every source I’ve checked says the 1980s started on 1/1/1980 and greatest hits albums are albums.

Check Wikipedia in about 5 minutes and you’ll see that it completely agrees with me.

Dude, the 80’s is anything that starts with an 8.

Wikipedia can kiss your ass until Sunday but that won’t change nothing.

The The fans might want to think about Infected above Soul Mining.

Especially in light of the very 80’s ‘video album’ vibe.

Infect me with your love.

Steve McQueen by Prefab Sprout.

1980s
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“’80s” and “The 80s” redirect here. For AD 80–89, see 80s.
From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifts off in 1981; US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ease tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 is considered to be one of the most momentous events of the 1980s; In 1981, the IBM Personal Computer is released; In 1985, the Live Aid concert is held in order to fund relief efforts for the famine in Ethiopia during the time Mengistu Haile Mariam ruled the country; Pollution and ecological problems persisted when the Soviet Union and much of the world is filled with radioactive debris from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and in 1984, when thousands of people perished in Bhopal during a gas leak from a pesticide plant ; The Iran–Iraq War leads to over one million dead and $1 trillion spent, while another war between the Soviets and Afghans leaves over 2 million dead.
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vte

The 1980s (pronounced “nineteen-eighties”, shortened to “the 80s” or “the Eighties”) was a decade that began January 1, 1980 and ended December 31, 1989.

Way too many to choose a definitive greatest.

And this still sound great now, despite being extremely odd in places

I can’t believe it got to 3 pages before someone (thank you Binners) mentioned OMD Architecture & Morality. Some of the most evocative, haunting melodies in one place. And yes, it still sounds great.

Special mention for me is the single Same Old Scene by Roxy Music, which seemed to sum up the feel of the decade before it had even really began.

Dear Christ, I can’t even pick the greatest Iron Maiden album of the 1980s, and that’s just one group in one genre.

I love so many of the albums mentioned. In the 80s, i hadn’t even heard of many of the bands and wouldn’t have listened to them anyway because they didn’t fit with what I considered to be great music. As I’ve grown older my musical tastes have also grown and now my love of Reign In Blood sits happily alongside my love of other albums such as Brothers In Arms, Elizium, Thriller

Never really “got” the Stone Roses though 😜

the nephilim,
thunder and consolation,
first last and always,
love
scum

still some of my all time faves, cant choose between them (all depnds on mood)

Bob Marley – Confrontation. Great songs, political content, just a masterpiece

Absolutely agree with OP nothing has ever surpassed that album

I know I’ve had a go already, but my suggestion was released in 1980, so not sure if it counts now 🙂. So, another one would be The Trinity Session – Cowboy Junkies (1988).

Faith no More – The Real Thing

Some bedsit classics here…

Stone Roses is what popped in my head when I saw this thread, I must admit. Soul Mining was a far bigger deal for me. I was younger basically, living in a flats in Sheffield, and the bleakness and industrial sound kind of fit. But for “greatest album”, Stone Roses you heard everywhere, and unlike The The it was everyone’s music, part of a collective moment, and there aren’t many albums you can say that about.

Not that I’ve listened to either for years/decades.

How about: Substance, New Order? (Compilation albums are albums). Or Paul’s Boutique? Both still sound fantastic.

(The “collective moment” one from the 90s would be oasis’s 2nd album, really not my thing but undeniable at the time. Walking into random London pubs and everyone is singing along to the jukebox. Could that even happen now? Welsh footy songs aside…)

So, another one would be The Trinity Session – Cowboy Junkies (1988).

I adore this record, lost my copy years ago so my wife bought me a mint original last Christmas. It’s an absolute haunting and beautiful masterpiece.

Dare.

Well you can. That’s a list of most popular, not the greatest. I got into the 700s before I found a “great” one. Of course that’s just my opinion, but that’s the point

The Trinity Session – Cowboy Junkies (1988).

Exactly the album I was alluding to regrading my earlier comment.

Not cool and I will be alone in this but my favourite (I’d concede no one will consider it ‘the best’) was Poison’s open up and say ahh!

For a teenage boy living in Essex this band opened my eyes to a world  of debauchery I could only dream of and this album was the soundtrack to those fantasies (along with about every other hair metal release at the time!)

Tears for Fears – Songs from the Big Chair
David Sylvian – Brilliant Trees
The Smiths – Strangeways here we come

Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to hold us back.

This thread should be ” your favourite album” as there are many recommended that are not great at all. Music is too tied up with the associations we have with it for any of us to give an objective view

Objectively “Thriller”must be up there but I personally cannot stand it

This thread should be ” your favourite album”

No, it really shouldn’t. The question was about a particular epoch and indeed you’re suggestion for ‘an’ album from that time you consider the greatest.

Your overthinking this.

No, I agree. There are albums I objectively consider as great but for whatever reason, I don’t like.

