(or, more accurately, my favorite albums released in 1983)
Under a Blood Red Sky
U2
| Produced by: | Jimmy Iovine |
| Billboard 200: | 28 |
| CashBox 200: | 19 |
| Rolling Stone: | 6 |
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: |
Hot 100 |
Rock |
| I Will Follow | 81 |
|
| Eleven O'Clock Tick Tock |
| 30 |
Top 3 Tracks
"Gloria"
"Sunday Bloody Sunday"
"40"
One of the best live bands in the history of rock and roll released what they called a "mini-LP" live album for a "special low price" - 8 tracks, 35 minutes, $5.99. I'll go out on a limb here and call this U2's best album. Back when the band was in their early 20s and before Bono developed his God complex, they could really rock. U2 has always been about sound rather than songs and they sound really good here. My original cassette (which I still have) never left the Pioneer car stereo in the Markmobile in December of 1983. Around that time, in an effort to woo a girl named Gloria, I gave her a copy of the cassette and told her to listen to the song titled Gloria. Even back then I knew that was a lame idea. Needless to say, that effort didn't work.
Reviews from 1983:
90125
Yes
| Produced by: | Trevor Horn |
| Billboard 200: | 5 |
| CashBox 200: | 4 |
| Rolling Stone: | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: |
Hot 100 |
Rock | Dance |
| Owner of a Lonely Heart | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Our Song |
| 32 |
|
| Changes |
| 6 |
|
| It Can Happen | 51 | 5 |
|
| Leave It | 24 | 3 | 29 |
| Hold On |
| 43 |
|
Top 3 Tracks
"It Can Happen"
"Changes"
"Owner of a Lonely Heart"
Ah, the genius of Trevor Horn. He was at the height of his production powers during the early '80s. I still find things I've never heard before with each listen. Moving from full-fledged band member to behind the console, Horn rescued this prog-rock band from the brink of extinction and turned them into a successful pop-rock band. I'm not a fan of Jon Anderson's voice, but the songwriting and production are good enough that his nasal singing doesn't bother me that much. The album was simply titled after its Atco Records catalog number (for example, 7-90125-1 for the LP). The liner notes brag about the fact that the cover image was created "utilising Apple IIe 64 RAM micro-computer and Bitstik controller." Man, we've come a long way.
Reviews from 1983:
- Billboard: "should appease both old fans and potential new ones"
- CashBox: "Call it synthpop or dance rock, the new Yes is definitely not the old art rock dinosaur of old."
- Rolling Stone (★★★): "most of the album is surprisingly spritely and poppish."
- Smash Hits (2 out of 10): "full of duff instrumentals and daft climaxes, without even two decent songs to rub together"
- Stereo Review: "rococo rock - all ornamentation, no foundation"
- Trouser Press: "a wide-eyed series of miniature rock operas, corny and quaint."
Can't Slow Down
Lionel Richie
| Produced by: | Lionel Richie & James Anthony Carmichael |
| Billboard 200: | 1 |
| CashBox 200: | 1 |
| Rolling Stone: | 2 |
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: |
Hot 100 |
AC |
R&B |
Dance |
Rock |
| All Night Long (All Night) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
|
| Running with the Night | 7 | 6 | 6 |
| 49 |
| Hello | 1 | 1 | 1 |
|
|
| Stuck on You | 3 | 1 | 8 |
|
|
| Penny Lover | 8 | 1 | 8 |
|
|
Top 3 Tracks
"All Night Long"
"Love Will Find a Way"
"Can't Slow Down"
I'm a sucker for good pop music and that's all this is. This was also the pinnacle of Richie's career. It won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1985, beating out Prince's Purple Rain and Springsteen's Born In the USA (maybe those two albums split the vote?). I'm sure a lot of you would be able to sing along with most of the songs - I just can't help liking this over-produced, maudlin, sentimental album.
Reviews from 1983:
- Billboard: "a change of pace"
- Rolling Stone (★★★★): "masterfully synthesizing everything we love about Motown"
- Smash Hits (5 out of 10): "It's smooth soul with pop's singalong qualities which, though never surprising, is fairly satisfying."
- Stereo Review: "full of high-quality, highly listenable songs"
- Robert Christgau (B+): "this surprisingly solid album bids fair to turn into a mini-Thriller, and good for him--it's a real advance."
