1985

Would you believe me if I told you there is a large, high-end and even popular cafe in Manhattan surrounded by universities that does not have wireless?  Well believe it because otherwise you would have been reading this earlier.  I might be better off this way, I can concentrate on writing and music and not waste time making fun of NYU kids' bad haircuts on twitter.

So, 1985.  This is by fat the best year of the 80s when it comes to music.  Seems like every artist that made more than one classic album in that decade released on this year.  It was so good that masterpieces by Camper Van Beethoven, The The, The Fall, and R.E.M. did not make the cut.

10.  The Cure - The Head on the Door
And this one is only at ten!  This could be my favorite Cure album.  It has the fruits of all the growth with a lot of the hooks and fun of their early work.  Now a quintet, they have a bigger and fuller sound than ever but are at their best with simple playing like the childlike hook of "Close to Me."  This is the band's pop renaissance that broke them to millions of new fans in the US with one of their most recognizable hits "In Between Days."  The darker stuff is even better and rather than drag and wallow like on earlier and later albums these songs are energetic and concise with "The Baby Screams" and the long-bulding "Push" being some of the best goth-pop tracks you will hear.

9.  Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A.
After venturing into some of his darkest material the Boss makes his biggest splash in the mainstream with this massively successful record.  As annoying as the title track is it is probably one of the most intense super hits until Eddie Vedder showed up.  Luckily the other songs are better such as the more fun baseball nostalgia of "Glory Days"  and the brooding love song "I'm On Fire" - one  of many similar titles in his career.  Like the more underground groups from his home state Springsteen really shows he knows how to drone using the E Street Band to full depth with the chugging rhythms upon which modern artists like The War One Drugs build their whole sound.  He even managed to turned it into a major hit with a video featuring Courtney Cox on the classic "Dancing in the Dark."

8.  The Jesus and Mary Chain - Psycho Candy
The Reed Brothers make their noisy debut with this set of simple pop songs.  While the sound does not vary at all the droning and thudding rhythm, walls of distortion, and lyrics build mostly around bas, heys, and mmms somehow never gets tiresome through all these songs.  This is because the Scots know just how much could be done with their simple formula.  They show how pretty noise and distortion can be with ballads like "Just Like Honey" and "Sowing Seeds," while using it for maximum rock on "The Living End" and "Inside Me."  Much of it though is just a dirtier take on bubblegum like "You Trip Me Up" and "The Hardest Walk."  It's like a slowed down cross between the Ramones  and Les Raillizes Dénudés and as perfect as  that would sound.

7.  Hüsker Dü - New Day Rising
The prolific trio cuts the album length in half, but tightens up the concept and grows even more in terms of song writing and experimentation.  Apart from a few songss like the title track and my favorite (of this type) "59 Times the Pain," there is little that could be called hardcore on this album.  While still speed-damaged "Powerline" is not only catchy, but the group's most composed psychedelic track so far.  They get very experimental on the unsettling "How to Skin A Dead Cat"  and establish the sound  of their more accessible subsequent work on Mould's "I Aplogize," proving he is as much of a pop songwriter as Hart.  Acoustic guitars show up again, to best effect on the breakdown of "Celebrated Summer," but the folk-rock influence goes far beyond that instrument with the rootsy piano of "Books about U.F.O.s"

6.  Mekons - Fear and Whiskey
With the addition of former Pretty Thing Dick Taylor the Leeds group shocks the world by making what is still the finest example of alt-country on  this dystopian concept album.  The band had come to the conclusion that the three chords of country were not too different from the three chords of punk and that approach coupled with the prominent fiddle was enough to not let the thick British accents question the record's authenticity.  The embrace of the style in titles like "Country" and "Trouble Down South," however is underplayed by the lyrical content that highlights the album's story of a future nation constantly torn to bits by war.  The concept is mostly based around the people who inhabit this world though and works best as a fictional psychoanalysis on tracks like the heavy "Hard to Be Human Again" and "Psycho Cupid."  The best examples, though, are the opening "Chivalry" and the "Last Dance," the final original before their cover of "Lost Highway" concludes this black country album.

