Up until this point in musical history, the best rock/pop songs and albums being produced were also in the mainstream and consequently the artists responsible would appear ubiquitously on shows like 'Top of the Pops'. But the mid-80s proved a turning point, and 'Top of the Pops' went the same way that 'Doctor Who' did at that time (in the era of Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy), and that's straight down the shitter. Nonetheless, there were plenty of great albums in the second half of the decade.
10/10 albums from 1984-9
The best LP of the decade comes from Kate Bush. I'm sure I wasn't the only 15 year old in love with her when she released "Hounds of Love" in 1985. My obsession was such that my mum, in an effort to help me find a girlfriend, once claimed that her friend's daughter looked like Kate Bush. She didn't. She was much more like Alison Moyet. No disrespect to Alison Moyet, but she wasn't really competing with Kate Bush for a turn on my turntable or a space on my wall.
'Dawn escapes from moon-washed college halls' was still 3 years off for me when Marillion's Fish sang this favourite lyric of mine on "Misplaced Childhood's" 'Kayleigh' (1985). There is no better album for songs that segue into each other and it's easy to be forgiving of his heart-on-sleeve self-pity, because his use of language is unique: He somehow manages to sound like an English Literature post-grad with a thesaurus fixation without coming across as a right bleeding ponce.
On the subject of lyrical masterpieces with complementary melodic dressing, I'll add to this list of near-perfect albums, The Smiths' 1986 classic, "The Queen is Dead". Another light that never goes out. And I'll throw in REM's "Green" and The Waterboys' "Fisherman's Blues", my soundtracks to the summer of '88 and a first year at university, where I strived to become as equally poetic, tragic and Cinderella-obsessed as Marillion's Fish.
Bob Dylan's mid-to-late 80s period is his most maligned and appeared to have finally signalled the death throes of his career, but he pulled off yet another resurrection, probably the most incredible for ...oh, about, the best part of 2,000 years.... when he allowed Daniel Lanois to soundscape a collection of great songs that became the beautifully atmospheric "Oh Mercy". And as Bob ended the decade having a resurrection, The Stone Roses were born, claiming to actually be the resurrection and sounding like the lovechildren of the 60s and the 90s on their self-titled, lemon and paint-splat adorned debut LP.
9/10 albums from 1984-89
Lanois (alongside Brian Eno) can also take credit for a similar sound on U2's "The Unforgettable Fire" (1984), adding timeless sophistication to the more raw sound of their early LPs. So much so, that you can even forgive Bono's gurning smugness and ridiculous attire of a ten-gallon Teletubby hat, sex worker boots and Kentucky trailer park mullet as he gave himself a hernia singing about Martin Luther King. He refined this look when U2 pulled off pretending to be an American country-blues rock band on "The Joshua Tree" in 1987. I found myself easily able to overlook their affectations while the music was so great - but once they started to wade through a mire of tedious mundanity from the late '90s onwards, those affectations made me want to punch Bono every time he flicked his fingers and caused a child to die of poverty.
Two 9/10 albums of the time really challenged me. Springsteen's "Born in the USA" and Dire Straits's "Brothers in Arms" proved to be my gateway LPs into their older, less 80s sounding-music; and consequently these albums then became, for a long time, disregarded in my mind as weaker, overly commercialised, too-radio-friendly, digital, hyped CD flagships. Recently, they've grown on me again, enormously so, as the songs are all strong on each and the 80's production has dated better than much from that that era.
REM were riding an artistic wave in the late 80s as a run up towards becoming A-listers in the early 90s. The prequels to "Green" were "Life's Rich Pageant" (1986) and "Document" (1987) and together this forms a trilogy of their best and most consistent LPs throughout a long career. Anything else might come close and might include classic songs, but always had a couple of weaker tracks to detract.
Other 9/10 LPs from this era are: Marillion "Fugazi" (1984) and "Clutching at Straws" (1987), Madness "Keep Moving" (1984), Sting "The Dream of the Blue Turtles" (1985), The Smiths "Meat is Murder" (1985) and "Strangeways, Here we Come" (1987), 10,000 Maniacs "In My Tribe" (1987) and "Element of Light" (1986) by Robyn Hitchcock and The Egyptians. A real mix of fashionable and unfashionable and all of which, except the latter, I had procured and started to love by the end of that decade.
The rest, year by year
1984 was marginally weaker and the remaining ranks of my top ten are taken up with 7/10 scoring LPs from Prince, Madonna and even Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Much more typical 80s pop than the choices above.
1985 was - coincidentally, much like 1975 - a mid-decade peak year, helped by many 8/10 albums, from Suzanne Vega, Madness, Richard Thompson and The Pogues.
1986 has a range with some great albums by The Bangles, The Fall, Crowded House and Peter Gabriel, towering above some very average efforts from Queen and Dylan.
1987 was similar in that respect, with the top ten ranks scrapping the barrel a bit, courtesy of a 5/10 from Springsteen and some good but unexciting records by John Mellencamp and Aztec Camera.
1988 proved to be better and full of 7/10 LPs from The Fall, The Pogues, Crowded House, The Travelling Wilburys.
1989 scores even better with Kate Bush, 10,000 Maniacs, Tom Petty and Neil Young.
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