The 80 Best Albums of the 1980s

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The 1980s might conjure up images of leg warmers, parachute pants, moonwalking, Flock of Seagulls haircuts and any number of John Hughes movies. But looking back at the decade’s best albums, those years were extremely diverse. They saw the last vestiges of a vibrant punk scene and the beginnings of post-punk and New Wave; the rise of hip-hop and an explosion of great college radio; the brief ascension of rootsy singer/songwriters to mainstream country stardom; and the establishment of some almost-universally beloved pop stars. Today we celebrate our favorite albums that arose from the ’80s. There’s a little bit of rap, folk, country, jazz, pop and a lot of rock ’n’ roll in its various incarnations. Here are the 80 best albums of the 1980s.

30. R.E.M. – Murmur (1983)
You know about the mumbling, the muttering, the indie success story, the simultaneous conquest of college radio and Rolling Stone—and subsequently, the world. But maybe you don’t know how punk never quite married Rickenbacker arpeggios until “Radio Free Europe” and “Sitting Still” made it safe for bands like the dB’s. Maybe in retrospect it’s amazing how “Talk About the Passion” and “Perfect Circle” were such power ballads. And maybe you don’t have to understand a word of “Moral Kiosk,” “Catapult” or “We Walk” to hear how every odd harmony, surf lick and overdubbed billiard ball made perfect sense.— Dan Weiss

29. Bruce Springsteen – The River (1980)
Bruce Springsteen’s The River falls right in the middle of one of the greatest decade-long runs by any artist, coming after Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town and just before Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A. While arguments can be made for any of the five albums recorded from 1975-1984, The River remains my favorite given its ambitious and cohesive message. It was a working-class record made in the height of a recession, chronicling the ups and downs of living in harsh economic conditions. The Boss has been both more triumphant and darker in singular moments, but it’s throughout this sprawling double album that he makes his most honest statements. As we find ourselves in the midst another recession, Springsteen’s message throughout The River no longer simply echoes sentiments of a singular experience but has emerged as a timeless sentiment speaking to the American workingman’s struggle.—Max Blau

28. Cowboy Junkies – The Trinity Sessions (1987)
Twenty-four years ago, the Cowboy Junkies and a few friends went into the Church of the Holy Trinity in downtown Toronto and in one cold November night recorded The Trinity Sessions, one of the most seminal and ethereal albums of the “alternative” generation. It was, in many ways, the original D.I.Y. album. As Michael Timmons once described, “The entire costs to record were a hundred buck donation for the church and 22 dollars for couple of pizzas. Oh, I forgot, we also gave five bucks to the janitor for him to go away and be quiet for an extra half hour until we finished the recording, so add that to the tally as well.” How long did it take to record? “Seven hours trying to find the sweet spot for the omni-directional mic and five hours of playing.” Those five hours gave the music world some of the most solemnly hypnotic and beguiling beers-and-tears tunes ever captured on tape, and their iconic cover of Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane” launched the Cowboy Junkies career.—Jay Sweet

27. Peter Gabriel – So (1986)
Few 1980s artists managed to successfully balance art-rock indulgence and unmistakable pop appeal. Even fewer were able to do so on a single album. So, Peter Gabriel’s 1986 masterstroke, made it look easy. Besides including some of the most perfectly written songs of the decade (the gushingly romantic, African-chant-filled “In Your Eyes,” the bass-propelled Kate Bush duet “Don’t Give Up,” the downright funky “Sledgehammer”), So endures because of that difficult marriage of the strange and the sublime, the complex and the catchy, the ethereal and the immediate.—Ryan Reed

26. Prince – Sign o’ the Times (1987)
After the relative commercial disappointment of Parade (and the outright embarrassment of its accompanying film, Under the Cherry Moon), Prince lost a bit of the creative carte blanche he’d earned at Warner Bros. with Purple Rain and Around the World in a Day. Of course, Prince being Prince, all this really meant was that Sign o’ the Times ended up being a sprawling, robustly eclectic double-disc package instead of the whopping triple album he’d originally planned. Hats off to label interference, at least in this case: While it obviously isn’t Prince’s leanest record, Times boasts 16 prime cuts of his ☮ness at his sharpest and most adventurous, from the playful “Starfish and Coffee” to the churnin’ urn of burnin’ Minneapolis funk that is “Housequake.”—Jeff Giles

