Best albums of the 80's (?)

[David Raphael]

Let's face it, the 80's was a dire decade. The fashion was ridiculous (ok, so I wore a thin leather tie with a piano key design and non-matching gaudy luminous socks), most of the movies were crap (Weird Science, TeenWolf) and so was most of the music (Stock, Aitken and Waterman, anyone?) - it was the decade of pop music and earning money.

Genesis/Collins/Gabriel et al aside, I listened to a lot of music in the 80's but there are very few popular albums that I can still listen to today - not many have stood the test of time.

Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair
Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason
Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones
The Police - Synchronicity
Paul Simon - Gracelands
Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense
Pixies - Doolittle

Are there any albums from this decadent decade that resonate for you (even if they are guilty pleasures)?

dR

[Ed Kuszajewski]

Ugh!!!! Skinny ties parachute pants and everything else that I endured in the 80's. However some good music was also made (besides the obvious Genesis and related solo projects) I'll definetely agree with Synchronicity and A Momentary Lapse of Reason. Others that in my mind that have stood the test of time are:

About Face-David Gilmour
Moving Pictures-Rush
The Unforgetable Fire -U2
Fair Warning- Van Halen
Misplaced Childhood- Marrillion
Back in Black- AC/DC
Gretchen Goes To Nebraska- Kings X
Surfing with the Alien- Joe Satriani

[simon]

Yep. mainstream music was pretty awful, however still some good memories, although these cover a fairly wide spectrum:
Waterboys, this is the sea
Rush Moving Pictures
Talking Heads


Even some of the early Smiths I was into,, and one of my all time favourites for a quiet moment late a night : the Blue Nile ; Hats, a true masterpiece, which both PG and PC rated at the time... those Downtown Lights!

[pecovgfx]

A list of the things I used to listen at the time...

Echo & The Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
Echo & The Bunnymen - Crocodiles
Echo & The Bunnymen - Songs to Learn and Sing
U2 - Under a Blood Red Sky
U2 - The Unforgettable Fire
U2 - The Joshua Tree
Tears For Fears - The hurting
Tears For Fears - Songs From The Big Chair
The Jam - Setting Sons
The Jam - The Gift
Style Council - Café Bleu
Prefab Sprout - Steve Mcqueen
Aztec Camera - Knife
The Cure - Concert - The Cure Live
Dream Academy - Dream Academy
Everything But the Girl - Love Not Money
REM - Document
REM - Fables Of The Reconstruction
The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow
The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
The Smiths - The World Won't Listen
Talking Heads - The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads
Duruti Column - LC
Duruti Column - Without Mercy
Brian Eno and David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
Big Country - The Crossing
Bauhaus, Alien Sex Fiend, Jesus and Mary Chain.. etc..

some bands to refresh your memory http://www.pure80spop.co.uk/bandlinksabc.htm

I´ve been listening to "The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads" and "Brian Eno and David Byrne album - My Life in the bush of ghosts" early this year.

[pecovgfx]

ah I still like Cocteau Twins !

[Leon Alvarado]

Here is my list. It is quite versatile for the era. there is plenty of prog-rock, heavy, jazzy, new "ageish" and just plain weird. Most of these acts I saw live during that decade. Memorable concerts were the first Roger Waters Tour (Stage, light and set design), Supertramp (they sounded just like in the studio, very tight band to see live), King Crimson, (amazing musicicanship), The Firm ( Jimmy Page, Paul Rodgers and lots of lasers), Frank Zappa (ultra tight), Van Halen (not so great as an experience. I remember the sound being so loud that one could not understand which sing they were playing. It sounded as if someone turned up an afterburner from a jet fighter within two feet of your ears), Robert Plant (it was great to see Phil behind the drums playing someone else's music), I did not see Phillip Glass perform up until this decade, he performed the entire soundtrack for Koyaanitsqatsi while the movie played in sync on a big screen in the background (goosebumps stuff). Al Di Meola (I've seen him a couple of times, once with Stanley Clark and Jean-Luc Ponty in the same band). Dave Gilmour, (playing to a quasi-empty arena, maybe four or five thousand people in an arena made for fourteen thousand. It was great because he made the whole thing a more intimate affair walking through the crowd while playing and taking his time setting between songs while telling stories and so forth. Very nice concert indeed). Pink Floyd, I have being fortunate to have seen Floyd four times in my life. the last tour they did had the best light show I've ever seen in my whole life. At any rate, here is the list:

