I’ve had an urge to listen to pop/rock of the 80s. So far, I’ve listened to Songs From the Big Chair, Purple Rain, Synchronicity, and Born in the USA.
The key is that the entire album has to be good, not just a one or two hit wonder with a lot of filler.
Are you looking to buy a CD or are you after a Spotify playlist?
Streaming but listening to the entire album.
Compilations are always going to be hit and miss, and your filler is someone else’s killer. For instance do you regard New Order’s Blue Monday as a song you want to listen to in an 80’s pop and rock compilation?
That’s from Rolling Stone’s 1989 magazine.
It may be a good starting place (though I have no memory at all of #9. None. I am not sure I’ve ever heard of those people or the album or any of the songs on it. None. The rest of the top 20 seem like reasonable choices for a “best of” list)
Any list of the ‘80s best albums that doesn’t have The Clash’s Combat Rock at the top of the list is suspect, at best, IMO; it’s the second best rock album of all time.
Maybe it’s just me, maybe I had to be older during Thatcher/Reagan, maybe I’m just an institutionalist, but The Clash have never really done it for me. I did enjoy Rock the Casbah, primarily because it was played all the time on MTV.
Ok, now you’ve done it!
Listen to the whole album…
Guns N Roses–Appetite for Destruction
Def Lepard—Hysteria
George Michael–Faith
Pitchfork published a Top 200 Albums of the '80s list in 2018:
I just don’t get Combat Rock. I’ll take any of the first three Clash albums over it.
I am currently listening to every album on the NME’s The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It includes 3 of the Clash albums. Combat Rock is the lowest ranked at 387.
NIN’s Pretty Hate Machine came out at the very tail end of the '80s (October 1989), but I feel it at least deserves an honorable mention.
You mean Richard & Linda Thompson’s “Shoot Out The Lights”?. That’s a fantastic album and indeed one of best albums of the 80s. It wasn’t a mainstream hit album, that’s why you’ve probably never heard of it, but you should give it a listen.
You could do worse than the list of albums nominated for Album of the Year Grammys, though it’s biased towards albums with a lot of mainstream commerical success (in the U.S.).
Any list that puts Combat Rock near the top probably was made from only watching MTV. It’s not even the best Clash album.
And don’t believe the hype - that “the only band that matters” line is bullshit. Pretentious wankers.
Agreed. I wouldn’t classify “Shoot Out The Lights” as a typical 80’s album, but it is without a doubt one of the best break-up albums around. (Better, IMHO, than Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours”.)
I’d have to agree. Maybe it’s a time thing, but I find them underwhelming. Granted, Rolling Stone has weird favorites, but I don’t know and never have heard what’s so special about The Clash. MAny others do, so objectively there’s gotta be something to it.
Thriller - Michael Jackson
Pyromania - Def Lepard
Back in Black - AC/DC
Permanent Waves - Rush
Moving Pictures - Rush