Acclaimed Music Top 25 Albums from 1983 poll

i think this one is almost impossible, know a lot more albums and thus think this one might be the best set of albums yet.

I'm sure Murmur's too obvious to win, but an easy vote for me. Madonna or Minor Threat next, then Cyndi Lauper.

said fuck it and voted for Def Leppard

I may have listened to Love Wars more often in the last three years than any of these -- one for the "classic albums I just discovered" thread.

other than Madonna the rest strike me as meh. A better year for singles.

^ditto

I voted for High Land. Because I know it won't get very many votes.

It won't win, but it sure does deserve to.

the other discovery: Sweet Dreams. It's excellent!

for a Eury studio album

This is the weakest year so far for me but there are a few classic albums on this list. New Order, Cyndi Lauper, Aztec Camera, Womack & Womack and Madonna are all great but it has to be between R.E.M and The Blue Nile.

A few missing from the list,

Jonathan Richaman & The Modern Lovers-Jonathan Sings
Soft Cell-The Art Of Falling Apart
Yellow Magic Orchestra-Naughty Boys
OMD-Dazzle Ships
Altered Images-Bite
Cocteau Twins-Head Over Heels

Violent Femmes all the way

OMD-Dazzle Ships

Would have been a tough decision for me, had this been on the list.

Big drop down from 82 and 81... things seem to be getting more professional.

Pretty clearly, things took a turn here to valuing execution over ideas. Which was probably a fair corrective after New Pop's high-concept pomp.

Not to my taste though.

Will probably vote for Cyndia Lauper, but I'm curious about Womack & Womack so I'm at least checking that out before voting. The title track is a little familiar, but only vaguely so.

Blue Nile over Aztec Camera and The The because it still resonates.

Voted Cyndi

Several I want to vote for, but Eliminator all the way.

kill em all vs high land hard rain

What the fuck is Acclaimed Music

Blue Nile v Aztec Camera

Aztec Camera because Roddy has more bad albums than the Blue Nile have proper albums.

Eurythmics...

Ship otm

Tom Waits

Top 3 ranking for Synchronicity is just bonkers

Murmur over Violent Femmes

Synchronicity is pretty good!!

Tracks 2 thru 5 are all a bit rubbish though

Walking in your foooootsteeeeppppps...

Yeah, I would seriously consider voting for Synchronicity if not for my hatred of "Wrapped Around Your Finger." Otherwise, I'm pretty much w/contenderizer: Likely it's Murmur, although I could vote for Cyndi, too. (If this was Madonna's "Like A Virgin" it'd be that, easy.)

Tom Waits for me. Not keen on this list in general, though, not a particularly hard decision.

R.E.M. - Murmur
Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues
Bad Brains - Rock for Light

^ this is surprisingly difficult. picking the best single from all albums listed would be damn near impossible.

metallica, def lep, zz top and eurythmics riding close behind those four

Hmmm... It's between New Order and the Blue Nile for me. As others have said, I wish "Dazzle ships" was there.

Tracks 2 thru 5 are all a bit rubbish though

Well I kinda like "Miss Gredenko" but that's true, still side 2 is basically the best adult contemporary shit ever,

violent femmes

torn between Power Corruption & Lies and Love Wars

violent femmes by little bit over the Talking Heads

A bunch of stuff I like that didn't make the list:

The Go-Betweens - Before Hollywood
Yello - You Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess
Virginia Astley - From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
The Fall - Perverted By Language
The Chameleons - Script of the Bridge
Brian Eno - Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks
Minutemen - What Makes a Man Start Fires?
Sonic Youth - Confusion Is Sex
King Sunny Adé - Synchro System
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Naughty Boys
Echo & the Bunnymen - Porcupine

The Go-Betweens - Before Hollywood
King Sunny Adé - Synchro System
Brian Eno - Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks

^^^ truth

I've never actually listened to the whole Eurythmics album. Checking it out before I vote (between Cyndi and The Police, at the moment).

KILL EM ALL

Waits, who will certainly not win this poll.

gotta be lauper

Missing, big time:

Fred Frith's 1983 album Cheap at Half the Price is one of the most underrated rock albums, ever. The first side is all inventive pop songs and should have warmed the hearts of those looking for good political lyrics in the Reagan 80s ("Cap the Knife" includes killer Reagan snippets). The second side is very accessible weird little instrumentals.

The Undertones' final album The Sin of Pride, a sort of concept album about Catholic guilt, which wasn't even released in the US, has been unfairly dismissed for years. It is flawed in parts to be sure, but contains some really glorious material and some of their most interesting melodies, as well as the best Motown covers ever done in the British isles.

Eno's Apollo was a real good ambient record, and so was Jon Hassell's Aka / Darbari / Java. Good times, man, I was 19 and you know what that means. All that ambient was like a big cushy room to go bounce our psyches for a soft landing.

It makes me glad that anyone would list an Altered Images album on this forum. 1983 was my summer of Clare Grogan/Bill Forsyth/Altered Images fanaticism. You have no idea. While Bite was an understandable and not successful retreat from the total vortex that was Pinky Blue, I still got major kicks there. Thanks, Kitchen Person.

