The Top 100 Albums of the 1980s (2024)

It’s been said that the 1980s are responsible for the worst fashion, fads, and music of any decade of the 20th century. But as we see the decade recycled and updated with post-millennial minimalism, it’s becoming clear that the 1980s had more to offer than we’ve given them credit for. As the calendar left the earth tones and polyester of the 1970s behind, musicians looked to the future for inspiration in new genres. Now, in 2002, Pitchfork seeks to prove that, amidst the smooth-jazz of Kenny G, the vanilla soul of Hall & Oates, and the hair-rock of Warrant lay a revolution in sound. Respect is due.

100.

Minor Threat: Out of Step (1984)

Reagan’s future-blind ass was deregulating everything and cocaine had our parents in its blurry grasp. These District of Columbia reactionaries strove to set the record straight. “Betray,” “Look Back & Laugh,” and “Out of Step” still stomp, and Ian MacKaye’s scorching, rebellious screams still make the deaf deafer. How were Minor Threat this fast and this tight, this judgmental and this inviting, this minimal and this expansive? This album can serve as lesson #1 when your kids get old enough to wonder, “Daddy, what’s a Fugazi?” –William Bowers

99.

Gang of Four: Songs of the Free (1982)

Gang of Four’s third full-length left behind the dry, unaffected sound that made their first two records so immediate and bracing, instead taking textural cues from modern R&B and pulling most of the tempos back for a more overtly danceable brand of funk-rock. Andy Gill’s guitar was more controlled, though it still sears on opener “Call Me Up,” and he lays down some of his trademark scratchy riffs on “It Is Not Enough.” The band’s shift to a more produced sound was most apparent on the immortal “I Love a Man in Uniform,” with its female backing vocals, while “We Live as We Dream, Alone” found them writing an actual pop song, albeit one about the emptiness of material pursuit. Unfortunately, Gang of Four waned terribly after this album, but as last hurrahs go,Songs of the Freeis outstanding. –Joe Tangari

98.

Cocteau Twins: Treasure (1984)

The Cocteau Twins’ third album was titled simply enough.Treasurewas an adjective for the endlessly inventive melodic lines you’d find buried in these songs, and a verb for what you’d do with them for years to come. With the addition of Simon Raymonde on guitar, the Twins had moved beyond the moody, bass-driven sound ofGarlandsand come into their signature ethereality. The drum machine tracks added a sharp edge to some songs, especially the ’80s dancefloor mini-hit “Lorelei.” But as always, it was Elisabeth Fraser’s angelic vocals that managed to comfort, confound, and mystify in the end, perfectly matching the song titles. Affixing words to the Cocteau Twins often seems pointless; in its own unique way, Fraser’s streaming glossolalia speaks for itself. –Christopher Dare

97.

Mekons: The Mekons Rock 'N' Roll (1989)

This album is nothing more or less than its title claims. Basically their only major label release, it’s their piss-take/tribute to rock’n’roll, and they attack it from every direction: as icon (the Elvis image embedded in the cover), as commodity (from the slave trade in “Amnesia” to Sally Timms’ correlation of sex and rock as salable items), as the lowest moment of a dark night (“Only Darkness Has thePower”)—but best of all, as raw rock squall that’s just f*cking volcanic. –Chris Dahlen

96.

Rites of Spring: Rites of Spring (1985)

Besides being, along with Minor Threat, one of the Lions of what would eventually become the mighty Voltron of Fugazi, Rites of Spring were also, a while back, slapped with the now-dubious title “fathers of emo.” Back then, of course, there was no need to be ashamed of punk’s whiny, besweatered stepchild; even before the horn-rimmed glasses crowd started buying into the torn larynx = sincerity equation, Guy Picciotto and the rest of the band were just letting it histrionically rip. Minor Threat might have been the conscience of the D.C. scene, but Rites of Spring were its secret, spurting, and beating heart. –Brendan Reid

95.

Duran Duran: Rio (1982)

When I first heard the term “electroclash,” I thought it would sound like evil Duran Duran. Now I know that it doesn’t soundenoughlike evil Duran Duran. Duran Duran perfected what a lot of boring, obscure British bands had been doing before them: mixing colonialist rhythms with sapphire-bullet synths and surly brass. The band peppered the ’80s with a number of hot singles (most of which can be found on the unstoppable side A ofRio) before departing for MOR country. You’ll most readily recall the Simon LeBon jungle adventures of the title track and “Hungry Like the Wolf,” but dig “My Own Way” and “Hold Back the Rain” outta your subconscious as well. Praising this album might be like giving the nod to *NSYNC 10years from now, but until then, MY NAME IS RIO AND I’M DANCING ON THE f*ckING SAND. –Rob Mitchum

94.

Meat Puppets: II (1984)

Like apple and pie, like bass and balls, country ’n’ hardcore just go together in that all-American way. Though the Meat Puppets’ second record is often filed under this fusion (and credited as the first to make the connection), there was really a lot more going on here than the “cowpunk” label can account for. The main thrust of the album was more psychedelic, using the claustrophobic tightness of punk and the vastness of Americana as head-metaphors, analogies for two distinct states of being really goddamn freaked out. And while many of their heirs got the punk part right, few could approximate the huge, haunted spaces that lurk in the darker corners of this album, threatening to swallow even the most manic of the band’s outbursts. –Brendan Reid

93.

David Bowie: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (1980)

By 1980, critics were already chomping at the bit to declare David Bowie D.O.A. Where, they wondered, could he possibly go after his spectacular, antiseptic Berlin trilogy (which, it was suspected, Brian Eno was really the genius behind)? Certainly, he couldn’t get any more avant-garde! All it took was a few steps back from the musical fringe and the nervy, sweeping rock opusScary Monstersto shut them up. One of Bowie’s more uncharacteristically backward-looking records, the guitar-driven edge ofMonstersgave a brief nod to the artier end of the passing punk movement (including “Kingdom Come,” written by Television frontman Tom Verlaine), but coupled it with Bowie’s infallible pop acumen. The result is an record of startling emotion, tension, and simplicity, and the last of the truly excellent Bowie albums. –Eric Carr

92.

Kate Bush: Hounds of Love (1985)

Discovered in 1975 by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, Kate Bush began and ended her career with sappy sentimentality bathed in new age–isms and unicorn fantasies. Yet at the heart of her discography lies this uncharacteristically forward-looking full-length, whose striking arrangements are aided by her Fairlight synthesizer/sampler and dipped in mind-blowing, crystalline production. Side one begins with “Running Up That Hill,” setting the scene with tension and galloping programmed percussion, and ends with the government conspiracy ballad “Cloudbusting,” which pours on strings like liquid nylon. But it’s the suite on side two that’s hauntingly inexplicable, comprising dissimilar songs tied together by a dreamlike pall. Her singing is seductive and wraithlike, especially when joined by disembodied voices, and a distant, watery choral group. –Chris Dahlen

91.

X: Los Angeles (1980)

I dare anyone to listen to the nightmarish tale of “Johnny Hit and Run Paulene,” let it really sink in, and not be at least a little bit disturbed by X’s nihilistic masterpiece. The Stooges, theDolls, and Richard Hell (among others) gave a voice to the “no future, no problem” mindset of the States’ burgeoning East Coast punk movement, but it took a half-decade and a West Coast band to really nail it. The whispered wailing of John Doe and Exene Cervenka spoke of desperation, but Billy Zoom’s guitar churned out punk-warped versions of feel-good ’50s rock riffs;Los Angeleswas the sound of youth culture gleefully racing toward oblivion. At the time of this album's release, Richard Meltzer called X “the only punk band with half a chance at commercial success in America today.” Truth is, they never had a prayer; they were better than that. –Eric Carr

90.