Let's Dance
David Bowie
| Produced by: | David Bowie, Nile Rodgers |
| Billboard 200: | 4 |
| CashBox 200: | 4 |
| Rolling Stone: | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: |
Hot 100 |
Rock | Dance | R&B |
| Let's Dance | 1 | 8 | 1 | 14 |
| Cat People (Putting Out Fire) |
| 11 |
|
|
| Modern Love | 14 | 6 |
|
|
| China Girl | 10 | 3 | 51 |
|
| Without You | 73 |
|
|
|
| Criminal World |
| 31 |
|
|
Top 3 Tracks
"Let's Dance"
"Modern Love"
"Without You"
Throughout all his personae (Ziggy Stardust, Thin White Duke), David Bowie knew how to locate great musicians with which to collaborate: John Lennon, Iggy Pop, Marc Bolin, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Pete Townshend, Queen, Mick Jagger, Pat Metheny, etc. When he recorded this '80s classic, Bowie not only teamed up with the great Nile Rodgers to produce, he also recruited an up-and-coming blues guitarist from Texas, Stevie Ray Vaughan, to play lead (both Rodgers and Vaughan have already appeared on this list). Put them together with Rodger's former band members in Chic: Tony Thompson and Bernard Edwards (among others) and you've got one helluva backing band. While he was being accused of selling out, I think he put together an innovative work at the intersection of post-disco, new wave, and soul.
Reviews from 1983:
- Rolling Stone (★★★★): "Bowie cuts a rug, and cuts the crap."
- Stereo Review: "somewhere in these grooves is the Next Big Thing."
- Trouser Press: "a pop record that simply bleaches the competition."
- Smash Hits (6½ out of 10): "So what? Everyone makes the odd dull album."
- Robert Christgau (B): "Rodgers & Bowie are a rich combo in the ways that count as well as the ways that don't"
The Luxury Gap
Heaven 17
| Produced by: | British Electric Foundation and Greg Walsh |
| Billboard 200: | 72 |
| CashBox 200: | 97 |
| Rolling Stone: | - |
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: |
Hot 100 |
Dance | Rock |
| Let Me Go | 74 | 4 | 32 |
| Who'll Stop the Rain |
| 36 |
|
| Temptation |
| 34 |
|
| We Live So Fast | 102 | 34 |
|
| Crushed by the Wheels of Industry |
| 34 |
|
Top 3 Tracks
"Crushed by the Wheels of Industry"
"Temptation"
"Let Me Go"
Fun, danceable Synthpop meets Britfunk. This was the band's sophomore effort and while a group's second album normally isn't as good as the first, that isn't the case here. In fact, the band actually takes it up a notch here by adding strings, piano, and a horn section to the band's synth and Linndrum sound. The writing improved as well. Allmusic.com calls this "one of the seminal albums of the British new wave." I concur.
Reviews from 1983:
- Rolling Stone (★★★½ ): "Humanity, of all things, is the critical advantage that British synth-pop trio Heaven 17 enjoys over most of its technopeers."
- Smash Hits (8½ out of 10): "by turns entertaining, irritating, danceable, thoughtful and downright daft"
- Stereo Review: "makes it possible to dance to some of today's most pressing social issues"
- Trouser Press: "one hell of a band"
- Robert Christgau (B+): "Nowhere else in music or sociology will you learn so much about the would-be hedonists who live the technopop/Anglodisco life."
City Kids
Spyro Gyra
| Produced by: | Jay Beckenstein and Richard Calandra |
| Billboard 200: | 66 |
| CashBox 200: | 70 |
| Rolling Stone: | - |
Top 3 Tracks
"City Kids"
"Nightlife"
"A Ballad"
After falling in love with this band's Latin-flavored funk-lite/smooth jazz/instrumental pop sound in 1982 with their Incognito release, I wasted no time picking up this album as soon as it was released. Wore out the grooves. Literally.
Review from 1983:
Backstreet
David Sanborn
| Produced by: | Marcus Miller, Ray Bardani, Michael Colina |
| Billboard 200: | 81 |
| CashBox 200: | 76 |
| Rolling Stone: | - |
Top 3 Tracks
"I Told U So"
"A Tear for Crystal"
"Neither One of Us"
In the early to mid '80s, I was a big Sanborn fan and listened to him often in high school. I always think that particular period of his career, when he teamed up with Marcus Miller, was his best era and this smooth jazz release fits into those years. A great late-night album. With ten of my school friends, I saw both Sanborn and Spyro Gyra that fall at the Kool Jazz Festival stop in Houston:
Such adventures may have had an influence on these pSpyro Gyra and Sanborn albums' high rankings in this coutdown, but who the hell knows? It probably has more to do with the fact that I played them all the time.