Murmur used to mean a lot to me (I never heard it in 83 because seriously, "Radio Free Europe" might as well have been John Cougar on the radio.....got to know REM later and ended up liking the whole album a lot.) The last time I heard it though, sounded thin.

On this list, Swordfishtrombones is easily the best album. I would possibly list it even ahead of the Frith album, but seriously people: you should HEAR the damned Frith album. Cuz I bet you never have.

some albums just missing the Top 25 include: 26 Eurythmics - Touch, 27 Elvis Costello and The Attractions - Punch the Clock, 28 U2 - Under a Blood Red Sky, 29 Lionel Richie - Can't Slow Down, 30 Big Country - The Crossing, 31 King Sunny Adé - Synchro System, 32 The Go-Betweens - Before Hollywood, 34 Echo and the Bunnymen - Porcupine, 36 Dio - Holy Diver, 38 X - More Fun in the New World, 41 Mötley Crüe - Shout at the Devil, 42 UB40 - Labour of Love and 43 Bob Dylan - Infidels.

wasn't able to post that yesterday...

I agree with Alfred. A much better year for singles than albums. Madonna > New Order > REM > Talking Heads.

Fred Frith's 1983 album Cheap at Half the Price is one of the most underrated rock albums, ever.

I played this album obsessively about after first hearing it, about ten years after it came out. I haven't listened to it for ages. It seemed pretty uneven after a while, but I'm pretty sure I'd still find things to like on it.

KILL EM ALL

I played Colour by Numbers constantly back when it came out so I guess I have to vote for it?

Shit this is tough!

Power, Corruption & Lies

well i'm voting Violent Femmes even if i haven't heard it in the longest time. it was probably one of my first albums ever that i fell in love with. today i play Power, Corruption & Lies most, mainly because the remastered version sounds so amazing.

Colour By Numbers is a good record.

Blue Nile

I would so vote for Perverted by language

Watch, first chance to vote for The Fall will be 85 and that's when I'll vote for Up on the Sun

Murmur, very easily.

(If Fred Frith, Sonic Youth, and Brian Eno were on the list, that would be another story.)

Like the '81 list, two strong contenders for me (Murmur and Power, Corruption & Lies) overshadowed by the one I honestly played more than the other two combined: Violent Femmes.

Big love for Djam Lili, though. I didn't discover it 'til years after the fact, but man what a beautiful record.

rem over def leppard, new order; would also so vote perverted by language

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I would totally vote for "Dazzle Ships" if it were an option. As it is, there's nothing I'm that excited about here, though I may throw a vote to Minor Threat, the Femmes or, uhhh, Def Leppard.

In fact it's a little weird how unexcited I am about this list given that my drunken youtube sessions usually end up with me muttering to myself about how 1983 was the best year ever - but mainly for italo/minimal synth/NDW singles and not, it seems, for albums.

Half this list are albums I've played to exhaustion (Talking Heads, Eurythmics, Aztec, Billy Bragg, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Blue Nile, Cyndi, Billy Idol). The other half are albums I've never heard (ZZ Top, Def Leppard, The The, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Police.)

Madonna stands up best for me. Loved Synchronicity, War, Pyromania, Speaking in Tongues, and singles from most of the rest at the time. Loved Violent Femmes and Minor Threat a year later.

Some great stuff, but when looking beyond 25 albums, 1983 was when things started going horribly wrong in the 80s with production choices, fashion...

well, the eighties started in 1983...

i dunno i'd pick 1985 as that year. by 1986 there were no good albums left

Its just a bunch of metal, Skylarking, and the Colour of Spring

^^will be disproven as nonsense when we get to the 1986 poll

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_in_music#Albums_released

Voted Soul Mining

will be disproven as nonsense when we get to the 1986 poll

just read that wiki article, mostly filled with artists past their peak

I obviously don't literally mean nothing good was released but the whole 85-89 era was kind of a blight

a wikidump of every album released in a given year is not remotely as compelling an argument as a list of the 25 most highly regarded albums in a year

well be my guest and look it up, certainly there are a few good-to-great albums in there but compared to the 79-82 lists it's really lacking

Your view on the awesomeness of 1986 might depend on how much you like metal imo

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

happy about that madonna placing, wah about minor threat getting blanked, billy idol deserved a vote also

Bowie shut out!

wow pyromania nearly shut out, insane

been a long time since I listened to Swordfishtrombones, that was a bit cool though I didnt really know what to think of it at the time

Wiki: In 1989, Spin Magazine named Swordfishtrombones the second greatest album of all time.

!!!!!

I missed Let's Dance! Loved that one as much as the others at the time.

I voted Madonna, although at the time Cyndi would've benn my choice. Both classics though.
Other favorites back then were Culture Club and Eurythmics. I was 10.

aw, sad there wasn't one HC die-hard for Minor Threat

i listened to Power, Corruption & Lies today, such a great album.

anyways, i'm taking the July 4th week off and will return next week with 1984. it's going to be the Summer of the 80's (even if i started with 1979) and then maybe a run off after 1989 poll.

forgot to vote in this poll. probably would have wound up throwing another point to speaking in tongues, which really deserved better. a great album sadly overshadowed by slightly greater ones.

Missed the vote boat, probably would've gone Soul Mining, but...

I voted for Murmur!