Jane’s Addiction: Nothing’s Shocking (1988)

In a perfect world, the Red Hot Chili Peppers disbanded upon hearing this catastrophic slab of kinky trip-funk. I’m not sure that Jane’s Addiction ever amounted to more than a dreadlocked amalgam of their titanic influences (Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Velvet Underground), but I do think that God granted Perry Farrell a slim window of genius before banishing him to an oblivion of balderdash-mouth. You know you were up waiting for Britny Fox or a Bulletboys video on the Adam Curry–hosted “Headbanger’s Ball” when Jane’s Addiction’s “Mountain Song” blew your mind. As hallucinogenic as it was socially conscious, this album’s chief irony was that its killer numbers were revisitations of songs from the band’s debut (“Jane Says,” “Pigs in Zen”). God bless the West Coast every now and then. –William Bowers

89.

Boredoms: Soul Discharge (1989)

Where John Zorn and Sonic Youth approached the avant-garde from an already rich backdrop of NYC punky-dadaism, Osaka’s Boredoms seemingly came out of nowhere in the late ’80s. Boredoms’ first full-length gave adventurous listeners something disturbing and more than a little stupid to chew on, butSoul Dischargewas arguably their greatest early example of their thrilling widescreen outbursts. They played Sabbath riffs over ramshackle, caveman Japanese Court beats; they managed to mangle even the most rudimentary garage pound, creating a soundtrack for scat-p*rn toons and destroying cats; and, of course, they managed to provide a lifetime of jams at a fraction of the sanity. Sure, Mr. Bungle and Melt-Banana took a few pointers here, but in the end, there is no influence. Only Boredoms. –Dominique Leone

88.

Spacemen 3: Playing With Fire (1988)

A far dronier affair than its predecessor, 1987’s epicThe Perfect Prescription,Playing with Fireshows Jason “J Spaceman” Pierce and Pete “Sonic Boom” Kember drifting apart, writing songs alone more often than together. The two would splinter into Spiritualized and Spectrum shortly thereafter. Though their distance from each other shows in the songwriting here, the execution is another thing entirely. Pierce and Kember’s guitars still unite in blissful double-helixes, and their voices still meld together in canyon reverb.Playing with Fire, their final album really working in tandem (it would be Spacemen 3’s last hurrah before the wane ofRecurring, which virtually exists as a compilation of solo material from the two members), is Spacemen 3 going out with a supernova, and leaving the powerful interplanetary spirituals “Come Down Softly to My Soul,” “So Hot (Wash Away All of My Tears),” and the stunning original version of “Lord Can You Hear Me?” in their vapor trail wake. –Ryan Schreiber

87.

Prince: Dirty Mind (1980)

No one ever made the combination of gender ambiguity and panting sexuality seem as right and natural as Prince, an outsider stuck in a mid-sized Midwestern city with the balls to sport heavy makeup, thigh-high stockings, and bikini briefs while opening for the Rolling Stones.Dirty Mindis the Purple One in stark black and white, as yet untouched by the spiritual heaviness that would color his work as the ’80s wore on. At this point, all he wanted was to get down, in both senses of that word. The music is unbelievably lean, with the dry recording and minimal production serving as the perfect foil to the decidedly wet and lush physicality of the subject matter. Catchy electro-pop meets danceable electro-funk,Dirty Mindstands as Prince’s first great album. –Mark Richardson

86.

The Police: Ghost in the Machine (1981)

It seems strange to think that Sting could ever have found his hand so firmly entrenched in the direction of modern pop as he did circa this album. Fresh from thePolice’s almost single-handed reinvention of what radio rock was supposed to sound like with their previous three records, Sting was transformed from cute new-wave frontman to Serious Artist. Perhaps that signaled doom for the band (who were more than the sum of their parts as a matter of practice), but even with a jazzy sound overhaul (much courtesy of mega-producer Hugh Padgham), few ill effects were found on this record. Newfound textural sophistication via synthesizer and piano, horns, lots of massed vocals, and typically light-handed tackling of reggae and ska—in addition to some of their best tunes (“Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” “Invisible Sun”)—translated to a curiously underrated classic. –Dominique Leone

85.

Paul Simon: Graceland (1986)

Gracelandwas a controversial recording in its day, transcending the U.N.’s cultural ban on South Africa to expose the vibrant mbaqanga musical movement of the nation’s black neighborhoods to the world. ButGracelandwas a phenomenal musical achievement from any perspective—an effortless fusion of styles (Zulu mambazo choral music, zydeco, country, etc.) that sounds like little else even today. Most of us, myself included, first heard this record around the house, that rare album our parents stumbled onto that we all could dig. Through all my shifts in musical taste in those 15years—through punk, prog, avant-garde, electronic, and onward—this disc has never lain far from my stereo. Its appeal is truly universal. –Joe Tangari

84.

ESG: Come Away With ESG (1983)

Sisters Renee, Valerie and Marie Scroggins, and bassist Leroy Glover formed ESG in the South Bronx at the dawn of the 1980s. Though influenced mainly by Motown soul and jazz, their rudimentary skills on their instruments forced them to create something of their own. What they came away with was the deeply minimalist and spacious sound of barebones, electronics-free dance grooves submerged in murky reverb, yet performed with a youthful vitality and laden with joyous shoutouts. Their music is almost all beat: loose, African polyrhythms and stabbing basslines beneath the girls’ sing/speak vocals. Strangely, their first release came with a Martin Hannett–produced, three-song 7''on Factory Records, which led to the interest of NYC-based 99 Records who booked the band in punk clubs where they opened for many of the other bands on this list (Public Image Ltd, Gang of Four, etc). They disbanded after the release of this album, but the widespread sampling of their music by hip-hop legends like Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy, Big Daddy Kane, and Beastie Boys is a testament to its influence. Plus, it’s a kickin’ party record. –Ryan Schreiber

83.

Talk Talk: The Colour of Spring (1986)

Talk Talk made their first big step out of new wave and into something else entirely onThe Colour of Spring, opening their music to looser structures and stranger textures. The rhythms were still mechanically governed, but the guitars were huge, Mark Hollis’ vocals more enigmatic, and the sonic palette much, much wider. “April 5th” and “Chameleon Day” most closely anticipated Talk Talk’s future directions and today suggest something like Peter Gabriel inventing post-rock 10years ahead of schedule. Talk Talk’s uniquely balanced appreciation for sweeping gestures, big sound, minimalist songcraft, and the importance of space made for some singular music, and it was on display here at its most accessible. –Joe Tangari

82.

The Fall: Perverted by Language (1983)

Mark E. Smith has never been easy to decipher, but the title of the Fall’s sixth album, Perverted by Language, can actually be taken literally. Lyrically, Smith distorts and disrupts standard English through knotted narratives and odd turns of phrase. On Perverted by Language, the meanings of his skewed stories morph depending on how he grunts, spits, and exhales them out. “Eat Y’self Fitter” recounts the nightmares of a middle manager; “Tempo House” weaves an angled history of World War II–era Europe; “Smile” confronts creeping gentrification; and “Garden” poses a surreal alternate tale of God’s creation. All these dense ideas are surrounded by increasingly expansive and risky music, even as the addition of guitarist and singer Brix Smith turned the Fall closer to pop. While many of their original post-punk peers were breaking up or settling into grooves, Perverted by Language was a clear sign the Fall had no plans to slow down or fade away. —Marc Masters

81.

