number 286 in Rolling Stones’ best albums of all-time list.

As soon as the starting pistol fires, Los Angeles hits full speed and never lets up. The opener Your Phone’s Off the Hook But You’re Not perfectly displays the band’s unique combination of punk rock and rockabilly in a song about lead singer Exene Cervenka’s sister. Tragically, Exene’s sister died in a car accident on the night of the band’s first gig in support of this album in 1980. The album is energetic, with John Doe and Cervenka’s vocals being consistently great, and working together particularly well on one of the album’s highlights, the haunting The Unheard Music as well as what is quickly becoming one of my famous punk songs The World’s a Mess; It’s in My Kiss, where the rockabilly influence once again adds an unadulterated energy to proceedings.

Inexcusably, in the album’s title track the band drops the ‘N’ word, something an all white band rightly wouldn’t get away with now. The song itself personifies a case of tunnel vision, about someone blaming everyone and everything around them for their problems rather than perhaps once taking a look in the mirror. Apparently the band no longer use the ‘N’ word when performing the song live, changing the lyric to “every Christian and Jew” instead. Unfortunately, it’s still here on the re-release, and somewhat tarnishes what is otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable album.

Song Picks: Your Phone’s Off the Hook But You’re Not, The Unheard Music, The World’s a Mess; It’s in My Kiss

8/10

11. Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables

Dead Kennedys

American punk-rock band Dead Kennedy’s debut album is clearly inspired by the Sex Pistols, and is generally seen as an important album in the hardcore punk genre.

The album is energetic and simple, with much of its appeal being the humour and warble of Jello Biafra’s lyrics and vocals respectively. California Uber Alles is the album’s most famous track, a pop-perfect song about his unfounded belief that California hippy-ism was going to be imposed on the whole of the USA. It’s the only song that prominently features multiple vocal tracks, creating a real punch to the chorus which is further emphasised by East Bay Ray’s searing power chord riffs. It shows Biafra’s vocal energy and humour perfectly. The album’s other banger, Holiday in Cambodia, is a perfect critique of the privileged guy who self-righteously talks about those less fortunate than himself, while never actually doing much to help. The mix isn’t as punchy as California Uber Alles, and again there’s an uncomfortable dropping of the ‘N’ word, but the song is brimming with the liveliness that the band is known for. You could certainly criticise the rest of the tracks for being samey and not all that inventive, but there’s something to be said for the infectious vigour the whole album has. It feels like a musical kick in the arse.

Song Picks: Kill the Poor, California Uber Alles, Holiday in Cambodia.

8/10

Prince’s third album was produced, arranged and composed entirely by Prince in his home studio. He also played the vast majority of the instruments. As you might expect from the title, it’s completely filthy, and is often considered one of the main albums that smashed open the gates for sexually explicit albums and songs in later years.

Quite probably the sexiest album of all time, Dirty Mind is nevertheless a bit too unintentionally comedic to actually be an aphrodisiac. The opening title track sets the tone, managing somehow to be funky and yet entirely on the beat with a synth powering the piece forward like a disco fuelled train. When You Were Mine is one of Prince’s most famous songs, with cracking melody after cracking melody and that synth part combining with the twangy guitar work to create a truly iconic musical moment. Things start to get more comedic as Do It All Night enters the fray. There’s no point me even talking about the subject matter, the title says it all, but that bass part is some of the cheesiest and funkiest disco brilliance I’ve ever heard. Prince’s productions are intricate, and brilliantly measured, which is all the more impressive considering he’s playing most of the instruments here.

It’s difficult to take proceedings particularly seriously as Prince talks about sexual fantasy after sexual fantasy, but damn is this record a lot of fun. It’s rather impossible to sit still, and even trickier to wipe that stupid smile off your face as the album emits a beam of positive energy. Dirty Mind is quite literally ridiculously funky.

Song Picks: Uptown, When You Were Mine

8.5/10

The Pretender’s debut album very much put the band on the musical map, and is regularly mentioned in best albums of all time lists, such as that by Rolling Stone where it came 152nd in the latest iteration.

