The Top Five Albums of the 80's
The 80’s almost killed rock music. Similar to what happened with jazz two decades earlier, the youth turned their back on electric guitars and long hair, becoming fascinated with the synth sound and futuristic fashion. What was left of the rock industry concentrated on the sleazy, cheap glam metal music of the time. Bands like Poison, Motley Crue, and Kiss were ruining the image of rock musicians with their horrible appearance and terrible songs. On the other hand, artists like Toto and Phil Collins, who were more resilient to the “Big hair” style, managed to make rock music so boring that may have done even worse for the genre than those strange men in tights. However, there were some who resisted and saved the potency and beauty of rock music. Here is my choice of the top five albums of the decade:
1. Talking Heads - Remain in Light (1980) 
Talking Heads are one of the most creative, innovative and acclaimed bands of the eighties. I put them on the list because of their overall contribution to music, and I find it very hard to pick an album which will represent their finest work. I chose “Remain in Light” because of the novelties they promoted, with the help from producer Brian Eno, who introduced the band to the music of Fela Kuti and Afrobeat in general. Talking Heads started exploring West African polyrhythms, weaving these together with Arabic music from North Africa, disco funk, and "found" voices, and managed to assemble a unique piece of eclectic music, still based on guitar sound and basic rock beats.
2. The Police - Synchronicity (1983)
The same thing can be said about Police - any of their five studio albums can easily be put on this list. I had a hard time choosing between their first LP “Outlandos d'Amour” which contains the songs “Roxanne,” “Can’t Stand Losing You,” and “So Lonely” or their final studio release “Synchronicity” which became the band’s major success. I decided to go with the later because it was their biggest commercial success, climbing to No.1 in both the UK and U.S., selling over 8 million copies in the U.S. alone, while the song "Every Breath You Take" became their fifth UK number one single, and first in the United States. The Police dissembled as a unit soon after the release but they left such a magnificent opus behind them, that they are certainly one of the most influential bands in the history of rock music.
3. U2 - The Joushua Tree (1987) 
Is there actually any need to talk about the greatness of U2? They are one of the longest enduring groups ever, a band that has never changed its lineup. Bono, The Edge, Larry and Adam formed the band in the late seventies on the fertile British post-punk scene, but soon evolved into a unique Irish brand. By the mid-1980s, U2 had become a top international act. They were more successful as a touring act than they were at selling records until their 1987 album “The Joshua Tree” which, according to Rolling Stone Magazine, elevated the band's stature "from heroes to superstars." The record was Inspired by American tour experiences, literature, and politics; U2 chose America as a theme for the record. The Joshua Tree received critical acclaim, topped the charts in over 20 countries, and sold in record-breaking numbers in the UK, promoting songs such as "With or Without You", "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", and "Where the Streets Have No Name", the first two of which became the group's only number-one singles in the US. The album won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1988.
4. Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction (1987) 
Many of you might consider Guns’n’Roses a sort of an intruder in the list, but let me tell why I think they deserve to be in it. They may have looked like their glam metal contemporaries (especially Axl Rose.), but their rock riffs were far from the sleazy, distorted-pop-songs of the glam army. On the contrary, they brought the hard driven, blues-based hard rock idiom back on the main stage. Their debut album was a complete success: It topped the Billboard 200 and became the best-selling debut album as well as the 11th best-selling album of all times in the United States. With about 30 million copies sold worldwide, it is also one of the best-selling records ever.
5. Pixies - Doolittle (1989) 
"Doolittle" is an album that is far from the commercial success of all the above and before mentioned records, although it reached number eight on the UK Albums Chart, which was an unexpected success for the band. What makes it a candidate for the top five list is the fact that “Doolittle” has been cited as inspirational by many alternative artists, while several respected publications have ranked it as one of the most influential albums ever. It was the record that inspired grunge and alternative music in the following decade with its radical use of dynamics, with song arrangements that shift from quiet to loud parts without warning. After writing "Smells Like Teen Spirit," both Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic of Nirvana thought: "this really sounds like the Pixies. People are really going to nail us for this." The album was also included in the book “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die,” and the title says it all.
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