This is as close to a three-way tie as there could be, between The Pretenders, The Clash, and Gang of Four. Today, I vote the first, but another day, either of the others would be equally likely. Those three are probably in my personal top ten of most played albums.
The Clash: London Calling is the obvious choice IMHO but The River is my favourite Springsteen song.
I like London Calling, but really— nothing can compete with Remain in Light, which I believe may be the best album ever recorded. I felt that way about it when it first appeared in the late summer of 1980, and I still feel that way about it. Really blew my mind and moved the world on my hips. After 34 years, I still can’t believe how awesome “The Great Curve” is. Ecstatic.
Nowadays, nobody could possibly get away with a song like “Listening Wind”—not even Public Enemy or Rage Against the Machine would dream of making such a song. I still marvel how TH even got away with it back then. My, how things have changed. Anybody who made “Listening Wind” nowadays would be put under DHS surveillance and the no-fly list so fast it would make their
(talking)
heads spin, for starters. The world has moved on…
I’m kind of disappointed that Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) didn’t make this list. My favorite Bowie album of all, and that’s really saying something.
I was born in 80. I remember being enthralled with the Remain in Light album cover (we had the record at home, and then the CD), well before I ever listened to it. Once in a Lifetime was, of course, my gateway song into the album (and to Talking Heads generally), but the whole thing is just a stunning work of art. It really opened my mind and broadened my ideas of what music could be.
Out of curiosity, I checked my last “top ten albums of all time” list here on the Dope (from Feb 2013), and it looks like I had London Calling at #4, Pretenders at #6, and Entertainment at #8, so it really does depend on what day you ask me. 
I should have voted for Talking Heads instead MJ; also I agree with the Bowie album .
Speaking of London Calling and violent resistance songs against the Man, I was grocery shopping today and guess what I heard from the store’s Claszak Rock* speakers — “Guns of Brixton.” :eek: Interesting how even today that one flies under the censors’ radar.
*Reference to how the Muzak of old has been replaced by classic rock channels.
Holy Christ, so many great records. I had to go with London Calling, But Peter Gabriel and *Remain in Light *deserve votes too. In fact there’s not a really bad album on this list.
Damn, Dirty Mind beats Beefheart for me this year. Sorry, Don. Lots of great records besides those two, as well.
My “wish it was there to vote for” this year would be The Cramps’ Songs the Lord Taught Us*. It was a revelation to me, and that record has brought me more joy than 90% of my collection.
*The spine of the LP advises “File Under Sacred Music”. Indeed.
Came down to Public Image Ltd, Talking Heads, Pretenders, and Michael Jackson. Surprised myself and went with MJ.
Captain Beefheart was still making important music in 1980? I had no idea. I thought his career paralleled, say, Sly Stone’s – after some great work in the earliest 70s, nothing (but the occasional Zappa collaboration). I guess I was wrong!
Thought about “Seconds of Pleasure,” but had to go with the only band that matters.
He actually got kind of more serious, and complex later in his career. His later albums are more challenging for me to listen to than the early ones, (a lot less Bo Diddley/Howlin’ Wolf influence, for instance) but they’re still rockers.
He gave up the music business when his art dealer told him something to the effect of “you can be a serious painter, or you can be a musician who paints”, and he picked painting.
Captain Beefheart made an ill-advised attempt to “go commercial” in 1974 with the albums Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams, which served only to alienate his old fans without winning any new ones. In desperation, he went cap-in-hand to Frank Zappa, whom he had spent the last few years badmouthing in the press, and got hired for the 1975 tour that produced Bongo Fury–mostly Zappa’s material, but with a couple of spoken word pieces by the Captain. His next album, Bat Chain Puller, was a major return to form, but it became a casualty of Zappa’s legal troubles with his ex-manager and went unreleased. Two years later, a reworked version of the album emerged as Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller), an excellent album that combined the creativity and weirdness of Beefheart’s peak period (Trout Mask Replica) with some of the more accessible moves of his early '70s albums. The album on this list followed–a darker and more challenging listen, definitely one of Beefheart’s best. But he had only one more album in him. Although Ice Cream for Crow was another winner, it consisted largely of leftovers. Beefheart was scrounging for material, and had approached Zappa again in hopes of salvaging unused tracks from the original Bat Chain Puller, but Zappa rebuffed him. Ice Cream for Crow became the last music Beefheart would ever release to the public. (A CD version of the original Bat Chain Puller was released posthumously.)