Pretenders is an intriguing mix of punk - with songs such as the opening Precious with its marching guitars and lively vocals from lead singer Chrissie Hyde - and pop, with hits such as Brass in Pocket and Stop Your Sobbing. Chrissie Hyde is just as at home with either style, and can certainly carry a catchy melody with plenty of personality. There’s a refreshing honesty to all the album’s tracks and Chrissie is unafraid to tackle more promiscuous topics such as on the explicit Tattooed Love Boys. Of the other band members it’s guitarist James Honeyman-Scott who provides the most memorable performances, with his guitar work on Kid being particularly fantastic, from the excellent riffs that follow each verse to the perfect solo that’s just the right side of cheesy. Oh, and there aren’t many better pop songs out there than Brass in Pocket, which blends the band’s punk attitude brilliantly with their growing pop sensibilities.

I think anyone can enjoy Pretenders, it’s a great pop record with some punk smattered in to keep you on your toes.

Song Picks: Stop Your Sobbing, Kid, Brass in Pocket

8.5/10

English rock band The Cure’s second album was their first to yield a UK Top 40 single, A Forest. The band’s lead vocalist and songwriter Robert Smith wrote most of the album’s music and lyrics at his parents’ home on a Hammond organ with a built in tape recorder. Bassist Michael Dempsey didn’t like the direction the band was going in and so left and was replaced by Simon Gallup.

Seventeen Seconds is regularly cited as an early example of gothic rock due to its gloomy atmosphere, and its that atmosphere that makes this record. The album is blurry, undefined, and rumbles along while you fill out the gaps in your mind. Guitar and piano lines are often repeated seemingly endlessly as you’re lifted into a quiet, calming, and ill-lit dream. Robert Smith’s vocals are often barely audible over the instrumentation, a distant, melodic mumble about failing relationships and the endless existential struggle. The album does occasionally pop out of the clouds and hint at The Cure’s poppier side, with songs like Play for Today perfectly demonstrating their penchant for bouncy guitar riffs perfectly accompanying Robert Smith’s quietly tortured vocals, with each as capable of a hook as the other. A Forest provides a slightly murkier demonstration of the same talents.

Seventeen Seconds is not the kind of assertive album to drill your brain with ideas, it’s a more passive, contemplative album for your brain to add its own notes and thoughts, for which it provides a rather gorgeous foundation.

I drown at night in your house
Pretending to swim, pretending to swim

Song Picks: Play for Today, Secrets, A Forest

8.5/10

7. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

David Bowie

David Bowie’s 14th album followed his critically lauded and massively influential Berlin trilogy. Scary Monsters sees Bowie turn to a more commercial sound, with a removal of the more experimental electronic tracks prevalent on particularly the first two albums of the trilogy. Scary Monsters was regularly talked about as Bowie’s last great album, until the releases of The Next Day and Blackstar in 2013 and 2016 respectively.

Scary Monsters feels like a culmination of the poppier aspects of Bowie’s 70s recordings, with catchy melodies, slightly overblown production, and that line between accessibility and weirdness that Bowie always treads so well. Songs like Ashes to Ashes and the bouncy Fashion are perfect examples of this, while Teenage Wildlife treads similar sonic grounds to Heroes, with Robert Fripp’s guitar - which is prevalent on many of the album’s songs - once again providing a perfect dramatic and melodic backdrop to Bowie’s howled vocals in what I think is one of Bowie’s more underrated songs. An album full of 80s pomposity while still being very Bowie, Scary Monsters is somehow both simple and complex at the same time. The sugar rush of a sweet, and the depth of flavour of a good vintage cheddar. Obviously those two things together would be disgusting, but hopefully you get what I mean.

Song Picks: Ashes to Ashes, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), Teenage Wildlife, It’s No Game (Pt. 2)

8.5/10

6. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Soundtrack

John Williams

Composed by John Williams and recorded with him conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, the Star Wars soundtrack is unarguably one of the most iconic soundtracks in cinema, and nowhere is that demonstrated better than in this soundtrack release for Episode V.

