The 10 Best Albums of 1980

In my introduction to Slant’s list of the 100 Best Albums of the 1980s, I noted that, while ’80s pop culture is largely remembered for its frivolity, the social unrest that stirred beneath the decade’s brightly colored gloss and greed resulted in not just the guilt-driven good intentions of enterprises like the star-studded USA for Africa, but a generation of artists whose music genuinely reflected the state of the world. From political violence across the pond and the struggles and dreams of the American working class, to race relations, sexuality, and gender, no topic was left unexcavated by the pop, rock, and hip-hop artists of the Reagan era. As we enter the 2020s, an entire generation removed from the ’80s, it seems as good a time as any to once again look back and reflect on the music that defined one of the most definable of decades. Sal Cinquemani

Honorable Mention: The Jam, Sound Affects; Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel; Young Marble Gods, Colossal Youth; Grace Jones, Warm Leatherette; Emmylou Harris, Roses in the Snow; Stevie Wonder, Hotter Than July; Devo, Freedom of Choice; Dead Kennedys, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables; Public Image Ltd, Second Edition; Bruce Springsteen, The River

10. Diana Ross, diana

Diana Ross’s fifth (again, fifth) solo album to feature some part of her name in the title, this was the first one where the choice in nomenclature felt like an act of self-preservation. Because the album’s signature is unmistakably someone else’s, namely the Chic organization. Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were brought aboard to help Miss Ross carry on the momentum she had at her back from the string disco hits including “Love Hangover,” “The Boss,” and “No One Gets the Prize.” What seemed like a cunning collaborative move quickly dimmed when disco became, almost overnight, passé. A panicked Ross and Motown snatched the album and remixed it to push it back toward the realm of pop, but even a side-by-side listen with the since-released original version only proves that, lucky for us all, Chic’s DNA is impermeable. Stacked with peppy, irresistible post-disco hits like “I’m Coming Out” and “Upside Down,” diana is without question the diva’s most satisfying LP. Eric Henderson

9. X, Los Angeles

A punk-rock power duo making strong use of their male/female dynamic, Exene Cervenka and John Doe fronted X’s roaring songs with a vibrant vocal and lyrical approach, which helped make them the creative standard bearer of the nascent L.A. scene. Beefing up the usual punk attack with a sound hearkening back to several decades of rock, from Chuck Berry to Blondie, the band went beyond the usual three-chord dynamic, forming an album that’s both a paean to a fading city and an excoriation of its faults, all burning trash, clumped hair and Hollywood Boulevard sleaze, perfectly summed up by the burning logo of the album’s cover. Jesse Cataldo

8. The Clash, Sandinista!

The succulent fat that drips from this spit-skewered, bloated pig of an album—36 tracks spanning two-and-a-half hours!—is fuel for a distinctive genre bonfire. The flames reach brashly, soulfully, sarcastically beyond punk, rock, pop, dance, ska, rockabilly, dub, calypso, and gospel, and its themes, as diverse as its sound, are the concerns of the world: consumerism, working-class disaffection, political antipathy, immigration, warfare. And drugs, the afterlife, Jesus Christ, sometimes all at once. Heavy stuff, yes, but this is the Clash, who will provide us with an address of Cold War relations but so from the floor of Studio 54. These cheeky blokes operate as spies, disguising grave matters with high-spirited musicality, hoping the powers that be won’t notice. Truly an album without borders. Ed Gonzalez

7. Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Get Happy!!

In the saga of the punk-rock upstart who shocked critics by going all Lennon-McCartney on their asses, the blue-eyed soul of Elvis Costello’s Get Happy!! is typically considered a genre detour, more like 1981’s country-themed Almost Blue than the classic pop triumvirate of Armed Forces, Trust, and Imperial Bedroom. But you need only compare it to Young Americans, Bowie’s misguided stab at R&B from five years earlier, to see how sincerely Costello inhabits the style’s past and present. Costello may have set out to show how much he knew about soul, but what he actually proved was how much he loves it. Matthew Cole

