1980

Living in the 80s!  So it's Easter, the rebirth, and also April 1st by the time this gets posted where I am (glad it's still set to West Coast time for once).  This year is one of the best, perhaps because  it's kinda still the 70s.  I used to think the 80s was the best, but upon making these lists that's false, though there was a lot of great music and really the last time the  mainstream was at all acceptable.  This year, though, is so great so it gets  the hopefully unique privilege of me breaking the rules and doing 11 albums.  This was mostly due to a late error, though, iycbt.

11.  DEVO - Freedom of Choice
DEVO's "mainstream" album thanks to "Whip It."  Like the Ramones, they had written most of the songs for the first two together and this third is something new.  That is apparent in the increasing electronic presence, much more than any more "accessibility."  I suppose it is more pop than punk (or prog), but it is still a weird and very heavy set of prophet rock.  After all, isn't "Girl U Want," more than just  another obsessive tale of unrequited love?  Considering its date and the band's message it should make sense it does have more in common with Kraftwerk than the MTV-friendly synth-pop of Duran Duran or even they equally-frightening Gary Numan.  Still fun and light in their own sick, Midwenstern way on "Mr. B's Ballroom" and "That's Pep!" the group is as dark and apocalyptic as ever with "Gates of Steel," maybe  the best thing they ever created.  Devo's perfect medium.

10.  Wipers - Is This Real?
Another one often dismissed in preference of "less poppy" work, the Wipers' debut is a great set of concise and original post-punk.  Greg Sage gives the Northwest its first big voice since the Sonics (and arguably Hendrix) and is thereby credited with creating grunge, whatever that is.  Still, future Nirvana material "D-7" and "Return of the Rat" do have that dirty punk feel with a deeper distortion that would become the staple of 90s rock radio.  The songwriting is better though, and early on Sage is unafraid to write catchy material  over heavy statements.  It is  those songs like "Mystery" and "Wait A Minute" that make this debut a competitor with their darker, more epic subsequent material.  Sage is also an top notch guitarist and the chugging up-tempo rhythm accompanying him could not be any more perfect for this shadowy set of post-punk pop tunes.

9.  New Musik - From A to B (Straight Lines)
Fifteen years before Bob Dylan took acoustic folk songs and put them to rock and roll to great effect.  Here Tony Mansfield does that with the even more cutting edge synth-pop arrangement.  His lyrics are even weirder, though.  New Musik combined the spacey synths of Kraftwerk and Eno with punk simplicity and a pop beat with some of the cleanest, tightest songwriting of its time, to little modern recognition, at least stateside.  Plus they had songs with names like "Dead Fish (Don't Swim Home)" and "A Map of You."  It is hard to say exactly what they are saying with songs like "Straight Lines," but "World of Water" and "Sad Films" convey their nervous depth, proving this quartet to have a common goal of creating truly otherworldly music.  Their simple, krautrock-inspired name further shows their futuristic vision and this album is more than just one  of the best of its kind.  It is still new to most.

8.  Bobb Trimble - Iron Curtain Innocence
This one looks to the past for inspiration... maybe.  Bobb Trimble's debut is a personal take on psychedelia, beginning this decade's much-appreciated, often overlooked return to that truth.  The Worcester, MA native took his high voice and unusual guitar sound into the darkest, most insecure corners of the mind.  "Your Little Pawn" may integrate modern technology into its arrangement, but its approach  is right out of the sixties, though its self-loathing lyrics foreshadowed a distant future.  Trimble's gentle soul shines through with no reservation on "One Mile From Heaven," which would also begin his trademark of book-ending sides in addition to setting his standard of human fragility he would only go on to raise.  His horrifically self-aware songs "Killed by the Hands of an Unknown Rock Starr" and "Through My Eyes (Hopeless as Hell:  D.O.A.)" kept this private press release legendary for the following 27 years with the apocalyptic "When The Raven Calls" suggesting its creator to be  an otherworldly prophet or angel.  It is a question that would asked much  more in his future work.

7.  Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabliel (3, Melt)
Gabriel's third self-titled album is probably his best.  He has matured far beyond the role of prog singer and is still far from pop and this Stve Lillywhite-produced album has all and more of the collaborators you would want including Kate Bush, Robert Fripp, Tony Levin, Phil Collins, and even  Paul Weller.  As expected, it's quite dark, particularly on the opening "Intruder" and "Games Without Frontiers."  He takes on violent political topics on "Biko" and the dramatic "Family Snapshot" with the former also signaling the beginnings of his foray into African music heard all over the album.  This solid set proves Gabriel to be one of the best and most relevant artists in the public view, much more than the former singer from a dinosaur band, this record is in better company with the post-punk found elsewhere on this list than what his former "peers" had been doing.  After all, this is the work of a very young man with many odd and successful musical adventures  under his  belt.

6.  The Cure - Boys Don't Cry
Maybe this isn't a "real" album, but I think it's real enough.  The Cure's best early work is on this set, much more solid  than the similar Three Imaginary Boys.  It's mostly pop like in the title track and the catchy little ride "Jumping Someone Else's Train."  "Killing and Arab" is always discussed, and while it's a smarter choice than reading the Camus snore that inspired it, the other Middle Eastern themed track "Fire In Cairo" is quite a bit better.  There's a whole lot more existentialist tension in "Accuracy" and "10.15 Saturday Night" too.  There is certainly no shortage of drama and the band begins to show their "goth" future on slow numbers like "Three Imaginary Boys" and "Another Day," but the brighter stuff still works best even on the totally ridiculous "So What."  Perhaps the Cure's best, even if least characteristic work.  Tight and simple, it is far more than a vehicle for Smith.  Its fantastic rhythms are a credit to the songwriter's willingness to let his sidemen contribute and express their always-talented selves.

