The Top Twenty Albums of 1986

Our next stop on the retrospective tour is 1986, a year filled with classics in nearly every major genre. As we entered the second half of the decade, music was awash in so many flourishing subgenres and movements with alternative and rap beginning to take over the mainstream while pop, R&B and rock were growing in new directions, with movements like New Jack Swing and house music coming just around the corner. If I had to give the year a qualifier, it would be the year of polish. Each album on this list by an established artist sees them honing their sound and creating their most sleek, measured and balanced work yet while the newcomers establish a brand right off the bat. Again, it was deeply challenging to narrow down to just twenty classics. Without further adieu, let's count down my Top Twenty Albums of 1986.

20) Crowded House - Crowded House (35 minutes, Pop-Rock / Jangle-Pop)

Oftentimes, out of the ashes of one band another tends to rise, but rarely does that band reach the dizzying heights of what came before.  Usually, you get the Foo Fighters out of a Nirvana, not the other way around, but in the case of Crowded House, from the first notes of their debut platter they take the best aspects of their previous outfit, the new wavers Split Enz and spin them into melodic gold anew.  Crowded House was led by frontman and main songwriter Neil Finn, who had a supporting role in his older brother’s band Spilt Enz, but it is clear from these songs that he was a superior writer, as each song here has a soaring, sticky melody line delivering an album where nearly every song could be a worthy single.  The album isn’t easily classified as alternative or new wave, instead it feels much more indebted to the classic pop rock of the 60s and 70s, replete with jangly, bouncy guitar licks and Finn’s blend of earnest and energetic vocals.  These are songs that could have been written and performed in any era, there’s a timelessness quality here that is palpable throughout.  Whether it be the horn-drenched rock of the album opener “Mean to Me” or the sunshine pop bounce of “Something So Strong”, these are songs out of time and they could come out today and still feel vital.  Finn’s way with a chorus makes every song feel like a highlight, with the A Side in particular feeling like a greatest hits record in the way it packs in so many killer hooks.  The album’s sense of warmth is one of its greatest assets, these are inviting songs whether they be the rockers or the ballads, their craft makes you want to sink deeper into each plush arrangement.  Later on, the band would blend their rock solid songwriting with slightly more alternative leaning textures and lyrically concerns, but this is Crowded House at their most infectiously straightforward, which is why it is likely the album they’re best remembered for. 

The album mainly consists of energetic power pop numbers like the bouncy “Now We’re Getting Somewhere” or the joyous “World Where You Live”, but the slower moments tend to steal the show.  Case in point is their soaring, gentle ballad “Don’t Dream It’s Over”, the crown jewel of the album.  Finn’s vocals are just the right blend of hopeful and melancholic while the band delivers a soft, acoustic backing that highlights the track’s timeless melody line.  By the time the keyboard solo slides into place you can see why it’s become a modern day standard.  It’s not hard to pinpoint why these Australian jangle rockers became such a household name on impact, it’s because they had some serious tunes in tow.  There are few better places to get your power pop fix than right here.

Top Tracks: "Don't Dream It's Over" "Something So Strong" "Mean to Me" "Now We're Getting Somewhere"

19) Licensed to Ill - Beastie Boys (44 minutes, Rap-Rock / Hip-Hop)

Rap and punk music have extremely similar roots in a lot of little ways, one of which was that their respective geneses took place deep in the boroughs of New York City.  It was then just a matter of time before the two artforms collided into their own raucous subgenre.  There had been brushes between rap and punk before, namely with both Blondie and The Clash taking stabs at the earliest disco-rap crossovers, but the first group to really take the youthful, outrageous energy of punk rock and infuse it into the hip-hop medium were the Beastie Boys, three unlikely kids from Brooklyn who alongside Rick Rubin invaded Def-Jam records with their raw, fratty energy and ended up changing the rap game for years to come.  From the album’s opening notes of furious guitar fuzz and a bombastic sample of Led Zeppelin’s thunderous drums on “Rhymin’ & Stealin’” it is evident that a sonic revolution is taking place.  Rock and rap had crossed over before, namely with Rubin’s productions with Run-DMC, but here we blaze past classic rock and dive straight into the anti-establishment fury of the best punk rock with MCA, Ad-Rock and Mike D dropping hilarious, snot-nosed rhymes about being young, dumb and ready to fuck shit up.  This is wildly immature music, their sense of humor is absolutely stupid (and at times quite dated) and the frat-boy energy they exhibit here is halfway between over the top parody and genuine idiocy, but that’s part of the album’s charm.  The charisma coming off of these three New York punks is hard to quantify, they make even the wackest lyrics seem amazing.  Production wise, this was revolutionary, as no other act was splicing in pop culture samples into their songs this way, it predates the cartoon exploits of MF DOOM by over a decade, using other song lyrics as punchlines, it’s a creative, almost Beatles-esque approach to sampling that would influence future late-80s hip-hop tapestries like De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising, Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and the Beasties’ own Paul’s Boutique.  The most popular songs here are the most rock-oriented crossover smashes, “Fight for Your Right to Party” and “No Sleep Till Brooklyn”(featuring a cameo from Slayer’s Kerry King on guitar), both of which are party starting anthems with endless amounts of energy, but I’d argue that the strongest songs are the more traditional hip-hop offerings. 

The Run-DMC influence is heavy on tracks like “Slow and Low” with the trio embracing Run-DMC’s trademark of finishing each other’s lines, but on a song like “Hold It Now, Hit It”, they innovate on the technique, throwing down some incredible flows for the time.  Songs like “The New Style” (a veritable Beastie Boys national anthem) and “She’s Crafty” blend the blistering electric guitar riffs with more traditional rap verses, making for thrilling, hysterical listens while cuts like the ridiculously funky “Brass Monkey” are full throttle party jams.  The album’s high water mark is “Paul Revere”, a sparse story song which sees each B-Boy spit a verse in their tongue in cheek, wild west origin story, full of simultaneously clever and dumb punchlines showing that these were more than just snotty frat boys playing a joke, these were genuine artists looking to push hip-hop into the future.  Not everything here has dated well (in particular the ridiculously catchy “Girls”), but once you look past the frat-boy artifice this is some seriously rock solid hip-hop that was way far out in 1986.  This album was one of the first to really give rap music traction on the pop charts, and it’s easy to see why, there’s an infectious, youthful energy that permeates each and every song.  The Beasties’ would continue to improve as they matured out of this frat-boy phase, continuing to push the boundaries of what rap could be, but every once in a while, nothing hits harder than this record.  When it’s “Time to Get Ill”, you know exactly what to play.

Top Tracks: "The New Style" "Paul Revere" "Hold It Now, Hit It" "Brass Monkey"

18) Life's Rich Pageant - R.E.M. (37 minutes, Jangle-Pop / Alt-Rock)

Throughout the eighties, no other band really sounded like R.E.M. and that’s what made them such an intoxicatingly special group.  Over the course of their first three albums, Michael Stipe and company pioneered their brand of swampy jangle-rock, but here on their fourth they embrace a stronger pop edge than they ever had before, no longer shying away from their inherent knack for hooks and crafting one of their most accessible and relistenable records.  While albums like Murmur and Reckoning were full of catchy hooks and sticky, jangling riffs courtesy of Peter Buck, here they go one step further and craft choruses that you can finally sing along with.  For the first time, Michael Stipe slightly shifts his enigmatic vocal delivery so you can discern his lyrics without a lyric sheet in front of you.  His vocals are still keening and mysterious, but by pulling back the veil just a touch you finally get a sense for his impressionistic, imagistic lyrics.  It’s still a challenge to parse out exactly what each song means, but this way you have a few more clues.  Primarily the album sees Stipe concerned with environmentalism and conservation with the sweeping “Fall on Me” and the driving “Cuyahoga” specifically calling out those polluting our natural resources.  He is far from a direct lyricist, but his impassioned delivery is emotionally gripping nonetheless, especially when he harmonizes with Mike Mills, as their unique vocal chemistry is R.E.M.’s secret weapon. 