Cocteau Twins: Blue Bell Knoll (1988)

Though it was once seen as the stopover en route to Cocteau Twins’ 1990 masterpiece, Heaven or Las Vegas, Blue Bell Knoll occupies its own wondrous space in the band’s canon. It’s the sound of the dream-pop trio exploring musical terrain beyond their densely woven sonic cocoon; the album’s opening, title track may climax in a suitably stratospheric Robin Guthrie guitar surge, but it rides an enchanting, baroque piano loop to get there. “Carolyn’s Fingers” is ecstasy in excelsis, with the song’s danceable shuffle hoisting Liz Fraser’s glass-shattering voice in a union of student-disco indie and the opera. The Cocteaus’ first album to receive a proper stateside release, Blue Bell Knoll is a record that courts the pop mainstream through its crisp, radiant production and also boldlyrejects it through vocally smeared songs that are nigh impossible to sing along to. Rarely has inscrutability been rendered with such dazzling clarity. –Stuart Berman

80.

Hüsker Dü: New Day Rising (1985)

“Bob Mould, intelligible? Never!” Believe it. After the throat-clenching rage ofZen Arcade, Mould decided to follow fellow Grant Hart’s songwriting lead (well, most of the time) and hew a bit closer to pop, while Hart’s straighter rock songs swung into almost traditionalist territory. Given that the guitars still buzz, careen, and overload,New Day Risingwas both edgy as hell and hugely accessible. More thanZen Arcade,New Day Risingpredicted both Mould’s excellent post-Hüsker project Sugar and, by extension, the general landscape of alternative/indie rock into which that band fit so perfectly. –Brendan Reid

79.

Manuel Göttsching: E2-E4 (1984)

As the story is sometimes told, Göttsching stopped in the studio for a couple of hours in 1981 and invented techno.E2-E4is the most compelling argument that techno came from Germany—more so than any single Kraftwerk album, anyway. The sleeve credits the former Ash Ra Tempel leader with “guitar and electronics,” but few could stretch that meager toolkit like Göttsching. Over a heavenly two-chord synth vamp and simply sequenced drum and bass, Göttsching played his guitar like a percussion instrument, creating music that defines the word “hypnotic” over the 60minutes of the single track. A key piece in the electronic music puzzle that’s been name-checked, reworked, and expanded upon countless times. –Mark Richardson

78.

They Might Be Giants: Lincoln (1989)

Catch their non-sequitur breakdowns before they werede rigeur! In my bank-robbing dreams, I blast the next lazy asshole who describes this band as “quirky.” What does that even mean? “Ana Ng” and “Purple Toupee” are what would happen if punk songs emitted from the heart and brain and not from the fists and dick. Yes, their afflicted polka dance can be sonically distracting; in an interview circaApollo 18, John Flansburgh had to remind me that their songs were sad, that TMBG’s main subject was “existential dread.” Far from being a neutered Devo, They Might Be Giants were auditors of how we can’t control “Where Your Eyes Don’t Go” and how “They’ll Need a Crane” to dismantle our romantic investments. Wallace Stevens gets quoted. Santa gets cuckolded. Identities get inverted. Workaholism gets spoofed. Catholicism gets dirged. Amen. –William Bowers

77.

The Smiths: Strangeways, Here We Come (1987)

It’s hard to believe the Smiths didn’t know Strangeways, Here We Come would be their last album while they recorded it. (Guitarist and songwriter Johnny Marr left the band shortly after the sessions.) The title itself suggests it’s time to be locked away—Strangeways was a notorious British prison —and the music is lusher and more bittersweet than the band’s previous work, as if they were crafting their own elegy. In retrospect, the melodramatic “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” sounds like a farewell (“So tell me how long/Before the last one”). But Strangeways also looked forward: Marr insisted on not repeating the group’s jangly guitar sound, instead using more orchestrated instrumentation, and opener “A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours” even got rid of guitar completely. Morrissey’s evocative croon and snarky humor remains intact, but Strangeways is most powerful as it reveals the tension between what the Smiths were and what they could’ve become. –Marc Masters

76.

The dB’s: Stands for Decibels (1981)

Given the times, those first few punk-sharp, jangly bars ofStands for Decibels’ opener, “Black and White,” could've turned into anything. A few measures later, however, an infectious, fluid lead announces the dB’s allegiances to the more basic ideals of pop and the malleability of pop in the right pairs of sweaty little hands. Coming on like a smart-ass Big Star, the Winston-Salem, N.C.–based dB’s were, like that band, a powerful intimation of the South’s intentions to rise again. And indeed, Peter Holsapple’s starry-eyed melodies and Chris Stamey’s cross-eyed rhythmic and production f*ckery paved the way for R.E.M. and the legion of college-boy rockers, both in love with and frustrated with rock, who would soon march North into the spotlight. –Brendan Reid

75.

Boogie Down Productions: Criminal Minded (1987)

When you hear people nod their heads and say “hip-hop today ain’t as good as that old-school sh*t,” BDP’sCriminal Mindedis the “old-school sh*t” they’re talking about. BDP laid down the blueprint for true-skool hip-hop, with Blastmaster KRS-One supplying streetwise rhymes over Scott La Rock’s beautifully spare production. The Jamaican-influenced “The Bridge Is Over,” directed at Queens hip-hop legends Marley Marl and MC Shan, may be the best diss song ever. And did any of The Teacher’s lessons ever rival the brutal honesty of the chorus to “The P Is Free,” where the Blastmaster raps, “The puss* is free, but the crack cost money”? In a word: no. –Sam Chennault

74.

Mekons: Fear and Whiskey (1985)

Mekons are one of the few bands in the history of music that can claim to have birthed a genre—English folk, dub rhythms, punk aesthetics, and a rockabilly glaze went intoFear and Whiskey, and somehow, out of all that, came something people now affectionately refer to as “alt-country.” Mekons were as enigmatic as they come, fusing highbrow anti-conservative populist politics and humanist desires with the most basic roots of rock, and as such,Fear and Whiskeyis like a drunken redneck lecturing you on the finer points of socialist economics—it’s funny, informative, and surreally entertaining. It has to be heard to be believed. But mostly, it just has to be heard. –Eric Carr

73.

Coil: Horse Rotorvator (1987)

The Four Horsem*n of the Apocalypse turn on their steeds, slitting their throats and fashioning from the connected jawbones a plough with which to excoriate the Earth: The Horse Rotorvator. This vision appeared as a dream to John Balance and became the title of his second album. The bulk of these songs are grand, sweeping treatments of themes of death and betrayal, wrought in a collage of noise and restless rhythms. Coil were always their own breed, but the self-conscious drama of ’80s industrial culture mediates these bleak meditations. It’s the small details that are truly unnerving: a child giggling, fabric rustling and tearing, or the void of silence after a marching band passes. Equally austere, humorous, and frightening,Horse Rotorvatorstands as one of the more unique projects of its decade. Just make sure to buy an officially minted copy; Coil have cursed the various bootlegs. –Christopher Dare

72.

Meat Puppets: Up on the Sun (1985)

Curt Kirkwood: so middle-of-the-road today, he’s the official standard for double-yellow lines in his native Arizona. Yet, back in ’85, the firm of Kirkwood, Kirkwood & Bostrom presided over one of the most out-there (and, at the same time, down-home) albums of the era. Jettisoning most of the punk they’d built their reputation on, the Pups seem to be loosely allied here to a sort of double-jointed funk, though the trail of influences quickly gets lost in the warm fever-glow of “Hot Pink,” “Swimming Ground,” and the blissfully weird title track. This makes it even harder to pin down the bandsUp on the Sunhas influenced; if anything, the album seems to be emblematic of the sonic left turn, often so labored in indie rock but so effortless here, that shortcuts the long, boring road of rock tradition to reach that big ol’ Mountain of Song. –Brendan Reid

71.

