Tag: The 1980’s
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Metallica ‘Master of Puppets’ (1986)
Master of Puppets is a hallmark album in metal history that is often lauded as one of the genre’s most important albums of all-time. Along with going six times platinum (which is insanely impressive for a thrash metal full-length) it has the unique distinction of being the very first metal album to be selected by…
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Terje Rypdal & The Chasers ‘Blue’ (1987)
Known affectionately as “the tone poet of the Fender Stratocaster”, Norwegian guitarist Terje Rypdal has had a prolific 50-year career that has blended jazz, rock, and classical music into his own unique take on what music can be. His 1987 album Blue is a fusionist’s dream, filled with eclectic sounds that bend and warp over…
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Joe Satriani ‘Surfing With The Alien’ (1987)
There’s not many guitarists that can absolutely rip like Joe Satriani and 1987’s Surfing With The Alien is a love letter to all the guitar-heads out there who just want to hear some good ol’ fashioned shredding for the sake of it. It’s bombastic, over the top, and just plain fun as hell. The album…
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Ambrosia ‘One Eighty’ (1980)
When you have an album that features a grand total of four vocalists carrying lead vocal duties throughout the entire album you know you’re in for a soft rock treat. Ambrosia’s 1980 effort One Eighty celebrates those soft rock bonafides in a tight and concise package, deftly incorporating elements of yacht rock and anthemic 80’s…
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A Flock of Seagulls ‘A Flock of Seagulls’ (1982)
When you think of 1980’s New Wave music the song “I Ran (So Far Away)” is pretty much required to pop into your head. A Flock of Seagulls, the British rocker’s debut album, was a defining moment for New Wave as a whole and is chock full of all the things that make the genre…
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George Strait ‘Strait From The Heart’ (1982)
George Strait is the epitome of old school classic country. Possessing a crystal clear voice and a backing band that’s solid as nails, Strait rolls through his vintage brand of country music effortlessly during 10 songs that span an efficient 29 minute runtime on Strait From The Heart. This was the album that put Strait…
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Minutemen ‘Double Nickels on the Dime’ (1984)
Double Nickels on the Dime is a massive album comprised of 45 songs. Yes, you read that correctly. And as you’d expect with such a prolific output it covers a wide range of influences from hardcore punk to jazz to funk. The best way I can describe them to people unfamiliar with their material is…
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John Mellencamp ‘Scarecrow’ (1985)
No artist in the 80’s represented heartland rock in the way that John Mellencamp did. 1982’s American Fool is his best-selling album due to its inclusion of smash hits “Jack & Diane” and “Hurts So Good”, but Mellencamp really began to find his feet as a songwriter during 1985’s Scarecrow which has always to me…
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Circle Jerks ‘Group Sex’ (1980)
If you’re looking for nuance or subtlety you’ve arrived at the wrong album. Circle Jerks 1980 cut Group Sex is a landmark album in the American hardcore punk scene for a variety of reasons— its anti-establishment screeds, double-time blitzkrieg, and nearly unintelligible perspective on life. But mostly Group Sex is known for its impressively succinct…
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Roxy Music ‘Avalon’ (1982)
Roxy Music had long moved past its early 70’s art rock phase with Brian Eno by the time the early 80’s rolled around, but the band’s deep and rich history of avant garde synth pop is still present underneath all the wonderfully manicured pop sheen found littered throughout Avalon. From the sultry saxaphones to the…
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Eric B. & Rakim ‘Paid In Full’ (1987)
Noted for its revolutionary lyrics and complex rhyming schemes, Eric B. & Rakim’s Paid In Full stands one of the most influential hip hop records of all-time. Released during the golden age of hip-hop, an era loosely defined by hip hop music released from the mid-80’s to the mid 90’s, Paid In Full and its…
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Bad Religion ‘Suffer’ (1988)
It’s hard to overstate just how influential Bad Religion was on the punk rock I grew up on during the mid-2000’s. Bands like NOFX, Pennywise, Green Day, The Offspring, Hot Water Music, Alkaline Trio, and Rancid all owe a debt of significant gratitude to the forebears of that distinct sound for a handful of reasons,…
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Fine Young Cannibals ‘The Raw & The Cooked’ (1989)