While their early work had a jangly bounce, here we get some hints of the heavier, more alt-rock influenced sounds that would dominate their follow up album Document.  From the opening guitar chimes of “Begin the Begin” the band has a heftier attack than ever before, with Buck’s guitar riffs blending the rhythmic vitality of their early songs with a fuzzier alt-rock edge that they’d never experimented with before.  The album’s opening four songs comprise one of the strongest stretches in their discography, with “Fall on Me” in particular showing off the off-kilter beauty of R.E.M., transforming what could be a simple ballad into a gentle, swaying folk rock anthem.  The album’s production, courtesy of Don Gehman, is their best yet, moving away from the purposefully muddy mixes of their earliest records and highlighting the rhythmic interplay of Mike Mills, Bill Berry and Peter Buck more than before.  There are few quartets with a stronger sense of interlocked musicality than R.E.M..  In many ways this is a breakthrough album for the band, the first where they embrace their poppier impulses as opposed to eschewing them, ending the album on one of their most straightforward pop tracks ever, the infectiously silly “Superman” while the penultimate track, the acoustic “Swan Swan H” is a dead ringer for the type of song that would become their bread and butter in the early nineties.  While I do prize their first two albums as some of the best in their catalog and consider 1992’s sensitive folk rock opus Automatic for the People to be their undisputed masterpiece, if someone told me this was their R.E.M. album of choice, it would make perfect sense to me.  It is the ideal fusion of their mysterious jangle-rock years and their future as college rock hitmakers.  The sound of a band at an inflexion point, making some of their best work in the process. 

Top Tracks: "Fall on Me" "Cuyahoga" "Begin the Begin" "These Days"

17) Victorialand - Cocteau Twins (33 minutes, Dream-Pop / Ethereal Wave)

It’s a trope when you’re describing the music of the Cocteau Twins to call it ethereal, yet there really is no other word in the English language that can capture their wispy, dreamlike beauty as eloquently.  In fact on this, the band’s fourth album they create what might be seen as their plushest, most atmospheric album yet, casting off the slightly gothic twinges of their early work and going straight for the dream-pop jugular with these most languid, airy soundscapes yet.  The album is named after a part of Antarctica, and that chilly locale influences the album’s sound palette deeply.  This album has the hallmarks of classic Cocteaus from Robin Guthrie’s elegiac, dreamy layers of guitar to Elizabeth Frazier’s otherworldly, cooing voice, but it lacks some of the inherent warmth of their late period classics.  The detached elegance of this album feels very cold, but in a beautiful, inviting way just like the continent that inspired its creations. 

This album sees founding members Frazier and Guthrie going it alone without the help of bassist Simon Raymonde, who usually provides an anchor to their airy sonic world.  Due to the lack of Raymonde’s trademark basslines, more attention than ever is paid to Guthrie’s subtle, gorgeous guitar textures, which take center stage by fulfilling both the melodic and rhythmic role oftentimes.  The chiming, shimmering guitar sonics play gorgeously with Frazier’s soft, haunting soprano who glides atop the arrangements like a dove, flitting in and out of the song as she pleases.  Frazier is rarely the driver of the song, her warbles are instead just another instrument in the plush, cloudy mix, exemplified by her tendency to avoid literal lyrics and instead just sing in an onomatopoeic way, sometimes in her own made up language.  The language of the Cocteaus is strictly textural, the meanings of their songs can be intuited purely through emotion and not words.  The epitome of the album’s one of a kind sound is in the enchanting opener, “Lazy Calm”, a song which sounds exactly like its title, a sweeping soundscape of cascading guitar, plush keys and Frazier’s ghostly vocalizations.  There is a hypnotic romance to these songs, they are so easy to get lost in.  Each one flows easily and elegantly into the next that by the time it’s over it feels like you’ve barely begun and want to take the ethereal journey all over again.  It makes for one of the coziest listens in their catalog, a nice warm hug to keep you from freezing in the cold weather.  While the surrounding Cocteau Twins albums have their dizzying individual highlights, songs that work wonders on their own, this is perhaps their only album that needs to be experienced as a full album first.  These songs weaved together feel like a total cinematic experience that taking one piece out of context would hardly capture its magic.  Soon after this album, the reunited trio would venture in poppier waters and craft their ultimate masterpieces making this sort of the curtain call for the obscurest Cocteau Twins era, and what a curtain call it is.  A marvelous document of everything good about ethereal wave.

Top Tracks: "Lazy Calm" "Whales Tails" "Oomingmak" "Feet Like Fins"

16) Blood & Chocolate - Elvis Costello & The Attractions (47 minutes, Alt-Rock / Garage Rock)

Due to the sheer amount of times Elvis Costello has shifted between genres during his career it can be hard to pinpoint what sort of music actually suits him best.  Is it the nervy new wave of his early years, the somber chamber-pop and country of his veteran years or something else entirely.  I would argue that Elvis is often at his best when he tosses off all of his genre pretensions and delivers a straight up rock album, and on this, his second album of 1986, he gifts us with what could be considered the most straightforward rock record of his career.  After this record, Costello would disband his electric backing band, The Attractions until the mid-90s.  Therefore, this feels like a last hurrah for his trio of co-conspirators, which may be why The Attractions get a real spotlight on his record.  Costello himself delivers countless stinging guitar licks and solos, but it’s the rhythm section of Bruce and Pete Thomas who drive a lot of these arrangements.  There’s a real attack to the album’s sound, leaning into the sharp cynicism of his lyrics to deliver a scorching set of back to basics rockers.  The production from his long time collaborator Nick Lowe allows each song to really pack a punch in each instrumental element, even Steve Nieve’s keyboards, which take a backseat on this album. 

No song captures the unfettered rawness of the album like the opener, the blistering caveman stomp of “Uncomplicated”, which serves as the record’s mission statement, a nasty, acerbic slice of rock about revenge and bitterness.  Lyrically, Costello has always had an edge but here he abandons pretense and writes some of his meanest songs like the embittered power pop trifle “I Hope You’re Happy Now” or the bouncy Byrds-ish “Crimes of Paris”.  He seems to be channeling all his rage and upset into these songs, which are about as unromantic as physically possible.  The best example is the album’s bleeding heart centerpiece, “I Want You”, a terrifying slow burn of a song where Costello viciously interrogates his lover about alleged infidelity, with the song’s creeping intensity building from a haunted lullaby into a violent screed.  The hatred drips from both his voice and his chilly, biting guitar licks.  It’s a morbidly fascinating character study on an obsessive, disturbed individual and his descent into jealousy fueled paranoia and it remains one of his greatest songs, even if it’s not an easy listen.  The album is by no means a hard listen though, as tracks like the bouncy, hilariously chaotic sci-fi travelogue “Tokyo Storm Warning” (a funhouse mirror Bob Dylan song if I’ve ever heard one) or the snappy, 60s inflected “Blue Chair” pack some of his strongest hooks in between all the vitriol.  The more rage-filled upbeat moments contrast well with the slower ballads like the morose “Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head” or the defeated “Battered Old Bird”, which are just as jaded lyrically, but see Costello take a more pitiable, tragic approach to these tales.  Elvis Costello has never been afraid to write ugly songs, but here he delivers his most unabashed cruel project and it’s an emotional car wreck that is impossible to look away from.  While he has more immediate projects, this one is a true grower.  Not an everyday album by any means, but when you feel battered, broken and abused there are few better albums to find cruel comfort in.  A twisted love letter to your worst impulses.

Top Tracks: "I Want You" "Tokyo Storm Warning" "I Hope You're Happy Now" "Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head"

15) Please - Pet Shop Boys (42 minutes, Synth-Pop)

While some may see them as opposite sides of the musical spectrum, alternative and dance music have a staggering amount in common, primarily the artists making both sorts of music tend to be cultural outsiders.  Rarely do the aesthetics of alternative and the club-ready beats collide in a more satisfying way than in the Pet Shop Boys illustrious catalog.  Both Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe embrace the icy, electronic synth-pop textures of the prevailing new wave scene and layer them alongside some groovy low-end to craft a sophisticated, sensitive dance party for all those left out of the mainstream monoculture.  On their enigmatic debut album, it feels as if Tennant and Lowe had been making music for decades already, everything feels so pristine and polished.  Case in point being their elegant, sultry debut single, “West End Girls”, a liquid bass line and cracking percussion dowsed in a haze of synths over which Tennant delivers his soft, always slightly tragic vocals about the banality of English city living.  These songs are imbued with a melancholic sense of ennui, which sets them apart from much of the 80s pop landscape which was all neon colors and bright lights, here there is always a sense of tragedy lurking around every corner.  So much of the subtext of this music comes from Neil Tennant’s closeted queerness, the fear of love and mutual connection in the age of HIV is a thread that permeates so much of their music.  It would become more overt later on, but here it still lurks in songs like the gorgeous “Love Comes Quickly”, about the inevitability of falling in love, even when consciously trying to avoid it.  The band’s knack for immediately gripping choruses is evident from the first moment, with Tennant’s blase delivery never making them feel too eager to hit the charts.  It’s that sense of ironic detachment that makes them feel so deeply cool, since it’s rare for pop stars to seem so deeply apathetic, yet at the same time so emotionally raw. 

