So what that they didn't sing. Atleast "their" songs were upbeat and fun to listen to. Includes: "Blame It On The Rain", "I'm Gonna Miss You", and the title track.

A funny slbum from the King of Parody. Includes: "Like A Surgeon" (parody of Madonna's "Like A Virgin"),"One More Minute", and the tile track (a style parody of Devo).

A great album from the 80's answer to the Jackson 5. Includes: "Cool It Now","Mr. Telephone Man",and "Lost In Love". (Not to be confused with "Lost In Love" from The Go Go's)

Includes a great cover from the Doors ("20th Century Fox" remade by The Escape Club") and two songs from Deb Gibson. ("In The Still Of The Night" & "Come Home") And some more covers/original hits from 60's songs. Without Deb Gibson, this album would've been my #10 choice. (Just Kidding)

Great fun glam rock album. Includes: "Your Mama Don't Dance","Nothin' But A Good Time", and "Every Rose Has It's Thorn"

Great pop album. Taylor Dayne also had a great voice. Includes "Don't Rush Me","Prove Your Love", and the title track.

Great R&B /new jack swing album. Includes: "My Prerogative","Every Little Step", and "Don't Be Cruel" A departure from the member of New Edition. Fact: Johnny Gill & Bel Biv DeVoe also were from New Edition.

The best free style album. Includes: "Come Go With Me", "Seasons Change", and "Point Of No Return"

Fun pop album. Unlike today's teen queens, Deborah (then Debbie)Gibson wrote,produce, and sang her own material. Includes: "Only In My Dreams", "Shake Your Love", and the title track. Her picture on the album cover looked cute. (With the striped shirt,perm,acid wash/ripped jeans,and a face drawn on her knee)It's like a time capsule of what some teenage girls wore in 1987. Fun Fact: In 1988, Deb Gibson became the youngest female artist to write,produce,& perform a #1 hit with "Foolish Beat" at age 17. Inwhich still holds today!

Great album from the original teen queen. (Now a Broadway Diva/singer) Includes: "Lost In Your Eyes","We Could Be Together", and the title track. The picture on the back cover is better than the front. Her recent albums also are great. ("Deborah",1997 & "M.Y.O.B.",2001) Yes, I'll admit that I havea bit of a healthy crush on her. (Since the late 1990's. I'm 19) She's one of the classiest entertainers ever.

Waiting for a girl like you is just a beautiful ballad. But Lou Gramm and the boys rock it up too on the album, with Urgent and Juke Box Hero.

My favourite band, although Chrissie Hynde has never topped this LP for pop perfection. Grace Jones, another eighties lady, covered Private Life. The obvious hit, Brass in pocket, is one of the best examples of how so much emotion can be fitted into a 3 minute single.

The lads in casual jumpers bring harmony singing to the populus as relief from those hard times. Pringle pop. Who else could sing about lemonade, milk, baked beans and snow all on one record. Love... calling... Captain... Autumn. Brilliant!

Jazz crept into the charts as in musical terms, in the 80's, anything goes! Give me more, more, more of Carmel's needful and pleadful singing any day!

Hang on to your love plus many other delightful, sexy, smoochy tunes. Dark glasses, cocktails, and well...use your imagination!

One of the best designed sleeves, befitting the music. The soundtrack to the Summer of ' 83 - this much is true! Gold, Lifeline, Communication all singles hits too. Gary Kemp, writing tin pan alley standards for the me decade.

This city never sleeps is my particular fave on the album. Excellent, polished pop with a powerful message.

Put your cassette pet in your briefcase and go to work - but don't get crushed by the wheels of industry! Wall St, if Wall St were a record.Play to win, we're going to live for a very long time and we don't need this fascist groove thing are the stand-out tracks.

By default or design, this is my number 2. Their follow up album, The Beauty Stab (1983), was harder on the strings, and the ear. This is a pop treasure though - tears for sovenirs!

Abba if they'd gone electro. Don't you want me is cold, yet smooth.

Much as I hate to admit it, these politically-conscious, slightly-pompous Irish pop artists once ROCKED, and ROCKED damn hard! Another genre-defining moment as Bono sang his throat out over The Edge's unnaturally clean-sounding guitar distortion. Never mind that one song completely ripped off a lick from Bob Marley's "Johnny Was." Arguably one of the best half-hours in rock.

