The 80 Greatest Albums of 1980

That McCartney album was awful. I was a fan until then. Actually, it was downhill from then on for Paul.

In fact, his demise had already begun three years earlier.

This one is easy, The Clash's London Calling.

A close second is Bruce Springsteen's The River.

Whatever LP The Police had out at the time. They were amazing live.

During the course of their short career, I saw them about 50 times live! From the dive clubs to Shea Stadium. Then, several times on their re-union tour. They never disappointed.

My favorite was Jackson Browne's Hold Out.

Never for Ever by Kate Bush

One of the best - AutoAmerican by Blondie

Glad to see that X's "Los Angeles" made the Top 10. It's the first album I thought of.

Rolling Stone doesn’t even include AutoAmerican. They never “got” Blondie.

[quote]They never “got” Blondie.

You can admit to not liking them, even if you're gay. I don't like them either.

Flesh + Blood but not Avalon? HUH?

^ Okay, I can't read. Of 1980. Not of the 1980s. Forgive me!!!

Get Happy! by Elvis Costello. 20 amazing songs that still hold up 40 years later.

Ugh what a pain waiting for the list to appear after following the link. Damned close to clickbait.

GTFO r1, I LOVE Coming Up! :)

Whatever, people will always shit on his solo career, it’s bullshit.

I'm happy Prince's Dirty Mind is #3 on the list....great album!

[quote]GTFO [R1], I LOVE Coming Up! :) Whatever, people will always shit on his solo career, it’s bullshit.

Don't go chasing waterfalls, Mary...That's a single, not an album and very lightweight. I'm a huge fan of his post-Beatles stuff until circa '76 - then the shit hit the fan with this muck.

How about Roxy Music's Flesh and Blood? Maybe not Roxy's finest, but you do get Bryan Ferry at his crooniest.

Errps, just saw Flesh+Blood is there at #57.

Nevahmind.

[quote]How about Roxy Music's Flesh and Blood?

I HATED that. All my friends had it.

1978 was a better year

Is the Fame album on there? That I liked.

Not a bad year. But I think 1991 beats it out for sure.

Do i have to wait till2022 for MY year? 1980 was too early for me. I was in a transitioning period.

I vote for 1967.

And 1968 wouldn't be a bad second-place contender.

I hated this. My first BF had it. What a creep he turned out to be.

There was only one reason why this was a hit. Before he was shot it was a big fail in the charts.

1980 and Stevie's star was losing its shine. A few reasonable songs, that is all.

[quote]I vote for 1967. And 1968 wouldn't be a bad second-place contender.

1966 gets my vote. Those two come second and third.

1980 was nothing in comparison to that era.

I'm of two minds about Blondie's Autoamerican.

It contained Rapture, which was obviously a huge watershed for the '80s. But the other big hit, The Tide Is High, was a cover, and it could be argued a cheesy one.

And I would not make anyone listen to 75% of the other tracks. I'm a big fan and a completist, but I have never wanted to crank "Faces," "Here's Looking at You" or "Walk Like Me" out of context.

Two big tracks, but as an album, it's a fail.

That said, Giorgio Moroder's soundtrack for American Gigolo should have made it in, I think.

R29 I strongly disagree. Yeah, it has two of their number one hits, Rapture and the Tide is High. For me, the best songs are T-Birds, my absolute favorite of theirs and some other good songs like Angels on a Balcony, Go Through It and Here’s Looking at You. I also love the cover, Follow Me. I Also really like the brooding instrumental opening track, Europa. Blondie weren’t afraid to take risks and while not all of them worked, they were always interesting.

[quote]But the other big hit, The Tide Is High, was a cover, and it could be argued a cheesy one.

Not cheesy to me. It played in the opening scenes of Longtime Companion, thereby replacing "That's What Friends Are For" as theme song for the AIDS era.

Squeeze - Argybargy. Should have ranked higher.

R32 I liked that album but Squeeze always had the WORST album art. It was like they were competing with Oingo Boingo (same label, I think?) for the ugliest covers. Though OB’s were just plain offensive to the eye, and Squeeze’s were more generic ugly.

It doesn’t matter so much now, but back in the day of vinyl a great cover made an album even more appealing.

Blondie always has fantastic covers (minus The Hunter, with Deborah’s dated frightwig and Panic of Girls). Loved their first album cover, No Exit and Ghosts of Download.

Oh, and Blondie’s Plastic Letters is one of my favorite covers ever. Wish I could find a poster of it.

Funny, just yesterday I saw a frame for sale in which you can put a 12" vinyl album cover - I've seen these things in cafes and stuff, but I'd never seen the frames for sale. Actually, I saw it in a supermarket.

I wouldn't have thought Adam and the Ants were Important Enough for Rolling Stone. That's a really fun album though.

I hate the title track but I think Donna Summer's The Wanderer is a strong album. She had just turned to Jesus but the music was still good. "Grand Illusion" is amazing.

So glad to see that our Miss Ross made the top ten on this list! I had the Diana album. I'll drink a toast with her just as soon as I'm finished in the bathroom.