The duo truly comes out swinging, opening the album with a litany of single-ready smashes like the driving “Opportunities”, a sharp critique of Thatcher-era materialism cloaked in cheeky humor or the cinematic sprawl of “Suburbia”, a gorgeous ballad that flies by like a greyscale travelogue of teenage life in a dead end town.  That cinematic quality would be expanded on their future records, but to have songs that capture such vivid images on your first album is a triumph in itself.  Texture-wise, the duo blend the danceable yet chilly aesthetic of a band like New Order with the softness and elegance of the sophisti-pop that was all the rage in mid-eighties Britain, crafting plush soundscapes that create a striking contrast with the sometimes industrial percussion underneath.  The yearning romance of the Pet Shop Boys captures you from the opening notes of “Two Divided by Zero” and only lets you go as their melancholic cover of “Why Don’t We Live Together” fades away.  Over the course of the eighties and early nineties, PSB would continue to top themselves time and again, but for a debut album, they came out swinging as a fully fledged pair of auteurs unlike anything else in the genre.  A genuinely stirring listen each and every time.

Top Tracks: "West End Girls" "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" "Suburbia" "Love Comes Quickly"

14) Somewhere in Time - Iron Maiden (51 minutes, Heavy Metal / Prog Metal)

Heavy metal is a genre utterly dominated by its many offshoots, subgenres and scenes in a way that few others seem to be.  Because of that, it tends to be hard to pick out what band epitomizes “heavy metal” the best.  Is it the bluesy riffs and doomy atmosphere of Black Sabbath?  The soaring vocals and anthemic choruses of Judas Priest?  The razor’s edge riffage and breakneck tempos of Metallica and Slayer?   The extended multi-part fantasy opuses and technical solos of Dream Theater?  All these bands have a place in the annals of metal history, but if you asked me to define everything good about the genre into a single group, it would be Iron Maiden, which combines all of those attributes into a kickass, overpowered quintet that functions in total lockstep.  On this project, Maiden’s sixth overall record and the fourth with legendary vocalist Bruce Dickinson at the helm, the group has buffed every rough edge from their earlier efforts and created a sleek, sound and peerless musical chemistry that allows the album to have no discernable weak moment.  In the first half of the decade, Maiden was all about immediate, ear-catching riffs and traditional song structures, adding a sort of punk energy to their classic heavy metal brew, resulting in countless classics.  However, on their previous record, the epic Powerslave, the group went all in on longer, more varied styles of composition, lending a more progressive edge to the material than ever before.  While both Powerslave and their follow up album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son are seen as their twin prog-metal era classics, this one can get lost in between but it’s nearly as good, blending the in your face guitar riffage and Dickinson’s acrobatic, anthemic hooks with more avant-garde song structures in a seamless way.  No song here is under five minutes, but rarely do you feel their length due to the band’s economy of songwriting, they don’t drag, instead there’s always a dazzling solo or another bone crushing riff just around the corner to keep you on the edge of your seat. 

The album opens with its knockout punch, the blistering “Caught Somewhere in Time”, a galloping barnstormer about the devil trading the power of time travel for a man’s mortal soul written by bassist and band leader Steve Harris, whose signature playing style gives a sense of charging forward momentum to each and every song.  The dueling twin guitar attack of Adrian Smith and Dave Murray weave in and out of each other with sizzling ferocity and copious, badass solo passages and the drumming from Nicko McBrain is as pulse-pounding as ever.  Dickinson’s one of a kind, soaring high tenor flies above the thunderous instrumentals, always cutting through the noise with his devilish charisma.  His voice adds a theatrical flair to the compositions, giving them a gravitas and sense of character without coming off as purely camp.  The album features a nonstop onslaught of kickass songs from the breakneck riffage of “The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner” to the shuffling, fuzzed out anthem “Stranger in a Strange Land”.  The album’s strongest point is the thundering “Wasted Years”, a riff-driven anthem about the band’s homesickness due to constant touring.  The song could work as a ballad, but instead they channel these somber emotions into another epic barnstormer, and that’s the mark of a band who knows what they do best.  The record closes, much like Powerslave, with a bombastic historical epic.  This time the band delivers “Alexander the Great”, an eight minute overview of the life of the world’s most fearsome conqueror, and the band eulogizes him in a blaze of glory, beginning with a somber wartime march before leaping into blistering, full throttle instrumental passages that could melt anyone’s face.  While the albums that bookend this one may have higher highs, this is a fantastic piece of the Maiden legacy and just another classic in their long list of eighties masterworks.  A great place to start for the uninitiated, and one of the many reasons why Maiden are the heavy metal band.

Top Tracks: "Wasted Years" "Caught Somewhere in Time" "Stranger in a Strange Land" "Alexander the Great"

13) Black Celebration - Depeche Mode (41 minutes, Synth-Pop / Darkwave)

If there was a singular defining sound of the 1980s, it would most likely be synth-pop.  By the end of the decade, synth-pop had gone from the fringes of new wave into subsuming nearly every genre from dance music, to alternative to mainstream pop, rock and even some R&B.  Part of that success is that synth-pop is one of the most adaptable genres out there, it can be home to a myriad of different sonic textures.  One of the first acts to really show the breadth of how synths can go from heavenly to hellish is the new wave pioneers Depeche Mode.  In 1981, they started out life as pure candyfloss synth-pop with songs like “Just Can’t Get Enough”, it was positively cute, but with each subsequent project they got darker and darker until this, their fifth album which sees the quartet dive as far into darkwave as they ever would.  This is a grim record, embracing the darkest, most eerie textures of their 80s work, blending the industrial percussion they had innovated on their past two records with sparser, chillier synth soundscapes which can feel utterly claustrophobic in their sheer intensity.  The album opening title track functions as a mission statement, how they relish these haunted textures.  The album does feel like a celebration of their bleakest impulses, each song has a creeping sense of emptiness in between the clattering percussion, off-kilter samples and sequencers.  While their previous two albums had dizzying highlights and a handful of tracks that felt more like production experiments than fully fleshed out songs, this is their first that holds together as a filler-free experience.  They streamlined their sound from an industrial behemoth into a well-oiled machine. 

The band’s songwriting continues to improve with each album, as Martin Gore’s lyrics continue to deepen.  He moves away from the literalness of songs like “People Are People” and instead revels in symbolism, mortality and barren, depraved sexuality.  With songs like thundering “Fly on the Windscreen”, or the aggressive yet sexy “Stripped” (a masterpiece of creative sampling, transforming a motorcycle engine into a driving bassline), Gore is elegantly able to blend the morose with the titillating, resulting in some of their most gripping experiments.  Alongside these darker epics, we still get a sense of DM’s pop sensibilities with tracks like the urgent synth-rocker “A Question of Time” and the soaring, gentle ballad “A Question of Lust” packing in more than their fair share of hooks, showing that even at their most somber, they were still aiming for the charts.  Beneath the layers of dense, industrial production, this comes off as one of Depeche’s most gentle, wounded albums, namely due to the vocal prominence of Martin Gore, who rarely gets to sing as much as he does on here.  His tentative, fragile vocals are perfectly suited to the softer ballads that make up the album’s middle section, and it allows for a staggering contrast with Dave Gahan’s much more commanding, sensual vocals.  If Gore’s voice is the conscience of the record, then Gahan functions as the devil on the listener’s shoulders.  Just as you feel that the album has drained you emotionally after the penultimate “New Dress”, a chilling critique of the way celebrity news constantly overshadows the tragedies of the common person, there is a glimpse of hope with the closing track, “But Not Tonight”, a brief reprieve from the darkness of the rest of the album, which shows that in spite of all their nihilism that Gore, Gahan and company still believe that there is hope for a better tomorrow.  While Depeche Mode would continue to refine their sound until 1990’s Violator, which can be seen as the apex of synth-pop in many ways, there is something special about this album they never quite recaptured anywhere else.  It is unrelentingly, aggressively dark, but in that inviting, seductive way that only Depeche Mode can manage.  A midcareer highlight from one of the best bands to ever pick up a synthesizer.

Top Tracks: "Stripped" "A Question of Time" "Black Celebration" "A Question of Lust"

12) King of America - Elvis Costello (39 minutes, Americana / Folk-Rock)

After a stretch of eight rock solid albums with his notorious backing band The Attractions, Elvis Costello found himself a solo act once again for the first time since his debut album.  Naturally the question was whether he would continue down the road of new wave and punk rock brilliance or pivot somewhere else entirely.  Costello, ever the unpredictable artist, ditched rock all together to deliver a thoughtful, sepia toned Americana album that ditched electric guitars for mandolins, fiddles and accordions.  This wasn’t his first stab at country music, as he recorded the overlooked Almost Blue (a decidedly solid album of classic country covers) back in 1981 with The Attractions, but this is the first time he tried his hand at writing these kinds of melancholic ballads himself.  Sonically, this is quite a departure for Costello, not just in instrumentation and genre, but in production as well.  Here he enlists T-Bone Burnett to helm the record, a country and folk veteran who cut his teeth as a part of Bob Dylan’s backing ensemble.  The crisp yet vintage feeling production sound suits the album’s nostalgic, but cutting songwriting style, with each song having the slight vinyl crackle and dry instrumentation that sounds like you discovered the record in a stack of oldies at your grandparents house.  It’s a far cry from the sonic punch of his records with Nick Lowe, but it works wonders for this series of songs. 

