I hadn’t finished up the whole decade yet, so without further ado, the 10 best albums of 1981:
The Police – Ghost in the Machine
Stiff Little Fingers – Go For It
Prince – Controversy
Agent Orange – Living in Darkness
Men at Work – Business As Usual
The Go-Go’s – Beauty and the Beat
U2 – October
Black Flag – Damaged
Stray Cats – Stray Cats
Psychedelic Furs – Talk Talk Talk
Slicing-up Eyeballs has been running an on-going series of polls, asking readers to vote to rank the top 100 albums each year in the 80s. They’re up to 1986 now.
I’ve gone back to their lists and compiled my own Top 10 for 1980:
- U2 – Boy
- The Police – Zenyatta Mondatta
- Peter Gabriel (“Melt”)
- Psychedelic Furs
- Killing Joke – Killing Joke
- Blondie – Autoamerican
- The Human League – Travelogue
- Dead Kennedys – Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
- Stiff Little Fingers – Nobody’s Heroes
- Prince – Dirty Mind
Honorable Mentions:
- Circle Jerks – Group Sex
- Residents – Commercial Album
- Motorhead – Ace of Spades
- Ramones – End of the Century
screw Joy Division. New Order has a much better singer and the best thing to come out of Closer is the Therapy? cover of “Isolation”
Slicing Up Eyeballs has a survey – pick ten out of 150 albums released in 1983.
My list:
Violent Femmes – Violent Femmes
Suicidal Tendencies – Suicidal Tendencies
R.E.M. – Murmur
New Order – Power Corruption & Lies
Stray Cats – Rant N’ Rave with the Stray Cats
Misfits – Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood
Billy Idol – Rebel Yell
Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams (are Made of This)
Duran Duran – Seven and the Ragged Tiger
Police – Synchronicity
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