I'd take "Dolly, Dolly, Dolly" over "9 to 5 and Odd Jobs," but I don't think either are great as albums. Moroder deserves mention for both American Gigolo and Foxes.

The original title of Call Me was Man Machine! That has some possibilities....

It's an awful list probably written by someone who wasn't there.

FAME should be there, very good and important record that year.

R41/r39 so basically every good soundtrack except for Xanadu was left off! Losers!

My pre-teen self didn't even buy a single album that year except for Disco Mickey Mouse.

Christopher Cross was another major album that year not on the list. This is just from memory.

Ross deserves to be listed. That album was a smash hit. I remember it and I was not yet 10! It's what gave her the cache to command what was then the highest paying recording contract the industry had ever seen to that point.

Too much mainstream pop, not enough underground music. Best of 80s list without Sonic Youth, REM, Pixies or Husker Du?

1980, not 80s, R46.

Pretenders and Pretenders ll are two of my all time favorite albums.

Crisp, original and totally hold up.

My friends loved Debbie but I loved Chrissie. & Joan.

[quote]Christopher Cross was another major album that year not on the list.

Good.

I agree that "McCartney II" was awful. He's one of those artists who has undergone a so-called "critical re-evaluation" in his later years, and now it's considered cool to praise even his shittiest garbage. He did get a lot of grief from critics at times, but they got it right initially on this one. This album is basically a couple of good songs, and then him noodling around with synths on a lot of half-baked ideas, yet people now say it was light years ahead of it's time, a masterpiece, groundbreaking electronica, whatever. Fuck that. The man is a musical genius, but he phoned this one in big time. It's barely a real album, he should have charged half price for it, or given it away for free.

"Dirty Mind" by Prince was one of two albums I ever bought as a teenager based solely on the reviews, without ever hearing a note of the music beforehand (the other was the Sex Pistols album). I was not disappointed. Great album. I bought everything of his after that, up until the mid-90's.

I really liked "The Wanderer" album by Donna Summer at the time. The songs themselves are really good, not a bad cut to be found except maybe that "Jesus" shit at the end...but it still felt like a step down for her. Maybe just because she'd released all these sprawling double albums and this was a single album, but it felt like a lesser work overall for her.

People can laugh at Christopher Cross but his first album is really good.

I think because it was released in December 1979 is why it didn't show up.

I really, really like Cross' composition of this piece accompanied by pics of beautiful flowers - watch/listen to it, damnit! What do you think, Ann BB?

R50 I’ve only read one article reassessing McCartney 2 and it’s enough to make me go back and listen. I only recall the three singles.

[quote] 21. [/bold] The B-52’s, 'Wild Planet' [/bold]

[quote] Cindy Wilson, Kate Pierson, Fred Schneider, and Ricky Wilson — with their mix of beehives and bouffants, quirky vocals and visual idiosyncrasies — were always operating somewhere out of time.

No mention of Keith Strickland (drummer and later guitarist of the band) for some reason.

McCartney 2 was praised by John Lennon as a return to form, but I think the praise was mainly for the hit single, Coming Up, rather than the album as a whole. I think it's better than many critics say, but it's still a mixed bag.

I usually hate these kinds of lists, or attempts to bracket together a theme, but this is actually a decent one.

And I realized I have 28 of these on vinyl.

"I'm too precious, I had to FUCK OFF!"

Sing it Chrissie!

That first Pretenders album had some seriously explicit or suggestive lyrics....lame now but then.....whew.

"His face went berserk and the veins bulged on his....(pause)......brow"

and of course

"I shot my mouth off and you showed me what that hole was for, yeah"

Rolling Stone named The Clash's "London Calling" as the best album of the 1980s.

Personally, I think The Clash were just ok, not great.

The biggest album of my fucking career that came out in 1980 and outsold almost all of those cunts wasn’t on that list????!!!!!

EAT SHIT ROLLING STONE!!!!

I'm not a huge Barbra fan, but Guilty was a solid album. That pop/rock period of Barbra's career has the only songs of hers I've ever liked.

Where's Linda Ronstadt's Mad Love?

I really liked Linda Ronstadt's "Mad Love", but at the time, similar to Billy Joel's "Glass Houses", it was seen by critics at the time as a rather lame attempt by a mainstream artist at a very watered-down, radio-friendly version of "punk". She was finally breaking out of the creative rut she'd been in, with every album following the same basic formula, but it only worked in places. And it didn't help that the critic's darling of the moment, Elvis Costello publicly trashed her for singing his songs. Maybe her voice, as awesome as it was, just wasn't suited to some of the material. I still like it a lot though.

In the bargain racks where it belongs

R63 Mad Love is one of the few albums in my parents' record collection that I haven't yet dusted off and played. I'm intrigued now.

That "Mad Love" album cover is fabulous.

Ones I had on this list (still have as MP3's)

Iron Maiden

Motorhead Ace of Spades

AC/DC Back in Black

Judas Priest British Steel I acquired later

And damn, that page loads slowly

A good friend of mine had Mad Love. I recall borrowing the album, playing it twice, and returning it, deciding it was nothing I needed to own.