Lyrically, Costello isn’t as acid tongued as usual, these songs live more in the realm of melancholia, stories of regret and hopelessness rather than vitriol, which bleeds into his vocal performances which drip with a wounded twang rather than his usual nasal whine.  Songs like the heartbroken divorce song “Indoor Fireworks” or the swaying, tear-jerking album closer “Sleep of the Just” are about as close to classic country songs as you could possibly get, but elsewhere Costello combines his knack for a punchy, cutting hook with the genre conventions best shown in the dazzling album opener, “Brilliant Parade”, an acoustic rocker about Reagan era disillusionment with the American dream.  He paints a striking picture of a land where “Coca Cola pours like vintage wine”, with every lyric dripping with a palpable disdain.  It’s not far fetched to consider this to be his most outwardly political album (perhaps aside from 1979’s power pop masterpiece Armed Forces) with songs like the vicious folk dirge “Little Palaces”, a jaded, Dylanesque diatribe about how working class towns are being wiped off the map due to the creep of corporatization or the somber, accordion driven waltz “American Without Tears” an ode to the struggles of immigrants in the Post WWII era.  Costello also doesn’t shy away from uptempo bluegrass inflected tracks like “Lovable” and “Glitter Gulch”, but I find that the widescreen, cinematic ballads are much stronger both lyrically and emotionally.  He even reinterprets two country classics with the biting “Eisenhower Blues” and his sinister take on Nina Simone’s classic “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”.  Of all Costello’s albums, I posit that this is the biggest grower in his catalog, as it lacks the immediacy of his more pop and rock leaning albums, but if you really take your time with this one, you’ll find that his songwriting has rarely been more nuanced and fine-tuned.  Country music tends to be where Costello retreats again and again over the course of his career, particularly when he’s without a backing band.  While each of those outings has a handful of keepers, no other album gets to the root of his songwriting talents quite like this one.  The best British Americana album you’ll ever come across.

Top Tracks: "Little Palaces" "Brilliant Mistake" "Indoor Fireworks" "American Without Tears" "Sleep of the Just"

11) Raising Hell - Run-D.M.C. (39 minutes, Rap-Rock / Hip-Hop)

Run-DMC is an inflexion point in hip-hop.  There was a clear before and an after when it came to this duo of MCs, particularly with their third album, which was a door kicking declaration that rap music wasn’t just here to stay, it was poised to take over the mainstream.  With the help of Rick Rubin’s kickass production and a strategic Aerosmith feature, they would do exactly that.  While their previous two albums had flirted with overt rock influences in songs like “Rock Box” and “King of Rock” with Jam Master Jay’s predilection for sampling hard-hitting guitar licks here they kick that rock vibe up to eleven creating a rap-rock fusion that had never been seen before in hip-hop.  The most obvious example of this crossover is their straightforward cover of the classic rock staple “Walk This Way”, which sees the two MCs rap the original song lyrics over a kickass drum break and the original guitar lick before Steven Tyler himself comes in for the chorus.  This was massive for both Run-DMC’s mainstream cred and Aerosmith’s career resurgence, but it also just makes for a kickass song (certainly an improvement on the original in my book).  Elsewhere, the rock influence is less overt but just as infectious, with barn burners like “It’s Tricky”, “Is It Live” and the titanic title track “Raising Hell” all seeing Jam Master Jay scratch his way through some wicked, fuzzy guitar licks making for some in your face, heavy production that moves away from the bare drum and bass arrangements of their earlier tracks. 

When it comes to pure MCing, Run and DMC have rarely been stronger, delivering some rock solid punchlines in their classic style of finishing each other’s rhymes.  In a way, there aren’t two rappers here, it’s one two headed MC that is at the peak of its collective powers.  Opening the album with “Peter Piper” is a real statement of purpose, as they spit the best rhymes of their career in charismatic fashion over a sparse sample of literal bells being rocked (take that LL).  It’s that stripped back touch that differentiates the song from the album’s ensuing maximalism.  Outside of that song, it’s all big riffs and massive hype with songs like “Is It Live” and “Hit It Run” epitomizing the endless energy these guys have.  They are truly their own hypemen and they keep the album jumping through every single moment.  The boys demonstrate a real ear for pop hooks here, packing in some generational choruses, particularly “It’s Tricky”, which flips the power pop guitars of “My Sharona” into a hard driving, fist pounding anthem about the skills it takes to be an MC.  It’s hard to think of a more iconic 80s rap song, it’s everything good about that era of Def Jam rap rock crossover.  Lyrically, the boys are primarily on the braggadocious tip, but in 1986, nobody was rapping at their level.  They were the standard bearers before Rakim changed the game in ‘87.  Elsewhere the boys deliver a handful of non brag tracks like the surprisingly funny joke song “You Be Illin’”, the empowering closer “Proud to Be Black” and the ode to rocking only the illest kicks “My Adidas”.  To modern ears this album might seem wildly out of date in the same way a Little Richard or Chuck Berry might be, but in the same way it’s equally as revolutionary.  You might not always be in the mood for this somewhat elementary kind of hip-hop, but when you want some literal block rocking beats, there are few better places to find it.  In short, this shit rocks.

Top Tracks: "It's Tricky" "Peter Piper" "My Adidas" "Raising Hell"

10) Tinderbox - Siouxsie & The Banshees (38 minutes, Alt-Rock / Gothic Rock)

The Cure are usually touted as the posterboys of gothic rock, and they were certainly pioneers of the sound.  However, I’d argue equal credit goes to Siouxsie Sioux and her band of morose punks for steering the ship throughout the eighties and moving from the bleakness of industrial tinged post-punk into the wild world of colorful, dreamy psychedelia.  The history of these two bands have been entwined from almost the beginning, with their sonic blossoming paralleling one another (not to mention Cure frontman Robert Smith’s brief stint as Siouxsie’s lead guitarist in 1983), but somewhere along the line, Smith overtook Siouxsie in the annals of history.  I would suggest though, that in spite of their mutual experiments in the world of psychedelia, Siouxsie stayed much more entrenched in the world of gothic post-punk than Smith, who by the mid-80s was embracing indie-pop more than ever.  This album is a moody, hazy slab of heavy gothic rock, moving away from their more colorful albums like A Kiss in the Dreamhouse and Hyaena which came before.  It could be seen as a return to form for Siouxsie, with songs like the brutal dirge “This Unrest” or the nervy, rhythmic riffs of the opener “Candyman” harkening back to their stripped down beginnings with Juju and Kaleidoscope.  However, this album takes several lessons from the world of dreamy psychedelia, and crafts a particular sonic atmosphere of a smokey, cloudy post-apocalyptic haze which permeates every song. 

So much of their earlier work was all about sparseness, the silence between the notes being as important as the driving basslines, drums and robotic guitar lines.  Here you are awash in an enchanting, nightmarish ambience.  The album sounds exactly like the album cover, it’s remarkably cinematic at times, with no better example being the record’s hallmark single, the apocalyptic goth-funk of “Cities in Dust”, a song unlike anything else in their oeuvre.  Siouxsie delivers her wailing, impassioned vocals over top of a surprisingly groovy bass line and drum line from Steve Severin and Budgie, crafting an eminently danceable arrangement.  It’s post-apocalyptic disco, as no one else could possibly write a four on the floor stomper about the collapse of Pompeii.  Severin and Budgie in particular are the powerhouse of this album, with their locked-in grooves anchoring both the upbeat rockers and the creeping, unsettled ballads.  Severin in particular uses his bass in remarkably melodic ways, entwining his lines with John Valentine Carruthers’ spidery, occasionally jagged guitar work to craft an off-putting sonic atmosphere, like bugs crawling down your back.  While songs like “Cities in Dust” and “Candyman” are considerable highlights, the album is mainly comprised of hollowed out, moody ballads like “The Sweetest Chill”, a positively icy ode to her ghostly lover who comes to visit her at night or the bleak, churning “Land’s End”.  One of Tinderbox’s greatest strengths is in the song lengths, stretching to five or six minutes each allowing for the songs to build to dramatic climaxes, best exemplified by the sweltering “92°”, a haunting rocker about the heat driving innocent people to commit heinous crimes, continuously ratcheting up the tension like the best true crime dramas.  This album isn’t the most accessible from The Banshees, it might be the biggest grower in their catalog.  The hooks aren’t immediate, but with time, it has slowly become my Siouxsie of choice, as no one can conjure up a demented, deserted atmosphere quite like The Banshees.  Gothic rock rarely comes better.

