Five absolutely perfect albums from the 1980s

I didn’t like most of the music that was popular in the 1980s. Don’t get me wrong – there were still plenty of great tunes. I’m about to write about five perfect ‘80s albums.

But overall, to me, it may be the weakest musical decade in my lifetime. If the ‘60s were the youthful teenaged years of pop music, when artists seemed primarily interested in giving the middle the finger to everything that had come before them, and if the ‘70s were the dawning maturity and thrill of early adulthood, the ‘80s have always struck me as the staid settling into a kind of middle-aged routine.

Rock n Roll was old. So was country. Disco had oversaturated the market and that's some no decade should ever be attached to. The Captain and Tenille had two of the biggest songs in 1980. By 1989, Paula Abdul and Milli Vanilli had taken their spots. I didn’t hear much difference.

Five excellent albums that helped define the 1980s

Popular music was waiting for something new. They were so desperate for something new that critics labeled one of the dominant trends of the decade “New Wave.” It produced some stuff, but it seemed to get old quickly, just as Disco had done a few years before. What they waiting for would eventually come to be known as hip hop, but it wouldn’t seize control for another decade.

Still, there were some awesome albums. Some were harbingers of things to come. Some were singular achievements that stand as all-time statements. These five were perfect.