My favorite of the Head's works. Art rock matures into full-out funk when a 4-piece band dropped (most of) their pretenses and decided to jam with a slew of guest musicians. Arrangements that will make you drop your jaw...nothing will ever be the same as it ever was. And, for those who like their lyrical content political and disturbing, "The Whispering Wind" murmered a cautionary fable that finally manifested in grotesquely brutal form on a late summer day in 2001, nearly 2 decades later.

One hell of a pop album...with songs that retain their glory today. What self-respecting 20-something doesn't break into a bout of air guitar during Eddie Van Halen's guest lead on "Beat It." And I'll be durned if half a dozen shame-faced yet nostalgic adults don't at least HUM along with Billie Jean whenever it plays in the background at the local supermarket. Impossibly catchy...great lyrics...great singing. And even though we can't see it with our ears, no one has forgotten the MOONWALK!

Jangly gloompop, with awesome(!) guitar playing by Johnny Marr, and featuring the slightly off-key vocals of the flamboyant Morrissey, the Mick Jagger of the toegazer generation.

Simple pop songs expounding on the joys of love and youth, delivered by a pair of gloomy individuals obsessed with drugs and guitar feedback. One of the noisiest examples of pop-rock picked up where Joy Division left off. Dissonant and tuneful, it made countless teenagers wonder if there was indeed something wrong with their speakers. A true vision ahead of its time, it was quite inspirational to rockers a decade later.

British techno-goth, laden with layers of MIDI, pretty harmonies, bassy vocals, dark lyrical themes. The best album by one of the best eighties bands.

Jangly, understated songs with a mid-range, almost emotionless vocalist. Every note is priceless...a true work of wonder. Like the work of the Velvets almost 20 years prior, this album led to countless imitators, and almost single-handedly defined college rock.

Pop's original power-princess made it ok for women to be in touch (heh) with their sensuality. A breakthrough work for the ladies of pop, with a nice mixture of really catchy songs, and lyrics that assert a woman's right to be pleased.

Thrash is born. Mixing elements of punk and NewWaveOfBritishHeavyMetal with a nervous and excitable drummer (who became faster under pressure) and a virtuoso bass player who scratched out distorted low-end like a third guitarist, these bad boys of the Bay Area screeched their way through some of the fastest, loudest licks heard thus far. The skies opened, the apocalypse came, and heavy metal got 10 notches heavier.

The final album by Joy Division was a journey into the future by a man contemplating suicide. Hopelessness and fear pervade the music, and beautiful, haunting melodies repeat again and again over spare, bassy drums. This album forever changed music as we know it, and inspired many later endeavors in techno, industrial, new wave, goth, etc...

Great folky album put out in the midst of Hair Metal bands. This album sure did stand out compared to the likes of bands like Posion and Ratt.

Where do I begin? Definetly the definitive Police album. Lets just leave it at that.

"I WANT MY MTV". At least I did back in the 80's when there was actually music on MTV.

This is another album that is great from the first song to the last. I wish some of their other albums had as much unigueness as this one did when it came out.

John (cougar) Mellencamp had a good beginning in the early 80's, but I think this one album takes the cake for all of his "80's" recordings. Plus I had to have him in my list, because how many other "80's" bands are still out there making new albums with new songs?

Beds are Burning....Need I say more?

Great Chicago band! Material Issue and The Bad Examples would have been in the list with these guys if I wasn't restricted to the 80's.

This is the album that turned me onto The Smithereens and so I have very fond memories for the album (Plus their next best album, 11, didn't come out until the 90's)

I could have again chosen a bunch of Tom Petty albums to fill out my list, but this is his best in the 80's in terms of listening from start to finish (and yes it just barley made the 80's).

In the process of trying to make my list fair I decide only to choose one of Guadalcanal Diary's albums. It was a VERY difficult decision, especially between this album and Flip Flop that came out after this one. I decided on 2 x 4 for two main reasons; 1) It was their first one that turned me on to them and 2) Despite Flip Flop having their most popular song (Always Saturday) I believe 2 x 4 to be the "overall" better album from the first song to the last.

Moved to Florida and saw this album listed in the back of a rock magazine. I ordered it without my parents knowing. Moved from Florida a year later with long hair and a huge taste for heavy metal. Though Guns 'N Roses defined the decade for me... this album started it all.