Obviously the main theme is quite probably the greatest main theme of all time. Nothing gets my excitement flowing quite like the start of a Star Wars film as the text scrolls and the horns blare out that fabulous, triumphant tune. But it’s the lesser known pieces that make this collection what it is; the gentle, meditative beauty of Yoda’s Theme, the tentative hopefulness of The Training of a Jedi Knight, and the tense, winding The Heroics of Luke and Han. The latter first introduces the famous melody of The Imperial Death March, which is then elaborated on in Darth Vader’s Theme, one of the most perfect pieces ever written for a soundtrack, perfectly capturing the menace that is The Empire, while the gentle flute sections make it clear there’s hope of some humanity beneath the mask.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back does exactly what you’d want a soundtrack to do, it transports you to another world, in this case one of the greatest universes ever created. It’s a cinematic, nostalgic and glorious testament to the power of music in elevating everything, even if that thing is already damn fabulous.

Song Picks: Main Theme, The Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme), Yoda’s Theme

9/10

Kate Bush’s third album was the first ever album led by a female artist to enter the UK charts at number 1, and sees her trademark high vocal grace numerous inventive productions - much like her debut.

The album contains three top 20 singles, which summarise the album well. Babooshka, a tale of a woman who poses as someone else to test her husband’s loyalty, and one of Bush’s most famous songs. A great example of how she can make the slightly weird wonderful, with her Babooshka chorus being rather difficult to remove from your head once you’ve heard it. Army Dreamers is a more delicate number, featuring great interplay with Kate Bush’s clear vocal and the murkier male backing vocal, it’s a Waltz that skips along with a sad acceptance of a son’s death in war. The album is closed by Breathing - which is a good example of the effective production present throughout the album - which Bush herself worked on alongside Jon Kelly - skipping from ominous, almost orchestral sounds to a beautiful floating bass and synth section that Bush perfectly complements with a vocal that sails from softly piercing highs, to comforting lows as effortlessly as only she knows how. It’s a masterpiece written from the perspective of a foetus growing in the womb and frightened by nuclear fallout, musically portraying the juxtaposing tone of comfort and fear perfectly.

The rest of the album’s tracks live up to those, continually highlighting Kate Bush’s considerable talent for singing, songwriting, and intrigue. Like a lot of my favourite albums, you never feel like you can grasp it completely, it slides slowly and delicately out of any attempts to catch it.

Song Picks: Breathing, Army Dreamers, All We Ever Look For

9/10

Released two months after Ian Curtis’ suicide, Joy Division’s second album was again produced by Martin Hannett, who’s sound had such a big influence on their first record. As with their debut, it’s regarded as one of the best albums of all time, and particularly important in the post-punk movement.

Closer is as desolate, industrial and bleak as its predecessor, but it’s a little more tight, with less of what could be called ‘jams’. The album opens with Atrocity Exhibition, featuring a rather jolly tom riff from drummer Stephen Morris, which is accompanied by a screeching racket and Curtis’ characteristically deadpan delivery, painting a world of chaos. ‘This is the way, step inside’ he sings as he invites us into the uncomfortable, dissonant noise of his mind. The synth on Isolation is surprisingly catchy, one could even say positive, but Curtis’ detached lyrics about an affair he had on his wife are anything but:

Mother I tried please believe me
I'm doing the best that I can
I'm ashamed of the things I've been put through
I'm ashamed of the person I am

Passover features some of Sumner’s best guitar work, and is a great example of how the band always wrote around the bass and drums, the guitar and vocals providing power from that jumping off point. This is something again evident in the glorious A Means to an End, where Curtis repeats ‘I put my trust in you’ to infinity like a disappointed citizen of the Earth.

By the time we get to the closer, Decades, which again juxtaposes something hopeful - that spritely synth part - with the majority of the track sounding like oblivion itself, it’s been another journey into the a bottomless, dark pit. But one of inescapable beauty.

Song Picks: Isolation, Passover, A Means to an End, Twenty Four Hours

9/10

The debut album by American punk rock band The Cramps was recommended to me for inclusion on this list by my good friend Alasdair.

Let’s be honest, the rock ‘n’ roll that shocked and offended many of our ancestors now sounds pretty tame. Songs the Lord Taught is perhaps as close as we’ll get to understanding how they felt in the 1950s. Although the album’s influences are clearly rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly, their smothered in so much grime that they become barely recognisable. On the cover of Jimmy Stewart’s Rock on the Moon the guitar is treated with so much echo and reverb that its tight percussive sound becomes a mush only just recognisable as a rock ‘n’ roll riff, and yet still infinitely danceable. Lux Interior’s vocals have great immediacy and freedom to them which complement the band’s messy theatrics perfectly. On Garbageman, the instrumental section in the middle sounds like some sort of garbage disposal centre; crunching, full of sludge and undefined. Interior’s vocals blend in perfectly, like a man who’s just walked into this monstrosity and decided to spontaneously howl along to the centre’s futile attempts to deal with capitalism’s waste. Producer Alex Chilton called the band the night before the album was due to be mastered asking them to re-record the whole thing. Obviously, they refused, and it’s that insistence on being an unfiltered version of themselves that makes this album the messy and unfettered piece of timeless brilliance that it is.

