Tuesday, December 08, 2009



1980-89 VS 2000-09  - which decade produced the best music?
The usual bunch of end of year music lists are starting to rear their ugly heads right about now, and to top it all off, we get end of the decade lists like this one, from the NME. I own one record on this list. Probably not the target audience, then! Then there's the top 500 songs/albums of the past decade, via Pitchfork...

I got to thinking, how does this past decade compare with, say, the 1980s? There's a major thread of thinking about music that suggests that the 80s was a dire, tacky time for music - think Dire Straits or Wham, to name but two offenders. I find that line of thinking completely unfathomable, when I recall all the incredible music I discovered in that era, from rap, reggae dancehall, to post-punk and more...

So lets try this list, Top100 albums of the 80s.  Let the fun begin.

And for some light relief, The Worst Album Covers of 2009.

2 comments:

Felix said...

I find it absurd that the term "80s music" is usually used only to refer to the most banal music produced in that period.

To me it's akin to thinking that the music of the 60s is best exemplified by, say, The Monkees, or that the past decade is best remembered as the era of Avril Lavigne.

Peter McLennan said...

Felix- good call. It's weird that term has become a signal for bad taste...