I’d have to say Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This: The Album by the Eurythmics. This is a more complex album than any I have seen listed in this thread. On SDAMOT, the ennui of the 80’s and the malaise that I saw in people is well distilled. I think it is more of a touchstone to that era than any other album.
Yes, I believe Bruce intended to show that conflict.
I heard him compared to a craftsman, once, and I agree. He builds solid, well constructed melodies, and puts mildly thought-provoking lyrics to them. He’s not Dylan, but he is solidly in Dylan’s shadow.
Bruce is a Jersey boy, at heart, and he sings about what he knows, about the closed factories, about getting drunk and picking up women in the City
(New York… Of course, there is no other The City.)
and racing cars around, because life’s pretty hard, after the way his parents tell it was. Working on the road crews, in the hundred degree heat and ten degree cold. Whooping it up on the weekend.
Who was it that sang Allentown (Where they closed the factories down)? Same rough genre of lyrics. Someone I normally hate… I believe Elton John?
So, you take half a school fight song, half a Chuck Berry lick, roll it around depression and misery, and you’ve got Bruce.
Spin it another way, and you’ve got Country (But not Western). Which is another reason I think Bruce was such a hit, and says so much about the 80s. On the surface, they look nice. But while you were living them…
Remember the bomb? The Japanese threat? The drug cartels? STDs?
It’s not that most of these things aren’t there, but we’ve survived the 50’s horrors, now, and the new ones that hit on top of them, we’ve learned to live with. And some weren’t really horrors at all, but challenges.
I still can’t believe how much this country has changed since then, thinking back. I remember the Wall coming down, I remember my first trip onto the net (as it were) accessing Prodigy and newsgroups to check on the progress of the Gulf War, being terribly afraid we were going to have our tail handed to us.
(That was before the Great Renaming, wasn’t it?)
Things have changed since Ronnie entered office.
Maybe we should elect someone who believes in Relevation as something that’ll literally happen again.
…
Noooo.
Still, as far as music and the 80s go, I say Bruce, for defining it. AND for being heard by people. I’m fairly hip to that music scene, man, and I didn’t pick 'em up till Shake, Rattle, and Hum.
Close, Billy Joel.
[Moderator Hat ON]
Moving to IMHO.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
Isn’t anybody going to mention Duran Duran?
Absolutely true. I agree with every word E-Sabbath says…well, at least the first part, until he started wandering off. 
I’ll admit I’m biased; I’m from the Jersey shore, where it’s more or less required to love Bruce. What other state would have Born to Run as an official state song? (“This town’s a death trap/ a suicide rap/ we gotta get while we’re young”)
Anyway, Oblong, what I was going to say was that you need to pick up a live album of Bruce on the solo acoustic tour he did in 95-96 supporting the Ghost of Tom Joad album. He talks a little bit about the song and how it was misinterpreted, and then launches into a dark, dark, dark version of that song that shows what it was really all about. It is one of the most intimidating tracks I’ve ever heard.
RIO
Depeche Mode- Music for the Masses/Black Celebration
Front 242- Front by Front/ Official Version
Skinny Puppy- VIVIsectVI
New Order- Substance
The '80s?
LET IT BE, by the Replacements.
– Ukulele “I Hate Your Answering Machine” Ike
Dennison:
I know just how you feel, honest. How do you think I felt when I found out that pompous dickhead David B was a Genesis fan???
It really sucks when your enemies have even a single redeeming point, doesn't it?
Don't worry, we'll be back to loathing each other within 48 hours.
Love,
AstorianR.E.M. - Murmur
…and thus was born the alternative music revolution…
(Taking time off from watching the Retro Boogathon on TV to do a little surfing)…
Second the vote for Rio by Duran Duran (in case you missed the 80’s, these guys were THE group for many years). They were also (arguably) the first band to take real advantage of the newly-created media of music videos. IMHO, Duran Duran helped define the music, the look, and the style.
Also, I can’t let this thread end without a mention of Prince’s Purple Rain. He may not have defined the decade, but he was mucho influential in so many ways.
Sgt. Peppers? The Wall??? pfffft…
1960’s:
-The Count 5: “Psychotic Reaction”
-The Sonics: “BOOM!”
-The Velvet Underground & Nico
1970’s:
-Iggy & the Stooges: “Raw Power”
-David Bowie: “R&FOZS”
-The Ramones: s/t
-Kraftwerk: “Autobahn”
1980’s:
-Guns n’ Roses: “Appetite for Destruction”
-Zodiac Mindwarp & the Love Reaction: “Tattoed Beat Messiah”
-Cosmic Psychos: “Down on the Farm”
-Anything by Afrika Bambaataa
Yes, it seems so obvious. And yet, no one has mentioned it yet:
Husker Du- Zen Arcade
By the mid-Eighties, punk rock had evolved. The genre (really several genres) had broadened. Everything from Bauhaus to Minor Threat could claim The Sex Pistols as a musical ancestor.
Here in the US, the West Coast music scenes dominated everything. Sure there were other regions (midwest, D.C., Austin,…), but LA and SF bands set the standard (ok, Husker Du was from Minneapolis, but their label, SST Records, was based on the West Coast.)
In California, the dominant bands (again arguably) were Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys. But while a lot of kids liked the DKs, they didn’t really generate any …empathy? Greg Ginn (Black Flag), on the other hand, started a label called SST that ended up becoming the biggest indie label in punk. I’m sure they had their marketing and business fundamentals down, but SST never seemed to lose sight of the fact that they were making records for thousands of friends (as it seemed at the time.) They also had a solid lineup: Black Flag; Meat Puppets; Minutemen and Husker Du*.