Fine Young Cannibals 1989 release The Raw & The Cooked is a soul album in the way you’d envision an 80’s New Wave soul album to be. In other words, it’s an eclectic mix of sounds and styles that incorporates breakbeat, New Wave, dance, and rock elements filtered through the gravitational pull of Motown soul…
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Scorpions ‘Love At First Sting’ (1984)
“Rock You Like A Hurricane” is an iconic hair metal song and Scorpions are an iconic heavy metal band, selling over 100 million records during the course of their 60-year history. It puts them at the top of best-selling lists of not only heavy metal but bands of any genre, influencing cultural powerhouses like Guns…
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Dokken ‘Under Lock and Key’ (1985)
Dokken comes from the iconic era of glam metal bands like Ratt and Poison, where image was nearly as important as the music. Big hair, big drums, big vocals, big guitar solos— if everything is in fact bigger in Texas, then everything was indisputably the biggest in 1985 when hair metal stood on top of…
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Sinéad O’Connor ‘Lion and the Cobra’ (1987)
Yesterday’s tragic passing of Sinéad O’Connor at the age of 58 has rocked the music world. O’Connor’s advocacy for mental health, human rights, and victims of child abuse has made her a protest rock icon over the years, traits that ultimately transcended her artistic endeavors. Her own longtime personal struggles with trauma certainly influenced this…
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Dead Kennedys ‘Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables’ (1980)
Known for their brutal and sardonic political commentary, Dead Kennedys were a prominent figure in the early wave of punk that rose to prominence in the early 80’s. Their satirical take on everything from political figures, the punk movement itself, and the banality of American consumerism was controversial at the time and led to a…
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Cyndi Lauper ‘She’s So Unusual’ (1983)
Cyndi Lauper is an icon in nearly every sense of the world. Her wild hairstyles, feverishly flamboyant in all their neon glory, is a distinct calling card she’s continued to this day ever since introducing punk fashion into the pop mainstream. Her work as an advocate for the LGBTQ community during a time when it…
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Ratt ‘Invasion of Your Privacy’ (1985)
When Los Angeles glam metal was having its moment in the early-80’s, there were two bands that defined the genre– Mötley Crüe and Ratt. Ratt’s 1985 album Invasion of Your Privacy is basically a perfect example of what made glam such a scene– overdriven fuzzy guitars, massive sing-a-long choruses, shredding guitar solos, fat drums with…
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Bruce Springsteen ‘Born In The U.S.A.’ (1984)
It’s a well-worn trope at this point that when “Born In The U.S.A.” comes on someone will loudly exclaim “Hey buddy ya’ know this song is actually a protest song about how politicians conveniently drape themselves in the flag but then ignore the needs of our working-class military members once they return from service.” That…
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Dire Straits ‘Brothers In Arms’ (1985)
Dire Straits magnum opus’ Brothers In Arms is a landmark achievement in sound that has been one of my favorite albums of since I first heard it as a teenager. To this day I still get chills when I hear the stinging precision of Mark Knopfler’s incredible guitar riff that kicks off “Money For Nothing”…
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Huey Lewis & The News ‘Fore!’ (1986)
Huey Lewis & The News occupy a spot in music history as one of the quintessential 80’s power pop bands. They had this folksy charm that was undeniable– from the classic rhythm & blues and doo wop influences, to the gorgeous soft rock chord progressions, to the full band sound. Everything about Huey Lewis was…
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Judas Priest ‘British Steel’ (1980)
If Black Sabbath’s Paranoid was the album that defined heavy metal in the 70’s, Judas Priest’s British Steel was the album that defined heavy metal in the 80’s. Featuring early elements of thrash, glam metal, and hard rock, Judas Priest took the slow plodding sludge grooves of the previous era, turned up the BPM, and…
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Kool & The Gang ‘Celebrate!’ (1980)
Celebrate! marked the end of Kool & The Gang’s hipness as the band transitioned from ultra-smooth funk practitioners to the radio-friendly R&B disco group that shot to the top of the charts with this platinum selling album. Artistic bonafides aside it’s hard to argue with the results– lead single “Celebration” was a smash hit, and…
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Public Enemy ‘It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back’ (1988)