Top Tracks: "Cities in Dust" "The Sweetest Chill" "92°" "Candyman"

9) Invisible Touch - Genesis (45 minutes, Pop-Rock)

By 1986 Phil Collins had gone from the drummer of a progressive rock band to one of the most successful pop stars on the planet.  You couldn’t call his career trajectory anything but extraordinary.  After his smash hit third solo record No Jacket Required, he was on top of the world and the question seemed to be whether or not he would continue with Genesis or abandon them for a career of solo stardom like their previous bandleader Peter Gabriel.  Collins’ answer was admittedly a little bit of both, resulting in an album that blurred the lines between the man and his band.  Some considered this to be Genesis selling out, but to me it feels more like a band changing with the times, not quite abandoning progressive rock entirely, but finally embracing their status as MTV darlings.  To me, pop isn’t a bad word, so this era of Genesis was the one I first fell in love with, and it remains a strikingly great pop rock album that still allows for a few signature Genesis left turns over its eight tracks.  The album’s title track opens up the project with its most overt pop move, a crackling energetic pop rock song sporting one of Collins’ most potent chorus hooks over top of some of the most blatantly eighties keyboards you’ve ever heard.  This is Genesis casting off every last bit of progressive artifice and making the pop song they always had in the tank, and there’s a sense of freedom that comes along with it.  It’s big dumb fun in the “Sussudio” mold, but embracing rock instead of funk textures.  The album’s other big pop moments are the two soft adult contemporary ballads, which were Collins’ bread and butter at the time.  “In Too Deep” is a plush, romantic keyboard driven number a la “One More Night”, but it’s the guitar-driven “Throwing It All Away” that steals the show.  Its remarkable lullaby-styled melody is perfect for Phil’s warm vocals which contrasts strikingly with the wounded lyrics about a painful breakup.  This song more than any other on the record demonstrates the trio’s utter mastery of the pop form, it’s a perfectly written ballad. 

While those were the biggest hits, the album doesn’t abandon prog all together, with some of its strongest moments feeling like they could have populated any other 80s Genesis record.  The eight minute monster “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight” sees the band go all in on the Miami Vice styled rock of the time, with a creeping synthetic ambiance and Collins’ wails of drug-fueled angst making for an epic listen.  The unsettled instrumental passage at the song’s center is a great showcase for Tony Banks’ mastery of synth textures, which he uses to differentiate each song’s sonic world.  No other chart-topping pop rock album would ever include songs like the ten minute multi-part suite “Domino” (a prog epic that can proudly stand next to anything from their 70s catalog) or the haunting quasi-industrial instrumental “The Brazilian”.  No song fuses the pop and prog worlds of Genesis better than the hard rocking slab of political commentary “Land of Confusion”, an urgent protest song about the inaction of world leaders that still resonates today.  It’s a powerful song, not just lyrically, but the walls of synths, heavy almost industrial 80s drums and Mike Rutherford’s razor sharp guitar riffs create a pulse pounding arrangement that mirrors the song’s lyrical urgency.  Invisible Touch is hard to place in the Genesis catalog, as it feels so distinct from their other material, it’s a Thriller in a discography filled with Fragiles, but that’s what makes it such a unique moment in their history.  It’s rare to see a progressive rock band embrace their pop instincts so successfully while maintaining what made them special to begin with.  Who cares if it’s selling out when it sounds this damn good. 

Top Tracks: "Throwing It All Away" "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" "Land of Confusion" "Invisible Touch"

8) True Blue - Madonna (39 minutes, Synth-Pop / Dance Pop)

It’s sometimes hard to pinpoint the exact moment where a pop star becomes larger than life, especially someone of such stature as Madonna, but on her third album she comes out swinging no longer as the ambitious ingenue of her first two records, but as a bonafide superstar.  True Blue crystallizes Madonna at her most intoxicatingly poppy.  These are blockbuster hits with knockout hooks coming at you from every angle, there are still instances of the glorious post-disco dance floor fillers that populated her first two albums, but there’s a sophistication and maturity to some of this material that would feel out of place on her first two records.  Her status as a pop auteur truly begins here, as it is her first record that features her as both a primary producer as well as a credited songwriter on each of the nine tracks.  She is no longer content to just be a performer, now she takes the artistic reins behind the scenes, just another example of her signature blonde ambition.  The change is evident from the opening notes of “Papa Don’t Preach”, a remarkably nuanced track featuring lyrics about a young mother dealing with the consequences of teenage pregnancy over top of stark, chamber pop strings.  It was wildly controversial in its day, and still to this day it feels like a daring subject for a massive hit song, but Madonna’s pleading, earnest delivery gives it an emotional heft that few other pop songs could manage.  That is immediately contrasted with one of the album’s lightest, most inviting moments, the alluring dance-pop of “Open Your Heart”, a romantic, sexy plea to her lover that feels like the maturation of everything good about her first two records. 

The dichotomy of the deliriously fun pop trifles alongside more thoughtful, boundary pushing songs is what makes this album so archetypally Madonna.  No one else would dare put a song as lightweight and silly as “Where’s the Party” next to the sensitive, wounded ballad “Live to Tell”.  While she had done ballads before, this one was different, there was a soulfulness and a heart-on-the-sleeve quality which made it feel as if she was singing it only for you.  Stylistically, Madonna has rarely been more open to playing with genre, as typically she finds a particular sonic palette for an entire album whether it be the electro-disco revival of Confessions on a Dance Floor, the R&B inflections of Bedtime Stories or the dazzling trip-hop of Ray of Light. However, here each track has a unique vibe, sometimes feeling like a greatest hits album.  She plays with the innocent bounciness of doo-wop on the ebullient title track as well as a suave, sensual Latin groove on the fantastic “La Isla Bonita” (anticipating the Latin pop craze by a decade) , even going so far as to turn the funky “White Heat” into a film noir homage by splicing in bits of classic film dialogue.  That freedom to follow every avenue that her muse takes her down makes the album feel slightly less cohesive than her later career classics, but that’s what makes this record such a unique gem in her catalog.  This seems like the moment where Madonna emerges from her chrysalis and flourishes as the pop butterfly she was always meant to be, even if it means going in every direction at once.  There’s a sense of wild creativity and joy that permeates this album, with Madonna and her collaborators Stephen Bray and Patrick Leonard blowing the doors off of what the expected Madonna sound was and allowing her to become not just a pop star, but the pop star of her era.  The aural coronation of pop’s reigning queen.

Top Tracks: "Papa Don't Preach" "La Isla Bonita" "Open Your Heart" "Live to Tell"

7) Rapture - Anita Baker (37 minutes, Quiet Storm / R&B)

Sometimes a voice so rich, so soulful comes along that you could genuinely listen to them sing the phonebook and it would still be an enjoyable experience.  Anita Baker has one of those rare voices, with such a mature, smooth and sultry quality that she can elevate the most banal material into the rafters of soul.  Thankfully, on her second album, her instrument is matched by the quality of material, delivering an album of smooth, quiet storm jams and gut wrenchingly soulful ballads that can stack up next to any classic R&B album of any era.  The songwriting here represents some of the best to be found in the quiet storm lane, full of rich, textured arrangements that blend jazzy keyboards with supple R&B rhythms, mature, lovelorn lyrics and graceful, soaring vocal melodies which allow Anita to show off the full range of her extraordinary voice.  Baker herself pens a few of the songs here, namely the supercharged hit single “Sweet Love”, a plush, romantic album opener which announces to the world that a new diva has entered the fray.  The song is awash in gorgeous keyboard swells and a swaying rhythm that underpins her joyous exclamations of love, it’s a heartening, almost gospel feeling song, extolling the virtues of her one of a kind love affair. 