5.  The Soft Boys - Underwater Moonlight
This Cambridge group picks up where Uncle Syd left off.  They play jangly Byrds-inspired pop for the punk crowd with a fantastical sense of humor that would make leader Robyn Hitchcock a legend to the current day.  "I Wanna Destroy You" is the most punk they would get, but the speed and aggression never wavers, such as on the dizzying instrumental "You'll Have To Go Sideways" and "Positive Vibrations."  Hitchcock begins his distant fascination with psychotics on tracks like "Old Pervert," "I Got The Hots," and the stalker tale "Tonight."  The whole band is on fire, with  singer-who-plays-drums Morris Windsor joining him later in the Egyptians and (Katrina and the) Waves member Kimberly Rew providing the best guitar partner for Hitchcock until Peter Buck came his way.  "Kingdom of Love" is the best of the many songs he would write about insects or something, and "Queen of Eyes" is jangle pop perfection Lewis Carroll-style.  The whole album ends perfectly with the transcendent title track making the next 22 years extra hard despite many great albums from Hitchcock.

4.  The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
More new British psychedelia with a great sense of humor.  Bassist Julian Cope leads this Liverpool quartet through this set of funky, yet eerie tunes with titles like "Ha Ha I'm Drowning" and "Bouncing Babies."  Moody keyboards combined with bright horns and droning, hypnotic rhythms define the sound as much as Cope's snarky intellectual lyrics.  With the band's sound so well defined in conjunction with dramatic changes the songs can run together, but they all make excellent singles on their own with even the slower ones having a catchy bounce to them with "Poppies in the Field" perhaps capturing it in "the poppies  are  in the field, but don't ask me what that means."  Moving on.  The surprisingly cheap and easy to find American version changes a lot around, often to negative effect, but includes the excellent "Suffocate" making it as great as the original British version.  Drugged-out (at this point in sound only) British dance music with smart-ass lyrics begins here, no matter how few youngsters know it.

3.  Talking Heads - Remain In Light
The Heads/Eno collaboration hits its peak at the end of this trilogy of masterpieces.  It is another one full of exotic rhythms and influences full of studio wizardry.  It is impossible to see Eno as anything but a fifth member here with his synths and call-and response vocals on almost every track.  This is psychological funk as only David Bryne could create (though Julian Cope comes close and without the nervousness).  The other members contributions are often overlooked, even by themselves, but only such a tight band could bring such life to "Houses in Motion" and "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)".  "The Great Curve" is also the product of this whole band with Tina Weymouth's typically silent voice giving a relate-able Alison Statton quality you just can't get from your typical studio singer.  The five are immersed in a world of positive influences, so many they didn't even get to hear them (as heard in the imagined Joy Division track "The Overload") from all over the planet which makes this album still timeless and inspiring many imitators who clearly just don't really get it.

2.  The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
The unbelievable New Jersey group names their album after the feature of many of this year's best albums.  The originators of the nerd image create the ultimate eccentric suburban introvert record, appropriately beginning with "The Boy With the Perpetual Nervousness," a title that could only be deserved by a New Jersey group.  As it would imply, the tension is relentless, with many songs essential being one big, tight crescendo like "Forces at Work," their wild cover of "Everybody's Got Something to Hide (Except for Me And My Monkey)," and "Moscow Nights" - one of the many songs that shows just how much can be done with a bunch of "oh"s.  The tension hits its climax towards the end on near-instrumental "Raised Eyebrows" with its explosion that could leave nothing to follow but the title track.  Yet apart from the tension, lyrics, and songwriting it is the guitar-playing that might shine the most.  The Feelies found a fantastic lead sound that to this day still has not been beat and its debut makes this album their most respected.  It just wails.  For everyone who grew up in a house stewing and stewing and stewing and stewing and stewing...

1.  Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
No other band has so clearly been made up of self-aware immortals than this Welsh trio.  Brothers Stuart and Philip Moxham and the latter's girlfriend Alison Statton appear shrouded on the cover of this spiritual record like Organians with wisdom millions of years ahead of what we mere mortals can fathom.  The guitar and bass function as one machine carrying these radical arrangements behind Statton's earthy and flimsy voice.  Then there's that drum machine with its simple tones echoing every little beep and bump in everyday life, giving these songs the true voice of God.  Though maybe not as much as the lyrics with their understated, yet explicit wisdom.  This is transcendental simplicity far beyond any neo-classical composer as it captures not just the sublime, but the real and tactile, best heard on instrumentals "The Taxi" and the cinematic closer "Wind in the Rigging."  Beginning with "Searching for Mr. Right" and going through the mundane take on tragedy "Eating Noddemix" and professing "nature intended the abstract for you and me," the album will change the life of anyone really listening.  Then there is "The Man Amplifier," my current favorite with its circular sound and mysterious lyrics that point to some revelation we may never know.  Get ready for a "Brand - New - Life" because this group said it themselves "Colossal Youth will show you the way to go."

Well, there you have it.  1980.  I can't believe it either.  Better have been good for some of these albums to rank so low!  I had something else to say, but I forget what it is...