And others that will make MY top five or ten but objectively are not, because what makes something a favourite is far more than the quality of the songs and technical recording, etc. The time you heard it, the memories, maybe who you heard it with, and so on.

George Best is my favourite album of all time without doubt. Objectively it not even in the Wedding Present’s top 3

Merak – how can ( for example) anything from the the Smiths be considered great albums? Objectively its depressing teenage poetry coupled to exactly the same jingly jangly guitar every song. Good pop music perhaps but greatest album of the era? or some of the derivative rock music suggested?

Heres another suggestion for you:
Blackbeard – I Wah Dub
Using the effects possible from multitrack recording he pushed on from where Lee “Scratch” Perry had taken music and moved it onto another level

well, seeing as it was voted the top album by NME journalists past and present, I’m going to go with their opinion rather than that of a retired geriatric nurse.

The Smiths’ ‘The Queen Is Dead’ tops NME’s list of 500 greatest albums of all time

Do I think it’s the greatest album of all time….. maybe not but there is NO DOUBT among people in the know, it is a great album.

Objectively its depressing teenage poetry coupled to exactly the same jingly jangly guitar every song.

That’s subjective, isn’t it?

[ “Strangeways, Here We Come” is a better album anyway (in my entirely unprofessional opinion). ]

Oi – Im not a geriatric yet!

This thread should be ” your favourite album”

This is always the case when you ask a question based on taste. Yes it’s possible to couch the question objectively (as Gerald the gorilla said “the production on that album…) but generally we will answer subjectively and we all have different tastes.

Im not a geriatric yet!

dismissing Johnny Marr (and Andy Rourke’s amazing bass lines) as ‘the same jingly guitar every song’ makes me think you’ve descended into senility 😉

Its my view. I find it tedious navel gazing and nowt special musically. Its decent pop music for depressed white boys in bedsits – ie the NME audience 🙂

Looking thru that NME list shows a very narrow taste.

Edit: No reggae, no afrobeat, no highlife, very little soul, etc etc

Have you thought of a future as a music journalist Uncle Jezza?

Describing the utter genius of Johnny Marr, one of the greatest ever guitarists, as ‘exactly the same jingly jangly guitar every song’ is certainly an interesting take. 😂

Compared to Clapton? Prince? Hendrix? Robbie shakespeare ( Ok he was a bassist)

Look at Sly and Robbies output and the influence they had on world music!

Or the influence of Fela Kuti?

this is a very narrow view of music expressed here and in the NME

its all about music for depressed teenage white boys

Smiths were decent pop music yes but the influence they had on the world was tiny. Big fish in a small pond

Biggest Smiths fan I knew at University was an asian girl, FWIW. Getting to be a bit racist there TJ, in your determination to always be right.

Dear Christ, I can’t even pick the greatest Iron Maiden album of the 1980s, and that’s just one group in one genre.

Hell yeah.. I couldn’t think of albums that meant more to me than Iron Maiden’s for most of the 80s. I was 10 in the mid-80s so most music seemed a bit weird to me, or just pop. Maiden though, that meant something. And Metallica and AC/DC.

Stone Roses 1st album for me though. Heard that as a teenage metalhead and something happened. House music had grabbed my attention and softened me up ready for it, then everything changed between 89 and 91. If various DJ mix tapes from that era could be classed as albums I think they would have pipped the Stone Roses. Not artistically, but in terms of impact on life at the time. But that was early 90s not the 80s.

Most of the people on here probably were teenage white boys in the 1980s.

Have you been smoking crack again Uncle Jezza?

probably but to dismiss one of the most important bands of the history of modern music as being only for depressed white teenage boys is mildly offensive, as i say bordering on racism in the definition of “antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group”

the influence they had on the world was tiny

Utter bollocks.

From the first post.

I understand your opinion may not be the same as mine.

But no, let’s **** argue.

Its not determination to be always right. I’m partly taking the piss and partly trying to say that there is a huge spectrum of music not represented in these lists. That link took me to a list of the current ( at that time) NME staffers lists of best albums. 100 odd albums. All UK or US and only a couple of non white artists represented

How many of you have even heard Fela Kuti for example? A hugely influential artist.

All depends on how you define greatest for sure but one aspect of it for me is that it should be game changing and worldwide.

I did put some emojiis in and maybe should have put more in 🙂 Apologies to those who took what is intended to be a lighthearted post as serious

All depends on how you define greatest for sure but one aspect of it for me is that it should be game changing and worldwide

You’re aware that the Smiths are revered as something approaching deity all over South America?

I’m not sure that particular audience fits into to your ‘depressed white teenagers in bedsits’ demographic

Looking thru that NME list shows a very narrow taste.

Edit: No reggae, no afrobeat, no highlife, very little soul, etc etc

That’s like criticising a top 100 list created by Kerrang for having no country and western in it!

NME was targeted at a certain market and their views reflect that market.