Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Go Rock the Vote! ('80s Style)

Please go visit the good people at Slicing Up Eyeballs and cast your ballot for Best Albums of the 1980's!  You get 25 votes and the ballot contains 500 choices, 50 from each year of the decade. Voting ends Friday, Dec. 27, 2013.





You didn't ask, but here's my ballot:

ABC – Lexicon of Love (1982)
Adam and the Ants – Kings of the Wild Frontier (1980)
The Beat – Special Beat Service (1982)
David Bowie – Let’s Dance (1983)
Thomas Dolby – The Golden Age of Wireless (1982)
Duran Duran – Rio (1982)
Peter Gabriel – So (1986)
The Go-Go’s – Beauty and the Beat (1981)
Haircut One Hundred – Pelican West (1982)
Heaven 17 – The Luxury Gap (1983)
The Human League – Dare (1981)
INXS – Kick (1987)
Joe Jackson – Night and Day (1982)
The Police – Ghost in the Machine (1981)
The Police – Synchronicity (1983)
Pretenders – Learning to Crawl (1984)
REM – Murmur (1983)
REM – Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Roxy Music – Avalon (1982)
Scritti Politti – Cupid & Psyche 85 (1985)
Simple Minds – New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) (1982)
Simple Minds – Once Upon a Time (1985)
The Smithereens – Green Thoughts (1988)
Squeeze – Argybargy (1980)
Squeeze – East Side Story (1981)

Not surprisingly, my ballot skews heavily towards the early part of the decade. I should note that these aren't necessarily my picks for top albums of the '80s, simply my picks from the options provided.  As is their prerogative, Slicing Up Eyeballs limited their picks to studio albums only, so no EPs, live albums or compilations.  For me, that took out several '80s favorites, including Stop Making Sense and Under a Blood Red Sky.  They're also partial to alternative music, so there's no Asia or Donald Fagen on the ballot (and you certainly won't find any Spyro Gyra there).  As I continue to make an argument for 1982 being the best year ever for pop music, my final ballot shakes out as follows:

1980 - 2 albums
1981 - 4 albums
1982 - 8 albums
1983 - 4 albums
1984 - 1 album
1985 - 2 albums
1986 - 2 albums
1987 - 1 album
1988 - 1 album
1989 - 0 albums

We'll take a look at the results early next year.

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