5.  The Replacements - Tim
Entering the studio with Tommy Ramone the Mats make what is probably their best album.  The only thing that could have made it better was if it had included the vastly-superior version of "Can't Hardly Wait," recorded during these sessions and left out for God knows what reason.  This is the last album with the always-underrated lead guitarist Bob Stinson and he sounds better than ever (apart from the aforementioned out-take) on the timeless indie rock theme song "Left of the Dial."  Also here is the group's closest thing to a hit "Bastards of Young," one of Westerburg's many self-aware rock and roll anthems.  His talents for the nostalgic have also matured as he re-explores familiar territory to better effect on "Kiss Me On the Bus" and "Here Comes A Regular."  While it lacks that undefinable, perhaps spiritual quality of its predecessor Tim is an even finer set of songs by an even  better band, and sadly the conclusion of that original group.

4.  Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
Picking up where The Dreaming left off Bush's use of thudding toms and string arrangements makes this concept album her best work.  Apart from the single "Cloudbusting" with its innocent melody making it her best-known song since "Wuthering Heights" this is an extremely dark album.  From  the opening of "Running Up That  Hill" the feeling of diving into madness only grows, especially when the concept really takes over on the second side.  The voices coming from every direction put the listener into the character's own deteriorating mind falling from "Mother Stands for Comfort" to the Celtic inferno of "Jig of Life."  Then there is "Under Ice," in my opinion the most nightmarish song ever recorded, still giving me chills after all these years.  The title track was enough to sell me on Bush for the rest of my life, but this whole album is of that caliber.

3.  Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians - Fegmania!
Putting together a new band with the Soft Boys rhythm section and the addition of keyboards Hitchcock begins the greatest phase of his career with this bizarre guitar-pop album.  His distinctly Cambridge weirdness kicks off the album on the transsexual nightmare tale of "Egyptian Cream," and the Twilight Zone-esque "The Man with the Light Bulb Head."  His classic themes of sex, death, food and insects are also at their most prominent of his career on tracks like "My Wife and My Dead Wife," "Insect Mother," (naturally), and arguably "Strawberry Mind."  Never one to simply put out a comedy album with expert playing and singing, Hitchcock and the group reach for the big and beautiful on "Glass," "Another Bubble," and the transcendent closing track "Heaven."

2.  Echo & the Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
Sometimes and justifiably written off as "too pretentious" the Liverpudlian group hits their peak on this moody, atmospheric, and "big" album that really put to rest any comparisons to U2.  Best known for "The Killing Moon," a song that would be  in the running for greatest ever if not just a little bit too long at the end, the quality of the other tracks does not lag far behind.  That song's fame has led many to believe this is a dark album, but in truth it is actually bright even on a song like "Nocturnal Me," albeit with a crisp autumn feel.  The spinning post-punk arrangements are enough to forgive any lyrical pomposity especially on first track "Silver," "Seven Seas," and the obviously majestic "My Kingdom."  The slow sea ballad title track concludes the album of English folk tales on a beautiful and moving note.

1.  Meat Puppets - Up On the Sun
By slowing down a whole lot the Meat Puppets manage to tighten their dynamics even further on this atmospheric and funky masterpiece.  Perhaps it was fatherhood (the birth of his twin daughters was announced upon  completion of the last album) that slowed down Curt, and maybe some powerful drugs of Cris, but this sun-bleached album catches the trip  at their most blissed-out.  Gone are the dark themes of II and in their place the country-fried desert fantasy of "Swimming Ground," the prog blast of "Animal Kingdom," and the drone of their ode to the female anatomy "Hot Pink."  Up-tempo numbers like "Two Rivers" and "Enchanted Porkfist" indicate that the slow-down in the prior year or so made the already tight group even closer together.  As hinted with the last album's closing track the brothers show off their whistling chops on the dizzying "Maiden's Milk," and show off their more traditional harmonies on the funky "Buckethead."  Oh, and that's all after the nebulous slice of heaven on the title track.

*I must remark as I wrote this I was constantly rearranging the order and have just been more and more blown away at how great this year was.  It really has more in common with the late sixties and early 70s than mid 80s as far as quality is concerned.

**HOLY SHIT!!!