The Replacements: Pleased to Meet Me (1987)

Fame for the Replacements was starting to look like a lost cause by the time this album dropped. Did that mean they were losers for trying once again?Pleased to Meet Memade the question utterly irrelevant. Paul Westerberg had progressed quickly from shaky smart aleck to confident chronicler of the shafted, writing ferociously sharp power-pop elegies to preterite rock stars (“Alex Chilton”), shimmering folk tunes about being in the wrong place at the wrong time (“Skyway”), and elegant odes to anxiety (“Can’t Hardly Wait,” which, true to form, doesn’t get played till the ending credits of the movie that ripped its name). Before the Loser pose became an instant fame-ticket to anyone shaggy enough to pass for one, the Replacements were living it, and like most everything they touched, turning it to cool. –Brendan Reid

70.

Elvis Costello: Trust (1981)

This is one of Costello’s earliest attempts to mix and match genres: the14 tracks are all over the map, with country, rockabilly, drippingly melodramatic piano ballads, and of course, the modern and popular strains of “Clubland.” Unlike some of his later experiments, every song works and every stretch is justified: his sharp pop hooks and perfect melodies never miss. The lyrics chart one disaster after another (“white knuckles on black and white skin”), but the upbeat music helps you through it; and the tinge of regret in “New Lace Sleeves” comes away glowing. Plus, dig the shades. His future’s so bright! –Chris Dahlen

69.

The Feelies: Crazy Rhythms (1980)

1980 was a good year for geeks—for instance, I was born; the dB’s were recordingStands for Decibels; and, oh yeah,Crazy Rhythmscame out. Call them the Velvet Underground with pocket protectors, the Bowlcut Beatles, but the coolest thing aboutthe Feelies’ debut was the beat. Drummer Anton Fier’s punked-up take on motorik, along with hyperspeed strumming from boy-guitar-heroes Glenn Mercer and Bill Million, punched a gaping hole in the fabric of the universe, giving us access to the bizarro geek-chic realm from which Weezer and their ilk would eventually crawl. More locally, the band’s anxious jangle gave courage to better-dressed college rockers everywhere, as well as post-punk acts who weren’t hip enough to be British. And who knows what sort of Brave New Feelies World will dawn on us in the Land of Tomorrow? That Steven Hawking does, I bet. –Brendan Reid

68.

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense (1984)

Call and response: What do we want? White-nerd punk-funk! When do we want it? 1984!Stop Making Senseis one of only two movie soundtracks on this list. And I’ll admit: you really need to see the film to fully appreciate these key-and-percussion-heavy renditions of the Heads’ canonical standbys. They had high, high live standards—a zillion drunks will argue the conspiracy theorem that this had to be an overdubbed studio recording. Leave fingernail scars on your soulmate to the table-saw synths of “Life During Wartime,” “Once in a Lifetime,” and “Girlfriend Is Better.” If you can really multitask, I recommend that you listen while readingThis Must Be the Place’s account of Byrne waving a banana at a Nixon rally, or of their museums-versus-cheeseburgers tour withthe Ramones. Yes, of course, big-suit Byrne was truly rock’s Kafka, being swallowed by his costume—ahem—professional attire. –William Bowers

67.

The Pogues: Rum Sodomy & the Lash (1985)

Traditional Irish balladry mixed with a drive-it-like-it’s-stolen attitude toward music and performance is only half ofthe Pogues’ story; the other half is the slurred, frothing charisma of Shane MacGowan. His drunken excess is both the reason the band inevitably collapsed and the conviction behind their vitality.Rum Sodomy &the Lash, their second album, capturedthe Pogues at their most emotionally raw. MacGowan switches from tearful lament to bitter growl with almost unparalleled ease—his heart is on his sleeve here, and it’s beautiful to behold. It’s here, during the Celtic legends (“The Sick Bed of Cuchulain”) and wrought, personal reminiscences (“The Old Main Drag”) thatthe Pogues are at their unfurnished best. –Eric Carr

66.

The Dukes of Stratosphear: Psonic Psunspot (1987)

Despite their adoption of florid costuming and silly pseudonyms like Sir John Johns andthe Red Curtain, it remains obvious thatthe Dukes of Stratosphear could be no other band than XTC. For one, Andy Partridge could never disguise his trademark throaty vocals, and two, the band’s sense of songcraft is utterly distinctive. Partridge and Colin Moulding brought some of their best songs to the table for this side project, ensuring it all the life and vitality of the best records in XTC’s back catalog. The Beatles/Kinks musichall of “You’re a Good Man, Albert Brown,” the phased paisley of “You’re My Drug,” and theSmile-worthy “Pale & Precious” stand wonderfully as single tracks, but as part of the same piece, and crowned with the beautifully frail pop blast “Vanishing Girl,” they become a surreal rock-opera of opaque, hallucinogenic wonder. The ’60s never sounded so good in the ’80s. –Joe Tangari

65.

The Soft Boys: Underwater Moonlight (1980)

A psych-pop oddity released at the height of punk, and an incredibly important guitar record,Underwater Moonlightis ageless. Robyn Hitchco*ck’s songwriting was at its demented peak with the kinky insect imagery of “Kingdom of Love,” and on the effervescent title track, a saga of drowning lovers. The exuberantly malevolent “I Wanna Destroy You” dared punk to face itself in the mirror, and “The Queen of Eyes” updatedthe Byrds and found its way into the musical vocabulary of R.E.M. and their countless comrades in the early-’80s underground. The Soft Boys were that ever elusive rarity—muscle and brains in the same package, and the package they made was incredible. –Joe Tangari

64.

Television Personalities: ...And Don’t the Kids Just Love It (1981)

The kids might have loved it but, given the relative obscurity of this album at the time of its release, not as much as they ought to have. Widely acknowledged as a defining influence on dozens of artists, Television Personalities seem to have been doomed to be the stepping stone to greatness without achieving a fraction of the notoriety of any of the other groundbreaking bands they left their mark on. But that can’t detract from the no-frills attraction of this, their debut full-length; the hissy lo-fi techniques that would later come into vogue giveAnd Don’t the Kids Just Love Ita closeness that wonderfully amplifies the simple directness and charm of the band’s charming, wildly catchy twee-pop. Though its fuzzy aesthetics are a result of necessity rather than artistic intent, the album sounds remarkably prescient. Its sugar-high enthusiasm and impeccable hooks don’t hurt, either. –Eric Carr

63.

Young Marble Giants: Colossal Youth (1980)

The band would have put it more succinctly, but here’s my take:Colossal Youthwas Zen disco, new-wave haiku, monk-punk that used sweetly perverted Ramones/Pistols minimalism to gently sketch out an exploded drawing of pop music. Though the album’s spare, perfectly placed strokes of guitar, bass, organ, and voice would have more of an effect on mopey slowcore types and basem*nt four-trackers, the ineffable thing about the Giants’ music was how simultaneously haunting and cheery they could be. “Eating Noddemix” is music for brushing your teeth to the morning after an apocalypse, and the inimitable “Wurlitzer Jukebox” is a dance track for the last man on Earth, with a geiger counter relentlessly ticking out the beat. Om, baby, yeah. –Brendan Reid

62.

R.E.M.: Reckoning (1984)

They were already huge underground, but this is the record that put R.E.M. on mainstream radio for the first time, unleashing the tide that eventually swept the word “alternative” into the national musical vocabulary. Musically, R.E.M. opened up their sound onReckoning, driving things home more directly than on their debut. “Pretty Persuasion” was one of the band’s most gorgeous songs, while the countrified second single “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville” was a welcome blast of fresh air on the increasingly artificial airwaves of the early ’80s. The record occasionally drops hints that it’s not as young as it sounds, but when it does, it at least has the good taste not to turn attention from its wrinkles with caked-on mascara. Yeah, Stipe, I’m talking to you. –Joe Tangari

61.