The album does an outstanding job of distilling so many musical influences into Anita’s soulful homebrew.  There are touches of English sophisti-pop in the keyboard driven arrangements, with tracks like the suave, jazzy “Been So Long” taking some cues from fellow quiet storm sensations Sade, or in the gospel vocal arrangements that lift the supreme power ballad “You Bring Me Joy” far into the rafters.  The sense of sonic cohesion to this album is unmatched, it is as if Anita is serenading you and only you during a lovelorn set at the local dimly lit piano bar.  These songs are warm and tender, allowing a track like the sensuous “Caught Up in the Rapture” to sparkle in its enchanting intimacy.  Each chorus grabs you with a melodic fervor, these aren’t the kind of adult contemporary songs that go in one ear and out the other, instead they are masterfully crafted ear worms awash in smooth, jazzy instrumental textures.  Adult contemporary can sometimes be seen as elevator music, but with songs as gripping as the passionate “No One in the World” or the plush, bass-heavy bounce of “Same Ole Love”, no one could possibly find this bland.  Every song is written with a funky, rhythmic twist making sure that none are simple piano ballads, every moment here has a groove and bounce that sets it apart from rote adult contemporary dirges.  Instrumentally, Baker surrounds herself with a crack team of jazz and R&B pros, and their subtle, warm musical contributions never take center stage, but always elevate the songs, with Freddy Washington’s agile bass lines in particular shining on a deeper listen.  Rapture is the kind of sophomore album that every artist dreams of, it takes all of the strengths that were evident the first time around and capitalizes on them in a compact, filler-free package.  Over these eight songs, Anita’s presence is welcome and warm, inviting you to indulge in her romantic longings and sensual ecstasies, with each melisma deepening your connection.  On her future albums, Baker would go deeper and deeper into the realm of vocal jazz, marking this as perhaps her most pop-friendly album and I couldn’t recommend it more if you are new to her catalog, or the world of quiet storm more generally.  This is a foundational text of smooth, quiet storm soul and for forty glorious minutes, nothing could possibly sound better.  Pour a glass of wine, light the fireplace and relax into the gentle, soulful grooves of one of R&B’s brightest lights.

Top Tracks: "Caught Up in the Rapture" "Sweet Love" "Same Ole Love" "You Bring Me Joy"

6) Graceland - Paul Simon (42 minutes, Worldbeat / Singer-Songwriter)

By 1986 Paul Simon was no stranger to incorporating sounds and styles from around the world into his singer-songwriter stylings.  Back in Simon & Garfunkel he had played with Brazilian folk on “El Condor Pasa” and on his first solo record he delivered one of the first pop-reggae crossovers in the soothing “Mother and Child Reunion”.  However, on Graceland Paul Simon goes beyond inspiration and decides to record a full on world music album featuring an all star line-up of African musicians, creating an enthralling, endlessly warm fusion of African rhythms and American pop forms.  While Simon had never been as sparse and acoustic as some of his singer-songwriter peers, he had never recorded an album that feels quite so full of life, with energetic, warm instrumental parts illuminating each number.  The inherent grooviness of these songs make them stand out from most other albums in this genre, with each song packing rubbery bass lines and polyrhythmic percussion that keeps the album feeling so full of life.  The warm, chiming African guitar work on a song like the title track gives it such a spark and joy that couldn’t possibly come from simple acoustic strumming.  Each song crackles along at a skipping pace due to these undeniably talented instrumentalists along with the joyful backing vocalists like Ladysmith Black Mambazo who give each song a new color to paint with, particular their gorgeous spotlight number “Homeless”, a tribute to Isicathamiya music. 

Simon wasn’t without criticism for this album, as some accused him of cultural tourism, but personally, I feel that this album pays more than adequate tribute to the styles that influence him, with the use of authentic musicians from all over the continent giving them a greater spotlight on the world stage.  On songs like “I Know What I Know” and “Gumboots”, Simon cedes the stage entirely at certain moments to allow the musicians and vocalists to take control of the song and create moments of communal jamming emblematic of the township jive style.  Occasionally, the album will take a more traditional tack with moments like the gorgeous, picturesque title track, a thoughtful travelogue that examines the human desire to make a pilgrimage or the soft rock duet “Under African Skies” with Linda Ronstadt, both bolstered with highly melodic guitar lines.  The album’s strongest moments are where Simon’s typical compositional style fuses seamlessly with the African musical influences.  The most famous examples being the irresistibly funky and hilarious musical mid-life crisis “You Can Call Me Al” and the album’s centerpiece, “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes”, which begins with a stirring a cappella passage from Ladysmith Black Mambazo before exploding into a shimmering love song full of Simon’s quirky, pointed lyrical details, weaving a clever and humorous tale of love between two classes.  Both songs see the album perfect the fusion minded pop Simon was pioneering, they are infectiously joyful expressions of what worldbeat strives to be.  Simon doesn’t only play with African rhythms here, he also incorporates stylistic trademarks from American folk music such as the Zydeco swing of the opener “The Boy in the Bubble”, a cautiously hopeful song about the dangers of modern day living, or “All Around the World”, a collaboration with Mexican rockers Los Lobos.  This album is both deeply emblematic of the joy of Paul Simon and a surprising left turn for the folk singer, it is the most shining example of how he has never been content to make the same album twice, he consistently tries to expand the definition of what pop music can be, and on this album you can see the start of a future that never quite was.  Imagine a world where this became the blueprint for a new generation of cross-cultural pop music.  You can argue that with the rise of Afrobeats and Reggaeton that we are finally in that cultural moment.  It seems that Paul Simon was just ahead of his time.  A timeless celebration of how music can bring us all together.

Top Tracks: "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" "Graceland" "The Boy in the Bubble" "You Can Call Me Al" "Homeless"

5) So - Peter Gabriel (46 minutes, Art-Pop / Pop-Rock)

t’s far from rare in the music world to go from an underground outsider to a mainstream star, but typically the artist has to make an effort to “go pop”.  Yet in the curious case of Peter Gabriel’s fifth album, it appears that instead of bending to the mainstream, the mainstream bent to him, becoming arguably the 80s biggest accidental pop icon.  Over the course of his previous four albums (all of which are obtusely self-titled), Gabriel had carved out a niche all together distinct from the nerdy progressive rock of his work as Genesis’ frontman instead pioneering art rock and new wave.  While he experimented with ambient texturing, gated drum sounds and electronics, he was quietly honing his pop instincts behind all the avant-garde extravagance, with each album sporting a song or two that showed off his way with a straight ahead hook (“Solsbury Hill”, “Games Without Frontiers” and “Shock the Monkey” are some of the more famous examples).  Here though, he seems less reluctant to take the spotlight and makes a few concessions to the mainstream (like picking an actual album title), but by no means does he abandon his artier tendencies, maintaining his signature weirdness.  The album’s biggest pop swings see Gabriel going for a funk and R&B style, which his impassioned voice is an unusually good fit for.  “Sledgehammer” along with its mind-blowing music video is the best example of Gabriel writing a straight up pop-rock song, delivering a powerful, hooky slice of horn-driven pop-funk.  His performance has a striking charisma as he delivers each lyrical innuendo.  He’s the best ersatz, awkward soul man this side of Bowie.  “Big Time” sees him go to the limits of pop plasticity, with its chaotic, churning groove but it works as a deeply self aware parody of the overwhelming commercialization of the eighties, with each lyric skewering the song’s own pop ambitions. 

It’s rare to see an album be so deeply at odds with itself, but that is what makes it such a gripping listen. Gabriel doesn’t fully abandon the synthetic art-rock textures of his previous work, opening the album with the driving “Red Rain”, a moody rocker about the possibility of nuclear fallout and its environmental costs, a pretty bleak way to open a supposed “sell out” album.  He has a truly uncanny ability to blend  his signature coldness and ambient texturing with a more accessible brand of songwriting, with the stirring, gentle “Mercy Street” being the best example (you can really hear the influence of the album’s producer Daniel Lanois here, fresh off his work with U2).  On each song you can hear Gabriel’s embrace of world music textures, especially in the rhythm tracks which use African percussive elements which pair surprisingly well with the ambient synths.  Gabriel’s sensitivity as a balladeer truly comes to the fore, embracing the gentle soulfulness of his voice for what seems like the first time on the aching, gorgeous ballad “Don’t Give Up”, an uplifting duet with the legendary Kate Bush.  He finally is able to cast off the artifice of all the character voices he would employ in Genesis and sings as himself, and it is strikingly beautiful.  The gospel bent of the song’s bridge allows for him to emote in a way he never had before, every single time I listen to it, it gives me chills.  He closes the album with its most triumphant pop moment, the soaring, soulful ballad “In Your Eyes”, a simple, deeply poetic love song with Gabriel at his most earnest.  The way his voice blends with Senegalese vocalist Yossou N’Dour is a match made in heaven.  It’s challenging to put the sheer emotional power of “In Your Eyes” into words, it’s a special, magical kind of song that touches deep in your heart with each listen.  It is the closest thing to secular worship music I’ve ever encountered and a perfect album closer.  It’s somewhat surprising that this album was as popular as it became, as Gabriel hardly sanded much of his experimental edge away, but it seems when the hooks are this potent, you can’t keep people away.  While his first four albums are gripping in their experimental nature, I’ll always be most drawn to this one because I’m a pop kid at heart.  Gabriel’s accidental blockbuster isn’t your usual chart-topper, and that’s why forty years on it’s still an undisputed art pop classic.