Songs the Lord Taught Us is quite unlike anything else, but while that often comes hand in hand with something being challenging to listen to, I don’t think that’s the case here. Buried beneath the wholesome mud are accessible melodies and riffs that anyone could enjoy, and indeed this is one of the most straight up enjoyable albums I’ve ever heard. A cathartic reminder that even when utter chaos unfolds in front of you - as I’m sure it did during these recording sessions - just going with the flow is sometimes the best thing to do.

Song Picks: Fever, Garbageman,

9/10

Talking Heads’ fourth album, and final album produced by Brian Eno, sees the band experimenting with polyrhythms and funk heavily inspired by Fela Kuti. Regularly considered the band’s magnum opus, it features more side musicians than any of their previous albums.

Remain in the Light is a whirlwind of grooves starting with the perfectly produced and grooviest song ever written about the Watergate scandal, Born Under Punches, and finishing with the eerie and sparse The Overload. It’s a journey of musical creativity, never afraid to repeat itself to burrow its ideas deep in your brain, and punctuated by enigmatic and spontaneous vocal performances from Byrne. These combine perfectly with his new stream of consciousness lyrical style, something he adopted due to struggles with writer’s block, as well as due to inspiration from early rap and African academic literature. The band are on infectious top form and the Fela Kuti afrobeat influence is obvious, but it's the unexpected touching moments like the darkly atmospheric Listening Wind, featuring some superb howling guitar work from Adrian Belew, that makes Remain in the Light not just an album of enjoyable tunes, but an album of continual intrigue and mystique. I had to read into them to work out what many of the album’s songs were about, but I’d actually advise against that. Byrne’s bursts of lyrical energy plant images and ideas in your mind that differ with each spin of the record. It seems to morph into whatever you most need that day, and for that reason it’s one of those albums that’ll be a companion for life.

Song Picks: Born Under Punches, Listening Wind, Once In a Lifetime

9.5/10

1. Peter Gabriel III (Melt)

Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel’s third solo album is technically called ‘Peter Gabriel III’, but has taken on the name ‘Melt’ due to its cover art. Melt is widely thought of as Gabriel’s breakthrough album as a solo artist, demonstrating his willingness to push things in new directions.

Melt feels like the perfect introduction to the 80s. It kicks of with Intruder, which triumphantly introduces us to the sound of the decade, a gated snare drum played by Gabriel’s former bandmate Phil Collins. Collins features on many of the albums tracks and even performs a very ‘In the Air Tonight’ fill on No Self Control. Gabriel’s vocals are engaging throughout, showing much more variation than any of his Genesis work with everything from a resigned croak on the aforementioned Intruder, to a triumphant scream on the powerful And Through the Wire. Production wise it’s colourful, with saxophones (yes, I told you this was 80s), xylophones, synths and a whole heap of guitar effects creating a futuristic, dramatic atmosphere. The album is notable for the way it nails its crescendos - No Self Control’s nearly takes your head off for example - and how it manages to nail drama while somehow not quite dropping into the cheese that most of the music attempting the same in the 80s did. There’s echoed saxophones on Start, reverb worthy of the world’s largest cathedral on No Self Control and cascading power chords on I Don’t Remember. It all threatens to become too much, to collapse under its own sense of pomposity, but it never does. Every song hits an all-conquering home-run, flooding life into fatigued veins. It embraces the dark, and then obliterates it with light, finishing with a magnificent ode to the murdered anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, a seven and a half minute call to arms which finishes, most fittingly, with two gated snare drum blasts. The 80s are here my friends, the 80s are here. Melt is an ambitious, perfectly executed album that’s a perfect representation of its decade.

You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher

Song Picks: And Through the Wire, No Self Control, Family Snapshot

9.5/10