Nurse With Wound: hom*otopy to Marie (1982)

Steven Stapleton was at his most frightening in the early 1980s, his albums creating stark, edge-of-seat tension with pitch-black textures and foreboding silence occasionally broken by scraping metal and humanoid scurrying.hom*otopy to Marieis Stapleton’s career apex, a twisted masterpiece of minimalism whispering terrifying suggestions of death rituals and torture chambers. This album creeps. It is horror. The 20-minute title track is avant-garde dismembered for sad*sts and perverts. “The Schmrz” is hulking army men barking in reverse. “The Tumultuous Upsurge” is a grotesque death rattle with robotic toys laughing in proud hysteria. Do not play this for children. –Ryan Schreiber

60.

Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska (1982)

The legend has Springsteen carrying around a four-track cassette of demos for the new album in a ratty back pocket and then deciding finally to release the tape as it was.Nebraskawas a precursor to both the unplugged movement and the four-track bedroom folk that swept the indie world in the early ’90s, but none of that would matter now if the music weren’t so remarkably good. Springsteen’s love of the band Suicide helped shape the claustrophobic sound, and the dawn of the Reagan era is usually cited as the album’s chief thematic inspiration. Ultimately, the political climate of its birth is irrelevant, as Springsteen’s novelist’s eye for detail and character ensure that the stories remain timeless. Live versions of these songs with the E StreetBand confirm that these songs were meant to be performed by a single man, in a room, alone. –Mark Richardson

59.

Guns N’ Roses: Appetite for Destruction (1987)

What are your friends’ names? John? Paul? Evan? That’s some weak sh*t next to the ultimate rock-o-nyms: Axl, Slash, Izzy, and Duff (yes, Iamleaving out the drummer, the drug-addled Adler whose ejection begged the fantasy-question of how far gone you had to be to get the boot from these guys). Four different cults of personality! Five shaggy, fatless, tat-dappled Icaruses! Such creatures of instinct that Axl’s channeling of Bowie and Iggyhadto be accidental, right? This album can be summarized by a holy phrase:no filler. Thank god the original robo-rape art got banned; that skull-cross is the perfect visual accompaniment to an album that, along with displaying better songcraft and being more anthemic, was heavier than all of its competition. Alas, the band would later defy rock physics by bloating and disintegrating simultaneously. –William Bowers

58.

Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Imperial Bedroom (1982)

Elvis Costello had already proven himself a musical chameleon by 1982, when his seventh album, Imperial Bedroom, was released. He’d tried on everything from ’60s soul (Get Happy!!) to classic country (Almost Blue), neither of which gave an indication of how far he’d push himself and his band, the Attractions, on the lushly produced Imperial. “Man Out of Time” seethes with subtle wordplay and acidic regret, while “…And in Every Home” employed nothing less than a full-scale orchestra, opening the door for a new generation of ambitious, unapologetically traditional songwriters amid the synthesized minimalism of the post-punk era. And on “Almost Blue” (no relation to the prior album), Costello delivered a torch song of jazzy, sophisticated piano-pop that recast the pub-born artist as a crooner for the ages. –Jason Heller

57.

Pixies: Come on Pilgrim (1987)

Compiled from a demo tape recorded in March 1987 at Boston’s Fort Apache studios, this disc served as the world’s first taste of a band that would soon become one of the indie music world’s all-time greats. It was, at the time, a curious release for 4AD who,the Birthday Party aside, largely favored jangly pop and gothic romance. But in retrospect,the Pixies would have been at home on any label, mapping their own rugged terrain with their trademark whisper/thunder dynamics and Frank Black’s infamous, turbulent screeching.Comeon Pilgrimis filled with paradox: the narrator of “Caribou” mourns the torture of city life yet wishes for death as its namesake in the peace of wilderness; “Levitate Me” translates lyrics from a folk ballad to a shoegazing rocker; “I’ve Been Tired” is its most antic song. What possessed them? –Ryan Schreiber

56.

King Crimson: Discipline (1981)

Were punk and new wave really so powerful as to banish prog from rock history? For a few English “dinosaurs,” certainly not. Guitarist Robert Fripp had already earned his hip underground stripes working with Brian Eno throughout the ’70s, but for this version of his celebrated prog outfit, he attempted to completely destroy the barriers that would segregate cliques. Keeping drummer Bill Bruford from the previous incarnation of the band, and adding guitarist/vocalist Adrian Belew (who’d played with David Bowie and on Talking Heads’ earth-shatteringRemain in Light) and bassist Tony Levin (who’d played with John Lennon and would go on to back Peter Gabriel), Fripp’s gang played music as angular and tense as any post-punk group while as precise and rhythmically propulsive as a Bartok string quartet. Songs like the title track, “Thela Hun Ginjeet,” and “Frame by Frame” are almost-danceable maxi-minimalist etudes, and obvious precursors to virtually all math-rock. –Dominique Leone

55.

The Police: Synchronicity (1983)

The Police were never a punk band, but that didn’t stem accusations that the group were ditching their rock roots for adult contemporary. Nor were the Police ever New Romantics, but the themes suggest meaning behind the makeup: romanticism not from supposed individuality, but in the synchronous parallels of our modern lives. The band was indeed taking a distinct move toward pop withSynchronicity, but not from substance. Sting never shied away from the tensions below the surface: not just in “Every Breath You Take,” but in songs like “Synchronicity II,” in which “many miles away, something crawls from the slime at the bottom of a dark Scottish lake,” its identity never revealed. Er... about that shadow on the door of the cottage... –Christopher Dare

54.

Big Black: Songs About f*cking (1987)

Child molestation, urban decay, hopeless apathy, trucking, and racial commentary were all fair game to Big Black, and the screeching, clanking thud of their proto-industrial sound was only a shade less disturbing than their subject matter. Dave Riley’s bass is a metallic, twisted train wreck, and Steve Albini’s every word so bile-drenched it barely makes it past his lips. This, combined with the searing buzzsaw guitars and the violent percussive force of a jackhammer, will strip the enamel straight off your goddamn teeth. Their pervasive stench clings to the entirety of the burgeoning industrial movement, andSongs About f*ckingis the still the biggest, baddest sound on the block; underestimate it at your own peril. –Eric Carr

53.

Mission of Burma: Signals, Calls, and Marches (1981)

If Mission of Burma had released nothing but “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver,” the opening track of their 1981 debut EP Signals, Calls, and Marches, it would have been enough to secure the Boston band’s legacy. A haunting meditation on disillusionment and history, written and sung by bassist Clint Conley, it simmers and erupts with a transcendent melody that introduced a new level of emotional and intellectual depth to punk. The same goes for the rest of Signals: Its six songs, including the slashing fury of “Red” and the syncopated knottiness of “This Is Not a Photograph,” chanted and raged their way into guitar rock’s alternative future. –Jason Heller

52.

Eric B. & Rakim: Paid in Full (1987)

Although Rakim didn’t invent the art of rhyming, he was the one who defined what it meant to be a hip-hop lyricist. With a flow that would’ve melted glaciers, Rakim handled the beat with a precision that sounded otherworldly to ’87 ears, igniting an entire generation of MC imitators. OnPaid in Full, he used rhymes like putty to sculpt a lyrical masterpiece that hasn’t been touched since. “I Ain’t No Joke,” “Paid in Full,” “Move the Crowd”... how could you evenpretendto f*ck with Rakim Allah? And, oh yeah, the beats were also on-point, regardless of who produced them. –Sam Chennault

51.

Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (1988)

You know you’re cool when you get all dressed up in shades and a blazer just to be eating a banana on your album cover. And dig the David Lynch font of the song titles.I’m Your Manis the perfect midpoint for Cohen’s career—it rivals the poetry of 1969’sSongs from a Room, but labors under the resort-lounge production of the apocalyptic, Oliver Stoned 1992 releaseThe Future(yo, everyone knows that 2001’sTen New Songswas a non-representative carjacking). My theory is that there are two Leonard Cohen robots, one of which is a genius lyricist, and one of which is a melodramatic, obtuse-voiced mercenary who will speak-croon over the most Karaokean arrangements. Yet who else sings lines as piercing as “It’s Father's Day and everybody’s wounded,” or, “Let me be somebody I admire”? He talks to Hank Williams, he says we’re talking to our pockets, and without his concrete odes to monkey-mailing there might not be a Smog, or even Iron & Wine. –William Bowers

50.

Spacemen 3: The Perfect Prescription (1987)

Hipsters the world over have tried to assert that, ofThe Perfect PrescriptionandPlaying with Fire, the latter is Spacemen 3’s landmark achievement. You will never tell me this and escape unscathed. Though both are massively haunting works of dystopian misery and contented addiction,The Perfect Prescription’s dreamweapon is its stunning melodic depth. WhereasPlaying with Fireshowed the band already splintering, the bulk of its songs written solo,The Perfect Prescription’s tracklist consists entirely of collaborations between the band’s two primary members, and proves they were at their euphonic best when working together. The record drips with harrowing accounts of habitual users denying their dependence, yet its droning astral reverence pressures you to try it yourself, replicating the bliss of the altered state in gossamer keyboards and celestially aligned vocals.Thisis your brain on drugs. –Ryan Schreiber

49.

Mission of Burma: Vs. (1982)

Boston’s finest art-punk trio-plus-tape-guy recorded just one studio full-length, and it’s a massive legacy. Assessable not in tunes but in grinding velocity, it’s texturally complex and high-energy. Roger Miller’s guitar varies from hypnotic repetition on “Trem Two” to sounding like a power line flailing in a pool of rain, while the rhythmic noise divides into shards for Martin Swope’s tape manipulations; Miller as vocalist is prone to outbursts and declamations, while Clint Conley sings with his vulnerabilities in barbed wire on his sleeve. –Chris Dahlen

48.

R.E.M.: Document (1987)

As addressed by the double-sided pun on the sleeve, “File Under Fire,”Documentfeatured a harder, more focused R.E.M. From “The One I Love” to “Fireplace,” it was as if the band had become enflamed by the times. It was their most political album yet, with songs like “Exhuming McCarthy” and “Welcome to the Occupation” indicting the Reaganite indulgences of the 1980s. Avian imagery formed the album’s other aesthetic undercurrent in “King of Birds” and “Disturbance at the Heron House,” hinting at a phoenix-like rebirth. With their fifth album, R.E.M. emerged into the mainstream while managing to address politics with a dignity shared by few other visible acts of the era, at the same time offering a new path to the murmuring underground. Of course, they also gave us the timeless acronym “ITEOTWAWKI (AIFF).” –Christopher Dare

47.

John Zorn: Naked City (1989)

In many ways, John Zorn’s po-mo mishmash Naked City project was the academic fruition of no-wave. Just likethe Contortions and DNA (one of Zorn’s faves), Naked City’s effortless deconstruction of popular sounds seemed at once a reaction to the music, and completely apart from it. Ever wondered how the James Bond theme would sound if reinterpreted as noise-rock? They covered that. Always wished that those hardcore drummers could mix a little be-bop into their repertoire? Your wait was over. But Naked City was more than just raucous genre-bending; it was a visceral, sometimes violent (especially regarding the murder and bondage imagery Zorn associated with much of the music) display of controlled freedom—and all of that performed by some of the most accomplished musicians to have ever been associated with rock. No New York, indeed. –Dominique Leone

46.

XTC: English Settlement (1982)

Exit quirky English new wave, enter nervous breakdown. To Andy Partridge, it was clear XTC couldn’t go on producing the same stage-ready sparxx at this point, and this double-LP was something of a sonic renaissance. The band’s penchant for spiking the pop punch began a gradual shift towards the pastoral and “arty,” yet these tunes could hardly be described as pretentious. Perhaps taking cues from the Talking Heads andthe Police (XTC toured with both), world music touches began to creep into the band’s mix, and a whole range of state-of-the-’80s synth technology helped flesh out Partridge and Colin Moulding’s still-maturing craft. “Ball and Chain,” “Jason and the Argonauts,” and “Snowman” are but a few of the songs fromEnglish Settlementthat could not have appeared on any of their previous records, such was the complexity of the themes and arrangements. Of course, Partridge would soon explore these avenues to an extent that could no longer maintain the band’s breakneck zeal in any capacity—but that’s another story. –Dominique Leone

45.

Prince: Sign o’ the Times (1987)

Along withThe White AlbumandExile on Main Street,Sign "O"the Timesis the template for the perfect double album. Take an artist at the peak of his powers, give him the space to work all his crazy ideas to their logical conclusion, and then edit the results into a varied four-sided collection. Club classics (“Hot Thing,” “U Got the Look”), ballads of epic rock (“The Cross”), sexy R&B (“Adore”), and flat-out amazing pop songs (“I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man,” “If I Was Your Girlfriend”) are all here in abundance. Oh yeah, he wrote, played, produced, and sang just about everything himself, too. Was he the greatest quadruple threat ever? Listen and decide for yourself. –Mark Richardson

44.

Kraftwerk: Computer World (1981)

The standard critic’s line points toComputer Worldas the turn where the rest of electronic music caught the inside corner before dusting the dour Germans completely on the sad back stretch of the mid-’80s. The truth is, Ralf and Florian were no longer interested in being ahead of the game in 1981, andComputer Worldwas their chance to celebrate the arrival of the world that they’d been promising for so long. And what’s a celebration without good pop songs? Ditties like “It’s More Fun to Compute” and “Home Computer” show Kraftwerk at their most playful and self-aware, their electronics hadn’t sounded this rich and warm sinceAutobahn, and the beautifully edited three-song stretch of “Pocket Calculator,” “Numbers,” and “Computer World 2” is perhaps Kraftwerk’s finest sequence on record. Don’t stop believing (until side two ofElectric Caf, that is.) –Mark Richardson

43.

Run-D.M.C.: Raising Hell (1986)

Until I reached adolescence, I grew up in an isolated town in central Louisiana. Although the community was majority African-American, most of us had only heard of hip-hop before Run-D.M.C. But after Jam Master Jay & Co. dropped, there was a steady stream of cars headed to New Orleans in search of boomboxes and Adidas sneakers. Soon, the swamp was alive with the sounds of boom bap; and our parents and teachers watched in horror as we snapped, popped, and spat our way through childhood. Run-D.M.C. took hip-hop out of the cities and introduced it to the world. They introduced us to a culture that is now the most widespread and influential youth culture in the world, making them every bit as important as Bob Dylan or the Rolling Stones. This is the group at their peak. [R.I.P. Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell: 01/25/62–10/30/02] –Sam Chennault

42.

Cowboy Junkies: The Trinity Session (1988)

It’s amazing how many of the stylistic tropes ofThe Trinity Sessionhave come to be a standard fare of the underground music scene. Now it would almost seem like an indie music cliche, but there just weren’t many slow, country-tinged bands recording theLive 1969version of “Sweet Jane” in 1988. Cowboy Junkies created a sound from VU’s street poetry, traditional folk songs, Hank Williams, and Patsy Cline, then recorded it all live through a single microphone in a church in Toronto with the studied reverence of Midwestern graduate students. It still sounds great in the dark. –Mark Richardson

41.