Long before Flavor Flav became a reality show punchline, Public Enemy came out of Long Island and changed the face of hip hop with their socially conscious and purposeful blend of hip hop. Chuck D, Flavor Flav, DJ Terminator X, and production group The Bomb Squad pulled no punches in detailing their version of the…
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Robert Palmer ‘Clues’ (1980)
Robert Palmer’s transition from blue-eyed soul singer to New Wave artist was just getting started on Clues, and the album as a whole sits in this distinctly 80’s space of being multiple things all at once. You have the old-school Rolling Stones esque classic rock thump of “Sulky Girl” sandwiched in between the synth pop…
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Bruce Springsteen ‘Tunnel Of Love’ (1987)
On Tunnel Of Love Springsteen traded in arena-rock anthems for an intimate look inward, taking bold proclamations with big ideas drenched in massive soundscapes and turning them into tidy vignettes of the challenges of mature adult relationships. Whereas Springsteen’s career had at that point largely focused on making massive statements about both the promise and…
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Rick Springfield ‘Working Class Dog’ (1981)
Ed. Note: Welcome to Sound City week here at Music of Matthew dot com! This week we’ll be covering some notable albums recorded at the legendary Sound City studio in Los Angeles, which was covered in great detail in Dave Grohl’s excellent 2013 documentary “Sound City”. Rick Springfield has been somewhat of a punch-line for…
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Dio ‘Holy Diver’ (1983)
Dio was formed after Ronnie James Dio left to pursue a solo career following his (first) stint as lead singer of the eminent metal band Black Sabbath. Replacing a legend such as Ozzy Osbourne in a band that was notorious for its substance abuse issues was bound to be a herculean task, and despite a…
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Violent Femmes ‘Violent Femmes’ (1983)
It’s sort of shocking Violent Femmes debut album came out all the way back in 1983. It sounds more 90’s alternative rock than the majority of actual 90’s alternative rock bands, and in retrospect became one of the most influential alternative albums that effectively kickstarted the genre that would take over the mainstream world a…
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Phil Collins ‘…But Seriously’ (1989)
For a lot of people Phil Collins is known for two things— being the “Lion King guy” and for his absolutely thunderously epic drum fill on his most popular song “In The Air Tonight.” For others, it’s the duet “Easy Lover” that he did with Philip Bailey of Earth Wind and Fire (a song that…
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Iron Maiden ‘The Number of the Beast’ (1982)
Iron Maiden is one of the all-time metal greats and I’m beyond pumped to see them live for the first time alongside AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, Tool, and Guns N’ Roses later this year at PowerTrip Live. I just booked my tickets last week and have been on a metal kick ever since. I literally…
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Barbra Streisand ‘Guilty’ (1980)
If you had to make a list of top entertainment icons of all-time there’s no doubt Barbra Streisand is somewhere at the top of that list. Over her six decade career Streisand has cemented herself in history as a rare winner of the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony), sold over 150 million records (!!!), and…
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The Blues Brothers ‘Original Soundtrack Recording’ (1980)
If you haven’t seen the original 1980 Blues Brothers film with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, put it to the top of your list this week. It’s an excellent film filled with excellent music, a real cult classic that has aged like a fine wine. Belushi and Aykroyd created the characters as a bit for…
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Black Flag ‘Damaged’ (1981)
Damaged by Black Flag is the hardcore album that started it all. Henry Rollins’ testosterone-soaked lead vocals, Greg Ginn’s subtly attentive songwriting, Julio Roberto Valverde Valencia’s aggressive drumming, and the rhythm section of Chuck Dukowski and Dez Cadena punch you right in the gut and leave you keeled over wheezing for oxygen. It feels perfectly…
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Rick Astley ‘Whenever You Need Somebody’ (1987)
For people in my generation Rick Astley is pretty much exclusively known for nothing more than “Rickrolling”, which is basically the concept of providing a link to something like an article detailing the economic and industrial development of Singapore from 1950 to 1990 (a fascinating read fwiw) and via bait and switch providing a link…
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