25. Elvis Costello – Trust (1981)
It wasn’t quite a massive success like This Year’s Model or My Aim is True, but Trust is Elvis Costello at his most biting and cynical, rattling off social commentary like “the teacher never told you anything but white lies” on “New Lace Sleeves” and demonstrating his trademarked wit with lines like “the long arm of the law slides up the outskirts of town” on “Clubland.” Sonically, it’s all over the place in a good way, as Costello makes his first real attempts to hop from genre to genre, something that would come to be expected from him later in his career.—Bonnie Stiernberg

24. Richard & Linda Thompson – Shoot Out the Lights (1982)
If the best folk-rock music marries the patience and lessons of the past to the technologies and crises of the present, this is one of the greatest folk-rock albums of all time. Written, recorded and toured as the marriage between the two singers was crumbling, the album seems to teeter on the edge of reconciliation and rupture. In songs like “Walking on a Wire,” “Just the Motion” and “Don’t Renege on Our Love,” relationships are a tightrope high above the crowd, a small boat amid big waves and a faltering promise. On the title track, Richard seems ready to aim his rifle at the overhead lamps rather than confront the problems, but on the majestic “Wall of Death,” he’s willing to climb aboard the most dangerous ride at the carnival if that’s what it takes to stay alive. Richard has always written lovely melodies, but it’s seldom as obvious as it is here when Linda’s gorgeous voice handles the three ballads.—Geoffrey Himes

23. Guns N’ Roses – Appetite For Destruction (1987)
Guns N’ Roses embodied that coveted spot between the words “hair” (they certainly had that) and “metal” (they rocked) that comprise the now-infamous ’80s genre. Their debut album, Appetite for Destruction, succeeded because Axl, Slash, Izzy, Duff and Steven played as furiously as they chugged Jack Daniels and scarfed drugs, placing anthems like “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine” between songs like the law-evading “Out Ta Get Me” and heroin-addled “Mr. Brownstone.” But Appetite For Destruction remained rootsy even in its heaviness, giving the album an air of musical authenticity unmatched by the band’s contemporaries.—Hilary Saunders

22. The Police – Synchronicity (1983)
Most of us who love rhythm and propulsion and striking musical ideas moved on from Sting after his communion with Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland imploded, which makes it easy to forget that Synchronicity was a hell of a way to go. Their disparate sonics coalesced like few other ensembles in 1983, short of non-Western masters like King Sunny Adé’s African Beats, who wasn’t lost on them—“Walking in Your Footsteps” reins in Nigerian polyrhythms just after the opener reestablishes their New Wave bona fides. And just when you can’t take another experiment like Summers’ Freudian horror-laughfest “Mother” or the jazz-a-nova “Miss Gradenko,” they intuitively snap back into 1983’s best pop that wasn’t made by a Jackson: “Synchronicity II,” “Every Breath You Take” and the astronomically delicate “King of Pain.” All one after another.—Dan Weiss

21. New Order – Power, Corruption & Lies (1983)
When Joy Division fell apart with the death of Ian Curtis, the remaining members formed the band New Order and with their second album Power, Corruption and Lies, created a synth-pop album that evolved beyond Joy Division while still being heavily influenced by that band’s trademark sound. Immediately Peter Hook’s bass on album opener “Age of Consent” sounds like JD’s “Transmission,” yet it hides its melancholy deeper down, under the sound of keyboards and bouncy guitars. Power, Corruption and Lies is filled with themes of loneliness, anger and loves lost; it’s easy to see how New Order has influenced everyone from The Smiths to M83. Curtis would have been proud.— Ross Bonaime