Beastie Boys: Licensed to Ill (1986)

[Bowers:] Ryan, why is this on the list? [Schreiber:] Mmmfhhmm... [Bowers]: Dude, wake up! How’d you get a Twinkie in your effin’ hair? Why are we honoringLicensed to Ill? Hasn’t it become the frat lodestone it was supposedly lampooning? Wasn’t it beneath them? Wasn’t it condescending? Didn’t even their concerts on this album’s tour amount to statements of contempt for their audience, like their dumb videos? Wasn’t this a callous move by Rick Rubin/Russell Simmons to cash in on “Walk This Way” rock-hop with a bunch of vaudevillian palefaces? [Schreiber:] You mean Elvises? This album isepochal. Think to when you first heard it. Then think to the last time you played it, how good the songs you didn’t skip were. [Bowers:] You’re right. In 1986 and in 2002, “The New Style,” “Paul Revere,” “Rhymin’ and Stealin,’” and “Hold It Now Hit It” made/make no sense and made/make perfect sense, as the Beasties rant like used-car salesmen about fast food, hard drugs, and general malfeasance over rickety-suave backbeat clusters. And “Brass Monkey” keeps stealing my brain’s lunch money. [Schreiber:] Then quit yer bitchin’. –William Bowers

40.

Dinosaur Jr.: You’re Living All Over Me (1987)

Veterans of the Massachusetts hardcore scene, thanks to their time together in the short-lived band Deep Wound, J Mascis and Lou Barlow reconvened as Dinosaur Jr., and their new sound mixed punk ferocity with folk-rock jangle and psychedelic overload. That Black Flag-meets-Crazy Horse onslaught took on godlike dimensions with the band’s second album, You’re Living All Over Me. Released in 1987, it fused forlorn anthems (“The Lung”) and howling psychic deteriorations (“Little Fury Things”) using honeyed pop hooks and monolithic riffs as glue. Like Sonic Youth’s sloppy suburban cousins, Dinosaur Jr. reimagined the distorted guitar in a way that completely obliterated the boundary between ugliness and beauty. Younger, unknown groups such as Nirvana listened closely. –Jason Heller

39.

The Stone Roses: The Stone Roses (1989)

The Stone Roses arrived so fully formed upon the release of their debut that it destroyed them altogether. This record simultaneously gathers the disparate strands of UK rock in the ’80s and predicts the Britpop of the ’90s. Guitar hooks drip from the stereo like honey spiked with acid and a dab of arsenic. Vocalist Ian Brown exudes boredom and venom in equal measure, calmly repeating, “I wanna be adored/You adore me,” as a mantra and confidently declaring, “I Am the Resurrection,” as though it were pre-written. And it all sounded so good you believed it, even if just for a moment. –Joe Tangari

38.

The Cure: Disintegration (1989)

The Cure were still flush with the success of their 1987 double album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me when they embarked on the creation of their crowning achievement, Disintegration. Rather than try to duplicate Kiss Me’s kaleidoscopic sprawl, however, Robert Smith and company darted in the opposite direction. With a monochromatic obsession on a single sonic and emotional theme—a dreamy sense of loss—the Cure embraced the relatively new horizons of the CD format, which allowed for much more playing time than an LP. Accordingly, Disintegration comprises over 72 minutes of brooding moods and celestial melody seemingly built with glass shards and swathes of fog. From the churning pop of “Pictures of You” to the erotic menace of “Fascination Street,” Disintegration becamethe Cure’s mainstream breakout in the U.S.; in doing so, it was instrumental in pulling alternative rock out of college dorms and into America’s living rooms, inspiring budding shoegazers like Ride and rising goth-grunge gods like Smashing Pumpkins in the process. –Jason Heller

37.

The Replacements: Tim (1985)

With a shave and a shower, the ’Mats didn’t sound half bad. After wiping the puke off their shoes, they were almost ready for their big date with radio. Almost. Even armed with the rough-and-tumble love letter “Left of the Dial,”Timcouldn’t break through at any frequency that reached past the campus line—the angst was too ahead of its time, and Paul Westerberg’s voice still refused to stick to the fantastic melodies that kept flowing from his brain. Thoughthe Replacements couldn’t quite bust down the door here, they did leave it hanging off its hinges, and when the next wave of uncompromising bands (who knew that the ’Mats got a raw deal) finally came of age, they just waltzed right in. –Brendan Reid

36.

Violent Femmes: Violent Femmes (1983)

Using minimal instrumentation to convey maximal sexual frustration, the Violent Femmes showed that you don’t need a distortion pedal to be punk, “Kiss Off” and “Add It Up” being two mini-sagas that absolutely seethe with uncompromised hormone overflow (read: “why can’t I get just one f*ck!”). But unsung heroes shine as well, particularly the bittersweetness of “Good Feeling” and the pleading “Prove My Love.” I used to feel sorry that the Femmes were stuck playing the same material through their graying years, but they can at least take comfort in the fact that their debut will be loved as long as there are horny 10th graders in the world; in other words, forever. –Rob Mitchum

35.

N.W.A.: Straight Outta Compton (1988)

While Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions tried to take the high ground, N.W.A. didn’t bother with either coherent political platforms or constructive pro-unity messages. N.W.A. was dangerous in the most immediate and scary sense. In their music, you could hear the reckless adrenaline of youth pumping through the nihilistic heart of South Central L.A., where the average man didn’t make it out of his twenties. And with Dre on the boards and Ice Cube writing the rhymes, theirs was a very well-stated malaise. It must be noted that the album was funded with crack money and assailed by everyone from the morality police to the FBI. While many imitators have tried, no one has been able to capture the rage and vitality ofStraight Outta Compton. –Sam Chennault

34.

Talk Talk: Spirit of Eden (1988)

There aren’t many records out there like this one, a collection of meditative songs so abstracted by their arrangements that it’s impossible to pin them to their era. Talk Talk created something so uniquely their own onSpirit of Edenthat the only people to effectively traverse that terrain again were Talk Talk themselves, on their 1991 masterpieceLaughing Stock. Instrumental timbres combined in strange ways to create new sounds, and Tim Friese-Greene’s production allowed for massive dynamic shifts and passages of glassy clarity. Common modern tags for genreless music like obscuro and post-rock needn’t apply—Spirit of Edenis the sound of elegance itself. –Joe Tangari

33.

The Fall: Hex Enduction Hour (1982)

Long before the band developed a reputation as a human-resources nightmare, the early Fall line-up was relatively stable. However, they struggled to find an audience for their acerbic art-punk, and were growing increasingly impatient and disillusioned with their benefactors at Rough Trade. When ringleader Mark E. Smith entered a Reykjavík studio to begin recordingthe Fall’s fourth album, he anticipated it would be the band’s last. And with second drummer Karl Burns complementing first stickman Paul Hanley, he was packing the extra dynamite to bring the whole enterprise crashing down.

Unlike many of their post-punk peers,the Fall never used disco or dub to soothe their frantic aggression—on Hex Enduction Hour, they use rhythm as a wrecking ball. With the stomach-rumbling spew of “The Classical,” the serial-killer stalk of “Hip Priest,” and the battering-ram clamor of “And This Day,”the Fall declared war on a music industry that was in the process of repackaging the outsider ethos as punk as new-wave novelty. (As legend has it,the Fall were being courted by Motown’s UK division at the time; presumably, the label didn’t take kindly to hearing their signature soul stomp refashioned as a concrete-cracking goose-step on “Just Step S’ways.”) With Hex Enduction Hour,the Fall not only acquired the momentum that would carry them to their mid-’80s chart-scraping success, they also cemented their legacy. Throughout the album, you can hear the mouth-breathing belligerence and brawling basslines of The Jesus Lizard, the predatory menace of Slint, and the coarse, cut-and-paste wordplay of early Pavement, making Hex Enduction Hour the greatest ’90s indie-rock record of the 1980s. –Stuart Berman

32.