Top Tracks: "In Your Eyes" "Sledgehammer" "Don't Give Up" "Red Rain" "Mercy Street"

4) Parade - Prince & The Revolution (41 minutes, Art-Pop / Psychedelic Soul)

Prince always had a singular vision.  He was a sonic artisan who created entire subgenres practically on his own, reinventing the sound of funk, R&B and pop for a brand new decade, and typically, he worked best alone.  His intense drive to constantly be creating meant that he ran through collaborators at a breakneck pace, as so few people could keep up with him.  Yet, for a brief period in the mid-80s, Prince found a pair of kindred spirits who didn’t just keep up with him, they greatly impacted his sound and took him in new directions that he never would have considered without their input and inspiration.  Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman are two titanic figures in the history of Prince, as key members of his spectacular backing band The Revolution.  Coming off of Around the World in a Day, a psychedelic pop-soul masterpiece that saw Prince embrace influences outside the R&B world more than ever, he seemed content to let their musical style seep even deeper into his songwriting and arranging process.  Parade is perhaps the only Prince album that I would call a true collaboration between Prince, Wendy and Lisa, who co-wrote a few of the album’s strongest moments, and encouraged Prince to continue his psychedelic experimentations, and blend them with sweeping, cinematic orchestrations with a real continental feel.  It’s hard to place this record into a specific genre box, as Prince is pulling from so many distinct influences on each and every track.  He opens the album with the frenetic psych-pop of “Christopher Tracy’s Parade” before barreling right into the percussive funk slapper “New Position” which then transitions seamlessly into the spaced out “I Wonder U” (a rare lead vocal turn from Wendy herself) before settling into the waltzing, moonlit serenade “Under the Cherry Moon”.  The album’s opening salvo is a dizzying medley of new sounds, unlike anything that came on a previous Prince album.  He seems like he’s functioning at his most creatively free.  There are no rules on this album, and he’s painting with a whole palette of new instrumental colors, with the inclusion of the orchestra adding a cinematic flair to many of the songs, particularly the plush instrumental “Venus de Milo”. 

Much like Purple Rain this album functions both as a standalone record and the soundtrack to a movie (the wildly unsuccessful romance “Under the Cherry Moon”, a film that tests the patience of even Prince’s biggest fans), which explains the European flair of some of the ballads.  However, they never feel “in character”, but instead they seem like a natural continuation of the last album’s wild experiments.  In no way does this mean Prince doesn’t indulge in the funk that he does best here.  He delivers quite a few no-frills grooves like the sweaty, horn-heavy stomper “Girls & Boys” or the legendary “Kiss”.  “Kiss” sticks out on this album, as it doesn’t sound like anything else here with its irrepressibly sparse, snappy groove and chicken grease funk guitar licks, but its pure pop appeal and Prince’s sexy, swaggering delivery make it not just an album highlight, but one of his greatest treasures.  The album soars when he blends the psychedelic textures of the more experimental moments with his meat and potatoes Minneapolis funk like the groovy “Mountains”, a joyful showcase for the full band or the churning synth-driven funk of “Anotherloverholenyohead”.  Prince expands his network of musical collaborators here beyond just The Revolution, with new faces like Eric Leeds, trumpeter Atlanta Bliss and the iconic drummer Sheila E all making their first appearances, all of whom would make up the core of Prince’s post-Revolution, pre-New Power Generation line-up.  After Parade, Prince would disband The Revolution before his next album, the explosion of creativity Sign ‘o’ the Times, so this record functions as a sort of swan song for his most openly collaborative years.  Fittingly, he ends the record with one of his most plaintive, touching ballads, the gorgeous acoustic “Sometimes It Snows in April”.  The song is ostensibly about his character in the film, but if you look beyond the obvious it feels like a touching goodbye to The Revolution, with Prince passing on to his next creative life.  Appropriately, Wendy and Lisa coauthored the song with Prince, and their stunning three part harmonies make it so that I can never make it through the song without finding myself moved to tears.  It is the hidden gem of his catalog, so if you haven’t heard it I urge you to do so.  While this may lack the immediate pop appeal of an album like Purple Rain or the endless ambition of Sign ‘o’ the Times, in recent years this has become one of his most rewarding listens in my mind.  Prince has always been a musical risk-taker, but rarely does it ever pay off as stunningly as it does on this album.  The Revolution’s last stand, and by God they made it a good one.

Top Tracks: "Kiss" "Sometimes It Snows in April" "Mountains" "Girls & Boys" "Anotherloverholenyohead"

3) Control - Janet Jackson (41 minutes, Minneapolis Sound / Contemporary R&B)

Sometimes an artist bursts out onto the scene so explosively that you can split pop culture into a before and an after, and with her blockbuster breakthrough album Control, Janet Jackson became one of those rare few artists.  Many people think that Control is Janet’s debut record, but in fact it was her third, with her first two projects stuck in the dated teen pop mold and her image being managed by her domineering father, after he had been fully cast out of her older brother Michael’s career.  These two albums did absolutely nothing to move the needle or make her a household name, so Janet, at the young age of twenty cast him aside and blazed a new trail on her own, embracing the brand new sounds of Minneapolis funk and the burgeoning world of New Jack Swing.  She found two expert co-conspirators in the dynamite production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, fresh off of making hits for local Minneapolis funk acts and getting kicked out of Prince’s pet project, Morris Day & The Time.  The three were a match made in heaven, with Jam and Lewis’s inventive, percussion forward production sound and Janet’s inimitable, rebellious stage presence crafting a striking, futuristic pop record that would influence the sound of pop’s next decade and a half.  Sonically, Jam and Lewis take a lot of cues from Prince’s purple funk sound, using his signature Linn drum programming to craft synth-heavy dance-floor slammers with sequenced keys and throbbing bass lines.  They innovated on his sound, taking out the more overt funk elements and focusing in on ridiculously hooky synth melodies as the track’s core element.  There is a sparseness to these tracks, stripping the grooves down to the bare bones which allows for sleek, fully optimized pop music.  Some may say this percussive, dance-pop sound is dated, I’d say it feels remarkably current, I’m not sure that Janet’s brand of New Jack pop will ever fully go out of style.  You can still hear so many elements of Control’s DNA in modern pop. 

While Jam and Lewis are the innovators behind the boards, Janet more than holds her own as both a songwriter and a performer.  Her lyrics throughout the album are defiant and progressive, with songs like the brilliant title track functioning as self-possessed slices of feminism primed for the club.  “Control” opens the album with a spoken word intro before the beat kicks in and Janet, with her always soft yet powerful vocals reams out the people in her life trying to dictate her journey.  It’s exhilarating every time, watching her step into her power over a slamming beat.  Her self-actualizing pop journey ties all three of the first songs together from the title track into the brassy, slamming “Nasty”, a hot and heavy danceable throwdown about jackass guys harassing her on the street and closing out with the smoking, stripped down groove “What Have You Done for Me Lately”, a brutal critique of her partner’s laziness in their relationship.  These songs, in addition to being timeless bangers, are powerful statements about not settling for less than what you deserve.  Pop music and feminism have always been in conversation, but it was rare to see a performer say the quiet part out loud so defiantly on her number one hit singles.  That trio of songs would be enough to catapult any record to stardom, but Janet doesn’t let up on the back half with more joyful tracks like the shimmering, sweet “When I Think of You”, a sparkly keyboard driven number or the steamy funk of “The Pleasure Principle”.  While the uptempo songs are the highlights more often than not, she even delivers a knockout ballad with the swaying, soft love song “Let’s Wait Awhile”, a mature, thoughtful song about not wanting to get physical too early in the relationship.  By the time you get to the plush, sensual closer “Funny How Time Flies”, you can’t help but be struck with the agency and power of these songs.  Janet pulls on punches here, these are thoughtful, progressive pop songs that still resonate today in how young women are treated in society.  Janet, Jam and Lewis would continue their collaborations across almost all of her future projects, diving into politics, sexuality and feminism even more deeply and with an ever expanding sonic palette, but for a first time out this is more than you can ever ask for .  Iit provided the blueprint for New Jack Swing to take over the world for the next few years.  This is well and truly everything I could ever ask for out of a pop record, and whenever I’m in the mood to lace up my dancing shoes and lose control, you can be sure I’m throwing this one on the turntable.