King Crimson - Discipline
Yes - Drama
Pink Floyd - The Final Cut
Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason
Marillion - Script for a Jester's Tear
Jethro Tull - Crest of a Knave
David Bowie - Scary Monsters
The Police - Synchronicity
Robert Plant - Pictures at Eleven
Roxy Music - Avalon
David Gilmour - About Face
Vangelis - Blade Runner Soundtrack
Tangerine Dreams - Tamgram
The Firm - The Firm
Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers
Roger Waters - The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking
Roger Waters - Radio KAOS
Emerson Lake & Powell - Emerson Lake & Powell
Rick Wakeman - Live at Hammersmith
Supertramp - Paris
Supertramp - Famous Last Words
Jeff Beck - Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop
Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage
Frank Zappa - Shut up 'n play yer guitar
Rolling Stones - Emotional rescue
Laurie Anderson - Mr. Heartbreak
Camel - Nude
Adrian Belew - The Lone Rhino
Al Di Meola - Scenario
Phillip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi
Jean-Michael Jarre - Zoolook
Dire Straits - Brothers in arms
Psychodelic Furs - The Psychodelic Furs
Andy Summers & Robert Fripp - I Advance Mask
Pete Townsend - Empty Glass
Van Halen - Diver Down
Van Halen - 1984
Yngwie Malmsteem - Rising Force
Bill Bruford - Earthworks

[David Raphael]

ah yes, Phillip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi. Absolutely fantastic soundtrack.

dR

[pecovgfx]

.. of course Frank Zappa, Supertramp, Robert Fripp / KC, Bill Brufford, David Bowie, Robert Plant, Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck, Rolling Stones, Al DiMeola, Pink Floyd... but as I think of, the aforementioned "80s thing" were barely present on most of the titles you listed Leon, they´re related to the 60´s and 70´s. great stuff on your list though.

[Leon Alvarado]

All the bands I mentioned maybe more related to the 60's and 70's, however, all the albums I mentioned came out during the 80s. What can I say, that's the stuff I Iike. My wife, who is younger than me likes some of the 80's stuff that played on the radio. I hated it for the most part and associate the 80s with some very bad music that belongs more in a hair salon than in someone's stereo. My wife dissagrees but then again, she goes to the hair salon lots more than I do.

Some of the albums on my list were received with great success (Robert Plant's, Jethro Tull won a Grammy with Crest of a Knave, Psychodelic Furs, David Bowie's Scary Monsters, etc). I know I'm not on the side of popularity regarding music. The eighties were hard on me, I found myself relying on my usual cast of characters for any new music and even though these chaps didn't produced their best efforts during the eighties, they still were a lot better than A Flock of Seagulls and Darryl and Oates or any of the MTV heavy rotation-crap-of-the-day that inundated our ears.

[lamioso]

I agree with some Police albums Sinchronicity,Ghosts in the machine...I still listen to The Unforgetable fire U2 album,Pornography and Desintegration of The Cure,Fisherman's blues-The Waterboys,Clutching At Straws-Marillion,Grace Under Pressure and Signals-Rush,Talking Colours(live record)-Talk Talk,Head Or Tales-Saga,Raised On Radio and Escape-Journey,Bowie's Scary Monsters,and some AOR as well...

[Howie]

Oh my!

I would love to put together a list....There are quite a few good albums from the 80's

Here a few that I can think of off the top of my head. :)

Whitesnake - Whitesnake
Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair
Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason

[Tom Eiselberg]

A difficult time for those of us who'd grown up in flared jeans. Initially I found the switch to drainpipes and then 501s a difficult and unsettling one. I never did manage to approve of the tucking your jumper into your jeans thing and wearing loafers with white socks. However, many of the bands already mentioned helped me get through it. Chiefly Echo and The Bunnymen up to Ocean Rain and Talking Heads. The Smiths I loved for 6 months, then hated for two years, before finally giving in and loving them again around Queen is Dead Time.

You use the keywords "popular albums" David, and I have to admit that most of the ones that I still love now were not ever very "popular" in terms of big chart sales;
Felt's first two albums "Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty" and "Splendour Of Fear",
The Fall's "This Nation's Saving Grace",
The Chameleons - "Script Of The Bridge" & "What Does Anything Mean Basically"
Simple Minds - "Empires And Dance" & "Sons And Fascination/Sister Feelings Call"
U2 - "Boy" & "October"
The Cocteau Twins "Head Over Heels" & "Treasure"
Everything by The Cure, New Order and Dead Can Dance and pretty much anything released on 4AD records at the time.
And not forgetting Julian Cope's "Fried"

[pecovgfx]

you said it well, I remember of listening to Genesis Live and also the "new" U2 - Under a Blood Red Sky in different occasions and moods at the time.

When I first listened to U2´s live album I loved that "new sound", specially The Edge´s guitar.

I think the bands I liked more (mid 80´s) were those of a sub-genre of the "post-punk" scene known as "neo-psychedelic", bands such as Echo & The Bunnymen, The Fall, The Cure, Siouxie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, Julian Cope, Jesus and Mary Chain and a few others... I always liked bands for it´s sonic structures, I didn´t pay too much attention to the lyrics at the time.

From 17-19 years old I bought a lot of records, most of them were progressive rock and related bands. Those bands suddenly happened to be called Rock Dinossaurs... the changes also affected me at some point, the post-punk scene started to make sense for me too.. at that point / age I wanted to be "part of the scenery".. the eighties was more of an attitude and self expression than music itself...

A few bands created music that I still like today. I remember some video clips...
... anyone mentioned that the music of the 80s was deeply affected by the (M)TV ??