Hüsker Dü: Zen Arcade (1984)

The first double-album rock opera from a hardcore band, Zen Arcade tells the story of an angry young man who runs away from his abusive home only to find life in the big city to be just as cruel and unforgiving. (The saga culminates with the same “it was all just a dream” denouement used by The Wizard of Oz and desperate “Dallas” producers, forcing the man to confront his traumas once again in the waking world.) But the real liberation story here is Hüsker Dü’s own. These days, it’s natural for even the most misanthropic punk bands to gradually turn more melodic and ambitious, but that was still a radical, heretical notion in 1984—and rarely did you hear that evolutionary process play out over the course of an entire album sequence.

The first half of Zen Arcade features some of Hüsker Dü’s most violent, unsettling blasts of hardcore fury (“Indecision Time,” “I’ll Never Forget You”), with Bob Mould giving hoarse voice to his protagonist’s rage through vivid, lived-in experience. But as the narrative opens up to include doomed, drug-addicted girlfriends, scenes of urban decay, and meditations on mass media, so too does the album’s musical universe, encompassing melancholic power pop (“Pink Turns to Blue”), delicate piano interludes (“One Step a Time,” “Monday Will Never Be the Same”) and extended psychedelic jams (“Recurring Dreams”). Zen Arcade thrust Hüsker Dü to the front lines of the ’80s American indie-rock revolution, en route to major-label deals and talk-show appearances—but like their album’s central character, they soon found the world at large not so welcoming. –Stuart Berman

31.

Sonic Youth: EVOL (1986)

Like the first slimy creature to pull itself from the primordial muck,EVOLis an aural document of Sonic Youth’s One Small Step. Feedback-soaked noise had been their hallmark until this album, butEVOLwould mark the true departure point of Sonic Youth’s musical evolution—in measured increments, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo began to bring form to the formless, tune to the tuneless, and with the help of Steve Shelley’s drums, they imposed melody and composition on their trademark dissonance. A breathtaking fusion of avant-garde noise (as far as Rock was concerned) and brilliant, propulsive rock took its first shaky advances out of the storm and didn’t look back. That these sonic youths would go on to release two more of the decade’s most impressive albums before you could say “Teen Age Riot” only reinforces the prominence ofEVOL; this is where the seeds of greatness were sown. –Eric Carr

30.

U2: The Joshua Tree (1987)

Oh, how the punks hated U2. Just when they’d managed to dispel the excess of the ’70s, here were four lads from Ireland trying to capture the entirety of human pathos in the broad strokes of the rock song. Yet there’s an unquenchable yearning here incommensurate with the bloated contentment of the worst of ’80s pop. Three of these11 songs became wildly popular radio anthems still in heavy rotation today, and I’ll be damned if they’ve lost any of their power. The pleasure comes in discovering that the latter tracks prove just as great, from the moody closer “Mothers of the Disappeared” to Bono’s aching depiction of just “hangin’ on” in “Red Hill Mining Town.” Named for flora that flourish even in the heat of the desert,The Joshua Treefeatures songs about the political fallout of the 20th century, but it truly justifies the oft-overused adjective “timeless.” –Christopher Dare

29.

The Replacements: Let It Be (1984)

Youngish lad that I am, I heard plenty of worship about the ’Mats before I actually got around to hearing their body of work. Once I finally did, it became pretty clear that Jeff Tweedy is merely the reincarnation of Paul Westerberg’s relevancy. Through a career that ran from sloppy alcohol-soaked punk to alt-rock grandpaws (nicely summarized in the first two-thirds of “We’re Coming Out”),Let It Bestands as the hingepoint, and I snuggled up to it more closely than most albums of either extreme. Since my memories of the ’80s are distorted by childhood haze and retrospective kitsch, Westerberg coughing out “Androgynous” with nothing but tape hiss for company is necessary proof that the decade’s fashion struggles were about more than bad haircuts and neon. –Rob Mitchum

28.

New Order: Power, Corruption & Lies (1983)

Ian Curtis haunts this album for exactly30 seconds: until Bernard Sumner’s vulnerable vox begin, one can almost detect combustible Curtis imploring us to “Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance! To the radio!” over the drum-n-bassline opener “Age of Consent.” Shifting the lyrical focus from alienation and fascism to love and lovelessness, and mutating the band’s sound from marchy rock to marchy dance, this was the peak of the New Order’s stellar ’80s output, before they’d become soccer-anthem softies begging us to “Rock the Shack.” Every synth sweep holds up. Hear the jangle everybody in Athens,Ga.was copping. Hear why Peter Hook is the most fitting name in Britpop. Hear what you’re missing if you only know the hits. –William Bowers

27.

Michael Jackson: Thriller (1982)

I don’t care what kind of music your promo bait covers; any ’80s list withoutThrilleris kidding itself. Thanks to a 20-year campaign waged by Jacko to completely incinerate his artistic integrity, revisitingThrilleris a revelation, cutting through the tabloid baggage with its crisp, sharp-edged Quincy production. “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” is sweltering dance-floor Afro-funk highlighting Michael’s abhorrence for personal criticism; “Billie Jean”’s paranoid bass and hiccup histrionics are still cooler than its video’s illuminated sidewalks; the breakdown in “PYT,” with its ecstatic call-and-response and sultry panting, remains the funkiest goddamn thing since James Brown’s “Hot Pants.” Though the audio equivalent toStar Warsin that it can be held responsible for inspiring perhaps more crap than any other release of its time,Thrillerpermanently ziplocked the sound of era so that it might forever remain as fresh and vital as the album itself. –Rob Mitchum

26.

Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Get Happy!! (1980)

Like something out of a Nick Hornby novel, a British music geek proves that he “gets” soul music. Elvis Costello leads the Attractions through20 tracks that burst the seams of the original vinyl. At the time, Costello still wrote his lyrics almost entirely in puns and double-entendres–“love for tender,” or “’til I step on the brake to get out of her clutches”—but the music makes it weightless. The band is giddy, especially Steve Nieve, as Costello slings his tightest set of material ever. Even covers like Sam & Dave’s “I Can’t Stand Up (For Falling Down)” blend right in. –Chris Dahlen

25.

Black Flag: Damaged (1981)

Henry Rollins might be his own running gag now, but without him, Black Flag might have forever remained buried under the miles of garbage calling itself hardcore in Los Angeles circa 1980; with him, Black Flag took on the essential ferocity of men about to snap, and combined that with an acidic sense of humor and these things called “songs”—a concept that many of the wannabe punkers of the day were still trying to sort out.Damagedhit in 1981, and by 1982, four bars bearing the Black Flag name had been airbrushed across miles and miles of spiked leather. Conflicting feelings of violence, apathy, rage, and self-satire course through this one—the essential touchstone of the entire genre of West Coast hardcore—crystallizing the turmoil of the movement. Listen to “Rise Above” and try not to be incensed, then listen to “TV Party” and try not to laugh out loud. That’s awesome. –Eric Carr

24.

Gang of Four: Solid Gold (1981)

When Gang of Four named their 1979 punk/funk manifesto Entertainment!, they were being so tongue-in-cheek, they practically distended their facial muscles. But when they named their 1981 follow-up after the most popular disco-dancin’ show of the day, they were only being half-ironic. Solid Gold loosened up its predecessor’s taut tangle of rhythm and rhetoric, stretching out the Gang of Four sound to new extremes in both abstraction and accessibility.