Soundtrack of the early '80s.. these songs were everywhere in every car of every young guy trying to hook up in the midwest. Still reminds me of old girlfriends that I was nervous to hold hands with.

Nearly every guy wanted to be DLR... sure, he still wants to be and we don't... but, it was undeniably a great album where it all came together.

In hindsite, Pyromania is the better disc. Not as polished and has more of an edge. But in 1987, Hysteria landed me far more women...not to mention the Joe Elliot hair cut I sported. Never did I play an album as much as this one from the end of high school through most of college... the girls loved it and it was very tolerable for that. So it gets the edge because I listened to it far more then.

Anyone who witnessed 'white crosses' will appreciate this often overlooked masterpiece because of comparisons to Bruce Springsteeen. However, one listen here... and it comes to light to two couldn't have been more different musicically.

Is there a bad song?

Welcome to New York City white boy. Still sounds good today... to my surprise. With Eminem so ligit today, people don't realize what the Beastie Boys were up against. Respect... but they ultimately found it album after album. She's Crafty and Brass Monkey are the sleepers often overlooked.

First album I ever owned. I always found 'Don't Try Suicide' the most fascinating song to ever be removed from a greatest hits package. To bad... great song.

Just listened to it the other day and is there a more recognizable song than Back In Black?

This album summed up the end of the '80s for me... and it still sounds as fresh as it did back then.

I am not a fan of "Mr. Psycho", but I played this album over and over and over and over again in the mid 80's. Awesome stuff (Ed Van Halen plays an absolute masterful solo in "Beat It".

Angus Young can really play the guitar. After the death of their original singer (Bon Scott) this album could have killed the band if had not been an awesome Album.

Every song rocks. "Janie's got a Gun" is an absolute masterpiece.

Actually, my favorite artist of the 80's. Every song done by VH is great. I hope Ed gets better so he can do some more music.

The first time I heard "Sweet Child Of Mine", i was absolutely hooked on this album.

The album every other 80's album tried to become. Popular for a reason (because it rocked)!

My personal favorite Def Leppard album. Absolute ROCK.

Every song is a statement of lyric and music writing. Sting may be the greatest rock singer ever.

Some of the best raw music ever. The album gets better every time I listen to it. Also brings back some kick ass memories of the best decade ever. These guys sampled before P-Diddy was a P-Baby

My first exposure to Rush. "Limelight" is the reason I first picked up a guitar.

It created an onslaught of Technopop albums.

The boss definitely settled his nitch.

Addicted to Love! The greatest song of the 80's period.

Should be #1 but there so many good ones out there.

Legendary group Legendary album.

Its what put Madonna over the top.

Every song was a hit on this album.

Powerpop written all over it. An album for the ages

A very anticipated album-lukewarm when it came out but its impact everlasting.

Hit the masses like a sledgehammer with its unique sound then disappeared.

THE UNDENIABLE KING OF FUNK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! May he live on and on too.

One of the baddest White soul singers of his time. May he live on and on.

They were not Hair Metal. Feel-good danceable metal is more like it. They rocked. POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME!!!!!!

I may be a brotha, but I'm a fan of heavy metal. The people who said they seemed like they were the next Rolling Stones were right. This is definitely a classic album! Why Axl act like a biatch now?! I don't get it.

The ultimate album from the ultimate Queen of Rock! RECOMMENDED!

His Royal Badness was COOL way before his time.

No one can touch Michael or Janet if you had a ten-foot pole. They're the king and queen of pop, stop messin'! This album is indeed a classic. 20 years and still fresh. Michael is STILL the man, don't hate.

The best that ever done it. The king. An underrated classic that deserves its own position in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Mike Jack never sounds so fresh.

Again, as I said, NO ONE can touch the QUEEN! Another classic album. The one that broke her away from the Jackson family and into pop mythology. Definitely a legendary album! RECOMMENDED FOR '80S R&B, DANCE & POP LOVERS!

First off, this woman, along with Madonna, had a lot to do with today's female artist. She's the Queen of it all and in the late-'80s, there was nothing bad u could say about Janet Jackson. This album, IMHO, made her the legend she has become today. It's so fresh, so wicked, a classic album. No one can top the true Queen of Pop & R&B, please believe it!