6. Pretenders, Pretenders

The Pretenders’s debut is notable not only for the pitch-perfect execution of the band’s glam-meets-punk style, but also its delivery of unconventional sex appeal. Like Debbie Harry before her, Chrissie Hynde represented a feminization of the punk aesthetic, a street-smart girl who could outdrink, outperform, and ultimately outsmart her male counterparts. Rock feminism never sounded as good as it does here, particularly on tracks like the spunky “Brass in Pocket,” where Hynde has the power to be playful, tough, and even self-deprecating without sacrificing any of her throaty vocal presence. At its core, rock ‘n’ roll is about charisma, and as tracks like “Stop Your Sobbing” and “Private Life” prove, the Pretenders not only had a cache of the stuff, but were well-versed in how to showcase it. Kevin Liedel

5. Prince, Dirty Mind

Prince, unlike George Michael, doesn’t feel the need to justify sex, that it’s natural, it’s good. He’s content to let his dick do the talking, without apology. But Prince isn’t simply shooting his dithering load on this 1980 breakthrough, he’s radically redefining sex, its expression and power. Just as the album’s production is a succulently bouncy and interwoven tapestry of funk, pop, and rock, the wily Prince fearlessly and mischievously indulges fantasy and ambiguously adopts countless roles and personas, addressing throughout both his anima and animus. He will daydream of fucking some honey in his daddy’s car, getting head from another on her wedding day, but he will also sneak in glistening moments of doe-eyed romanticism, even a startlingly metaphoric commentary on race and class. This is liquid love in its purest and most thought-provoking form. Gonzalez

4. David Bowie, Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) catches David Bowie on the cusp of international megastardom and is widely regarded as the glam-rock icon’s last truly great album. Bowie bridles the experimentation of his Berlin trilogy and channels those synth flourishes and off-kilter guitar licks into one of the decade’s quirkiest pop albums. “Ashes to Ashes” is absolutely mesmerizing, and “Fashion” almost sets the tone for the entire decade by itself, and even beyond these singles are countless examples of utterly flawless pop. That it’s difficult to even notice Brian Eno’s absence is a testament to how convincing this madcap milieu really is, and affirms Bowie’s reputation as the maharishi of avant-garde pop. Huw Jones

3. Joy Division, Closer

The fact that Joy Division’s very name is synonymous with ’80s post-punk despite their having released only one album in the decade speaks to Closer’s looming impact on the genre it helped propel. A similar shadow was cast by frontman Ian Curtis’s death shortly before the album’s release, lending Closer an added layer of mystique to the band’s already-bittersweet unfulfilled promise. Though the remaining members would go on to form seminal synth-pop group New Order, Closer exists as Joy Division’s magnificent epithet. Its songs are beautifully crafted dirges, with thrumming, ghostly synths and plumbing basslines bolstering Curtis’s imaginative but morbid lyricism. Liedel

2. Talking Heads, Remain in Light

Paul Simon’s Graceland gets much of the credit for the revival of African-inspired pop music in the mid-’80s, but the Brian Eno-produced Remain in Light broke that ground six years earlier with a joyous meld of Afrobeat and post-punk. This is Talking Heads at their best, a band that had once teased its listeners with full-fledged worldbeat experimentation now reveling in the interplay between South African harmonies, new wave looping, and funk rhythms. Remain in Light is, in effect, one long, finely crafted global jam session, delivered by a group of musicians who can ably handle its assortment of eclectic parts and intricacies. As predictable as it might be to point to “Once in a Lifetime” as a perfect microcosm of everything that’s right about Remain in Light, the point holds true: The track, like its album, is blithe, bizarre, noisy, unpredictable, and a deliciously energetic slice of pop virtuosity. Liedel

1. The Clash, London Calling

A large part of the musical narrative of the ’80s involves the parasitic influence of punk, as its rough attitudes and stripped-down approach spread out to consume and incorporate outlying genres. One of the first instances of this spread occurred as the decade was just dawning, on a sprawling album—first released in the U.K. in the final weeks of the 1970s before landing on our shores in January of 1980—that expands to cover Jamaican ska, northern soul, and American pop, creating both a searing document of a world in flux and a convincing precedent for the rest of the decade. All this in addition to a sharp lyrical sense, which espouses revolutionary rhetoric without sounding completely idiotic. Cataldo