These four bands were equally successful (more or less) and all four influenced alternative music for years. I pick Husker Du mainly because they had the most mainstream (for alt music) music style; their music had more in common with other acts than the Meat Puppets’ acid/country/Hendrix stuff or the Minutemen’s Cliff Notes style covers. A lot of the Sub-Pop/grunge stuff that showed up in the early Nineties has a lot of Husker Du influence. Don’t tell me that Kurt Cobain never heard the band.
Black Flag probably influenced the later metal/speedcore acts, but this style seemed to always be a niche market.
Beyond all that, you have to appreciate anyone who puts out a ‘punk rock’ double-record concept album
Besides, Zen Arcade (and the Meat Puppets Up on the Sun were collectively the soundtrack to my salad days, so there!
*[sub]St. Vitus was also on the label, but didn’t seem very popular.[/sub]
I think Paul Simon was a bit ahead of his time…it was during the 80’s, but he wrote the song that defines the 90’s more than any other, IMO…
“These are the days of miracle and wonder,
This is a long distance call,
Staccato signals of constant information,
A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires”
I mean, in one verse, the guy presages the wireless revolution, cell phones as commonplace items, the Internet revolution, and the Internet stock market bubble, 10 years ahead of time.
Albums of the 80’s? Foreigner 4, maybe?
Celebration by Kool & the Gang? (Don’t know if that’s the name of the album or not.)
Graceland I think was the BEST album of the 80’s, if not the one that defined it more than any other.
Like a Virgin?
Van Halen's 1984!
Quiet Riot's "Metal Health" was ok, but for Heavy Metal stuff, I'd have to say 1984, or the first Ozzy Osbourne solo album with Randy Rhoads on guitar.
That or Yngwie Malmsteen's first Solo album, "Rising Force..." a great album which ruined a generation of guitar players.
Well, “Graceland” ruined a generation of Bass Players, too.
The Genesis song “The World We Live In” with all those puppets in the video.
Peter Schilling’s “Coming Home”
Hmmm…Tears for Fears, “Songs from the Big Chair”
But all of them fall short of being definitive of an era.
Here, I have it…the song that summed up the 80’s, and I still get a joyous thrill everytime I hear it:
“Right Here, Right Now,” by Jesus Jones.
panzermanpanzerman, I hate to rain on your nostalgia parade, but Right Here, Right Now came out in 1991 IIRC.
I’ll throw out some of the albums that define MY 1980s:
[ul]
[li]Pixies – Surfer Rosa/Come on Pilgram Probably the most important CD I ever heard (yes, I know it is 2 EPs, but my friend had it collected as an import album.) I’ll never forget that day in 10 grade when I got home from school and put this CD in. Wow. ::insert cheesy, overly-dramatic footage of a fond memory here::[/li][li]Pixies – Doolittle[/li][li]**Fugazi – 13 songs **[/li][li]Husker Du – Zen Arcade[/li][li]Run DMC – Raising Hell[/li][li]Minutemen – Double Nickels on the Dime[/li][li]The Clash – London Calling[/li][li]**Duran Duran – Rio **(Yes, they were pretty boys, and yes, they milked MTV - becasue of this, many people overlook the fact that could actually play.)[/li][li]**Whodini – Escape ** (this album may not stand the test of time as well as some of the Run DMC albums do, but for my 12 year old-pretty fly for a white guy-ass, it did wonders in 1984.)[/li][/ul]
astorian, that’s two redeeming qualities. You liked Almost Famous, too. If you’re going to continue to have good taste, we can’t let you vote Republican anymore.
More to the point of the topic, are we looking for the album of the 80s, or the album that defined the 80s? If the former, then take your pick; it’s all a matter of taste. Depends on who you ask and when you ask them. Most people have listed albums on my favorites of the decade. Did anyone mention Purple Rain yet?
If it’s the latter, I’d say that up until 1987 or so (The Madonna Era), the 80s were defined by an album that came out in 1977: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols!. It changed everything, and set the stage for everything that came after.
Rush…Moving Pictures
To get things started, I’d say The Buggles’ The Age of Plastic. It was the perfect harbinger of things to come (as far as the United States was concerned. Things were already well underway in Britain for several years.)
Thriller sure did embody the spirit of the early eighties, while Thomas Dolby’s The Golden Age of Wireless captured a more sublime sense of the feeling of the era, I feel.
Jefferson Starship’s Nuclear Furniture was there to make sure we all knew that the sixties were definitely, definitely over.
The spirit of the second half of the age, I’ve always felt, was captured in R.E.M.‘s Reckoning and Hüsker Dü’s Flip Your Wig. We got the clarion call that the eighties were ending spiritually by They Might Be Giants’ Lincoln, which is a very remarkable work in and of itself.
There really isn’t any one album that sums up the spirit of the eighties as a whole, probably since there’s no one issue that sums up those times as a whole. The sixties had a united mass of people effecting change, but by the eighties we were all pretty tired of change, since those old hippies went to work for Young & Rubicam, all fired up to turn revolution into ad copy so we could feel like rebels every time we bought a new pair of sneakers.
The eighties albums I feel ought to be noted are Freedom of Choice and Oh, No! It’s Devo! by Devo, and The Ship that Arrived too Late to Save the Drowning Witch, by Frank Zappa. These albums are indicative not of a point in time but of genuine artists, and of people who were capable of expressing themselves and who did. These are timeless, and are deserving of esteem no matter what era we’re in. Whether they’ll be as esteemed as Mozart or Gershwin or even Miles Davis in years to come remains to be seen, but those albums (and those artists) will never go out of style—if you could indeed say they ever were in style to begin with.
Buckner and Garcia – Pac-Man Fever 
(And I’m only *half-*kidding…)