Reviews from 1983:
- Billboard: "straightforward pop and soul melodies framed by taut rhythm work and lush keyboard and vocal as foils for Sanborn's signature alto sax phrases"
- Stereo Review: "expert but too long"
An Innocent Man
Billy Joel
| Produced by: | Phil Ramone |
| Billboard 200: | 4 |
| CashBox 200: | 5 |
| Rolling Stone: | 2 |
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: |
Hot 100 |
AC | Rock | Dance |
| Tell Her About It | 1 | 1 | 17 | 38 |
| Uptown Girl | 3 | 2 | 22 |
|
| An Innocent Man | 10 | 1 |
|
|
| The Longest Time | 14 | 1 |
|
|
| Leave a Tender Moment Alone | 27 | 1 |
|
|
| Keeping the Faith | 18 | 3 |
|
|
Top 3 Tracks
"Uptown Girl"
"The Longest Time"
"Tell Her About It"
Released just before my senior year in high school, this album was purchased on or near the date of release. Being single for the first time since he was a teenager, Joel paid tribute to popular music of his youth here, with homages to soul and doo-wop music. After the somber, Beatlesque album
The Nylon Curtain, this album was a complete change of direction and became Joel's second most successful album after
The Stranger. Joel was happier and it shows in this infectious music. I was growing out of my teenage angst years around this time and was much happier myself, so this album got a lot of playing time as it suited my general mood around that time (senioritis).
Reviews from 1983:
- Billboard: "The songs capture the innocence and charm of late '50s and early '60s pop while still sounding fresh and vital."
- CashBox: "undoubtedly the artist’s best musical work in some time"
- Rolling Stone (★★★½): "an affectionate, spirited paean to an undefiled past that's truly forever"
- Stereo Review: "confirms Billy Joel's pop -music artistry and stylistic mastery."
- Robert Christgau (B+): "A good half of these songs have the timeless melodic appeal of the greatest pop."
Jarreau
Al Jarreau
| Produced by: | Jay Graydon |
| Billboard 200: | 13 |
| CashBox 200: | 7 |
| Rolling Stone: | 8 |
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: |
Hot 100 |
AC | R&B |
| Mornin' | 21 | 2 | 6 |
| Boogie Down | 77 |
| 9 |
| Trouble in Paradise | 63 | 10 |
|
Top 3 Tracks
"Mornin'"
"Boogie Down"
"Trouble in Paradise"
This collaboration with West Coast sound gurus David Foster, producer Jay Graydon, and session musicians Jerry Hey and Steve Gadd, is a great collection of commercial pop/R&B tunes featuring Jarreau's fantastic voice. Sure, he could have stretched out a little more, but that's only a minor concern - if Jarreau wanted to produce commercially successful music more than scat singing, what does it matter to me? I like this album so I'm glad he went that direction. Probably his best album, released when he was 43 which seemed old to me in '83 but now seems quite young.
Reviews from 1983:
North of a Miracle
Nick Heyward
| Produced by: | Geoff Emerick |
| Billboard 200: | 178 |
| CashBox 200: | 170 |
| Rolling Stone: | - |
| U.S. Billboard charted singles: |
AC |
| Whistle Down the Wind | 20 |
Top 3 Tracks
"On a Sunday"
"When It Started to Begin"
"Club Boy at Sea"
A perfect pop album. This album was just what this 17 year old boy needed in the fall of 1983. It was one of the first pop LPs I replaced with a CD in 1990. Even all these years later, this album continues to get significant playing time. In other words, it struck a chord with me (bad pun intended). I never could get any of my high school or college friends interested in Heyward's music or that of his previous band, Haircut 100, but I listened to this all the time. To me, everything clicked: the writing, the production (by Beatles' engineer Geoff Emerick), the orchestration, the performances, etc.
John Hughes must have liked this album, too. Two songs from it ("When It Started to Begin" & "Whistle Down the Wind") appear during the school dance scenes in the 1984 Hughes classic film, Sixteen Candles.
These are my personal top 83 albums released in 1983. The following criteria was used on a very slippery sliding scale:
- How often I enjoyed the album at the time of release
- How often I've enjoyed the album over the years since
- Overall quality of the album
Chart information is from the US
Billboard, CashBox, and
Rolling Stone album charts.
The top tracks for each album are solely my opinion.