Top Tracks: "Nasty" "What Have You Done for Me Lately" "The Pleasure Principle" "When I Think of You" "Let's Wait Awhile"

2) Skylarking - XTC (49 minutes, Psychedelic Pop / Chamber Pop)

Pop culture is always on a cycle.  What once was passe soon becomes trendy all over again.  Nostalgia is a powerful thing, and a revival is always around the corner, but rarely do these revivalist efforts ever stack up to the real thing.  XTC’s masterful psychedelic pop song cycle Skylarking is one of those rare few outings that goes beyond pure revivalism and becomes a classic within the genre it pays tribute to.  There are shades of the effortless melodies of The Beatles, the twee aesthetics and deeply British lyrical style of The Kinks and the chamber pop orchestrations of The Zombies all over this record, but it never feels like a copy.  Instead songwriters Andy Patridge and Colin Moulding find the perfect mid-point between the ersatz new wave of their earlier career and the gentle, swaying sunshine pop of their sixties heroes.  At times it’s hard to tell if the record is from 1986 or 1966, and the only way to tell is in the subtle washes of atmospheric synths.  There were hints of Partridge and Moulding’s embrace of psychedelic pop textures on their earlier albums, particularly their EP 25 O’Clock (released under the silly nom de plume The Dukes of Stratosphear), which was a bold faced parody of psychedelic sixties tropes.  Yet, here they earnestly explore the genre with some of their most thoughtful songwriting ever.  Songs like the bouncy, power-pop of “Earn Enough for Us” or the plush drive of “Mermaid Smiled”, which have melodies that McCartney would kill for, and embrace the aesthetics of pure pop in a way that Partridge had never tried before.  The album opens with a transportive medley of the warm, gentle guitars of “Summer’s Cauldron” segues into Moulding’s nostalgic and pastoral “Grass” and closing out with “The Meeting Place”, which crafts an intoxicatingly summery atmosphere that permeates the entire album. 

Texturally, the band has rarely sounded warmer, eschewing the off-kilter, jagged rhythms of their post-punk era and instead embracing the feel of sunshiney, psychedelic pop with ease.  Partridge’s guitar licks feel like they could be from any classic sixties record, but at times he is able to blend that with a slight post-punk edge like “That’s Really Super, Supergirl”, a witty breakup song with a more acidic guitar tone than anything you’d find on a Fab Four record.  For the most part, Andy Partridge sands the edges off of his songwriting style, crafting a warm, inviting atmosphere, with the only exception being the shattering “Dear God”, a blistering acoustic takedown of the countless hypocrisies of the Christian faith and its institutions.  Even that still fits snugly in the album’s sonic universe with its swirling, nightmarish string arrangement.  The album is a masterpiece of sequencing, telling two simultaneous stories, paralleling the human life cycle from birth to death to the changing of the seasons throughout the year.  The concept is loose, and doesn’t follow a specific plotline, which allows each song to stand on its own easily in a way that more traditional concept albums can’t quite manage.  Songs like the sweeping, gorgeous “Ballet for a Rainy Day” and the bouncy, jangle-pop “Season Cycle” are innocent enough at first glance, but they capture profound truths about the passage of time if you give them a closer look.  The tension of Patridge’s lyrical melancholy with the sickly sweet upbeat pop arrangements makes for a stirring listen, allowing for his most acerbic observations to pass you by if you don’t listen hard enough.  This is an album that invites you to listen again and again, always discovering a new sonic detail or lyrical twist each time you revisit it.  While Partridge and Moulding’s songs are the heart of the album, some of the most impressive work comes from the legendary Todd Rundgren’s shimmering production work, letting each song sparkle and shine, particularly with the gorgeous orchestrations that allow moments like the melancholic string-laden “1000 Umbrellas” and the jazzy, swinging “The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul” reach their fullest potential.  By the time the album comes to a close with the pastoral, acoustic strums of “Sacrificial Bonfire”, a song which vividly captures the blend of hope, renewal and deep heartbreak that comes with death, it feels like you’ve been taken on a lifelong journey in only forty five minutes.  It’s hard to fully describe this album in words, it feels like a synesthetic experience in a way that little music does.  This music is truly transportative, you can feel the breeze blow through your hair, you can taste the ripeness of the fruits and you can feel the warmth of the summer sun throughout each track.  XTC had, and would continue to make some of the most forward thinking and clever pop music of the alternative era.  On this album they transcend their time and make one of the most enthralling, pop albums of all time. 

Top Tracks: "Earn Enough for Us" "That's Really Super, Supergirl" "Ballet for a Rainy Day" "Grass" "Dear God"

1) The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths (36 minutes, Jangle-Pop / Indie Rock)

While the nineties might be seen as the decade where alternative music subsumed the mainstream in the most dramatic way, I would argue that its eighties alternative and indie that still casts the largest shadow on today’s music scene.  Perhaps the greatest lesson learned from eighties alternative is that there is something beautiful, romantic and enchanting about melancholia, and in my mind there is no band that finds the morbid romance in depression quite like The Smiths.  Over their first two records, the quartet had honed a distinct sound, fusing the bouncy, jangle-pop riffs courtesy of Johnny Marr with Morrissey’s keening, dramatic vocals and acerbic, witty lyrics finding the perfect balance of gallows humor, tragic Shakespearean queer romance and brutal, wounded honesty.  On this record they make the leap from somewhat ramshackle arthouse indie pop into a widescreen cinematic experience.  The production value on this album allows these songs to shine and feel far more epically expansive than ever before, case in point being the bombastic title track which opens the album after a brief snippet of the English folk song “Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty”.  The track soars with a shimmering, glossy production texture courtesy of their new producer Stephen Street that their rawer early work lacked, allowing the group to paint in deeper shades of blacks and greys than ever before.  “The Queen Is Dead” opens the album with their most outwardly political track yet, with Morrissey spinning an acidic takedown of the monarchy and its endlessly empty pomp and circumstance over Marr’s furious guitar feedback before tying it back into his own somber, self-isolation.  A track like this couldn’t have fit on an earlier Smiths project, its massive scope and instrumental attack announce an evolution of their sound, this is no longer a little indie band, they are well and truly rock stars, just of the very unassuming variety.  This sense of a grander scale works wonders for the album’s heavier tracks like the blistering “Bigmouth Strikes Again”, a fuzz guitar drenched rocker chronicling Morrissey’s own history of putting his foot in his mouth.  It’s a violent, impulsive screed that borders on punk rock, and is one of the album’s most gripping and revealing moments. 

By no means is this a full on rock album though, many of the strongest moments see the band embrace their softer, jangle-pop roots like the morbidly joyful “Cemetery Gates”, a lilting pop song about reciting poetry with his lover in a graveyard or the goofy “Frankly Mr. Shankly”, a witty kiss-off to a former employer full of laugh out loud one liners.  The band crafts a perfect counterpoint to “Bigmouth” with the gentle, swaying “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side”, a light, airy tune which sees Morrissey at his most innocent and wounded, hoping for the world to see the love in his heart behind all the latent cynicism in his lyrics.  The album hides much of its emotional core behind outbursts of self-laceration and pointed, dark humor but in the moments when Morrissey’s earnest heartbreak emerges from behind the curtain, the album hits its highest notes.  The centerpiece of the A-Side, “I Know It’s Over” might be the band’s most emotionally raw song, a bleak, despairing look at loneliness.  Over top of a funereal guitar tone, Morrissey wails for someone to help him out of the grave he has dug for himself, and it’s deeply affecting.  On the other hand, there are few songs as optimistic and heartening as the angsty romance of “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”, a love song with a brutal Smiths twist.  It’s rare to see a romantic moment played so straight in their catalog, until the anthemic chorus hits and the light begins to fade from the eyes of the lovers.  The morbidity of the track is counterbalanced with how pure and simple the romance is, there’s no other song that quite captures the experience of teenage angst and romanticized melancholia quite like this one.  The melody is uplifting and built for arenas of fans to sing along to, with Marr’s enchanting, warm guitar licks wrapping their way around Morrissey’s deliciously double edged lyrics crafting an anthem for the outcasts and hopelessly depressed romantics of the world.  You’d think a song of that magnitude would be a perfect album closer, but The Smiths never take the easy way, instead they close with the atmospheric “Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others”, a song which allows Marr to create one of the album’s most enthralling, textural guitar lines over which Morrissey delivers a nonsensical, doofy lyric.  To some it might be a copout to end such an emotionally powerful record on such a silly note, but that’s such an archly Smiths thing to do.  There’s always a joke or a barb there to cover for the sensitivity underneath, and I find that to be so resonant through the years.  As Morrissey himself states on the album, “it takes strength to be gentle and kind”, and in spite of all the melancholia, this is at its core a gentle album.  A deathless classic for legions of sensitive, romantic souls and a landmark of indie music that has rarely, if ever, been surpassed. 

Top Tracks: "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" "I Know It's Over" "Cemetery Gates" "Bigmouth Strikes Again" "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side"