Over what will likely be the next few years I’m going to be ranking and reviewing the top 5 albums - plus a fair few extras - according to users on rateyourmusic.com (think IMDB for music) from every year from 1960 to the present. If you want to know more, I wrote an introduction to the ‘challenge’ here. You can also read all the other entries I’ve written so far by heading to the lovely index page here.

We’ve made it to the second half of the 80s as we trundle on in this rather epic quest on a road paved with album covers. 1985 has a nice ring to it, it’s always been one of my favourite sounding years as a number, but will it be one of my favourite sounding musically? Spoilers, yes it will. Before we get onto that though, what on earth happened in 1985? The Jordan Air 1 was first released, which is still the world’s most successful trainer to this day, Raegan was sworn in for a second term as President, Live Aid happened and Coca-Cola tried to introduce a new formula that no one liked, so they reverted back to the old one.

Onto the music, here’s what rateyourmusic.com’s users rate as their top 5 albums of 1985:

#1 Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
#2 Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
#3 Bach & Gardiner - Mass in B Minor
#4 Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair
#5 The Replacements - Tim

Of course, I’ll also fish a few up from further down the list:

#6 Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen
#7 The Fall - The Nation’s Saving Grace
#8 The Cure - The Head on the Door
#11 The Smiths - Meat is Murder
#12 The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy & the Lash
#16 The Jesus & Mary Chain - Psychocandy

Finally, as usual, to add more female artists to the equation, I’ll be grabbing anything from 1985 from NPR’s list of the best albums of all time by female artists, as well as the same list as voted on by their readers. This year we’ve just got the one album:

Whitney Houston - Whitney Houston

Right, I’ve already said this is one of my favourite years so far, so let’s hurry up and get on with it.

Oh, and a slight change this time. In the interests of me finishing this challenge at some point before I die, I’ve decided to copy WIkipedia’s (or other website’s) blurbs as the opening paragraphs, as I was often just rewording those anyway. Of course I’ll make clear where I’ve done this!

12. Mass in B Minor

John Eliot Gardiner

“The Mass in B minor is an extended setting of the Mass ordinary by Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition was completed in 1749, the year before the composer's death, and was to a large extent based on earlier work, such as a Sanctus Bach had composed in 1724.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner is an English conductor, particularly known for his performances of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.” - Wikipedia

Gardiner’s 1985 recording of Mass in B Minor with the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists seems to be rateyourmusic.com’s favourite recording of the piece. As with most of these classical music records, this is the first I’ve heard of it. This one is notable for being chorally led, though it does also include an orchestra.

Mass in B Minor is 1 hour and 45 minutes long, and it’s pretty darn majestic. So majestic that it’s not one I’ll be in the mood for at all times, but there’s no doubt this is a really great recording of a wonderfully written piece.

8/10

11. Rum, Sodomy and the Lash

The Pogues

Rum Sodomy & the Lash is the second studio album by the London-based folk punk band The Pogues, released on 5 August 1985. The album reached number 13 in the UK charts. The track "A Pair of Brown Eyes", based on an older Irish tune, reached number 72 in the UK singles chart. "The Old Main Drag" later appeared on the soundtrack to the film “My Own Private Idaho”. - Wikipedia

I’ve always wanted to listen to more of the Pogues, Fairytale of New York has always been my favourite Christmas song, Shane MacGowan’s drunkenly slurred vocal defying the accessible melodies in the track, and I’ve generally enjoyed any of their songs when they’ve come on. So I was excited to get into Rum, Sodomy & the Lash, named after the Winston Churchill quote "Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash."

The album is pretty much what you’d expect, and I mean that as a compliment. MacGowan’s vocals are very much his own - he’s able to carry a melody while sounding completely ragged - and the band’s punkifying of Irish music has been massively influential. A lot of the album’s tracks just make you want to start dancing about and having a good old knees-up (e.g. the pacey opener The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn), but there’s plenty of slower tracks too, where MacGowan’s ability to carry a melody is even more evident (such as The Old Main Drag and the beautiful A Pair of Brown Eyes). It’s just good, punky folk music. Like a lot of folk music, it can suffer from a lack of melodic variation, and for me, I do grow a little fatigued by the album’s final two tracks, but it’s worth it for the bouncy, bouncy highs.

Song Picks: The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn, The Old Main Drag, A Pair of Brown Eyes, Navigator

8/10

“Whitney Houston is the debut studio album by American singer Whitney Houston, released on February 14, 1985, by Arista Records. The album initially had a slow commercial response but began getting more popular in the summer of 1985. It eventually topped the Billboard 200 for 14 weeks in 1986, generating three number-one singles — Saving All My Love for You, How Will I Know and Greatest Love of All (a cover of The Greatest Love of All, originally recorded in 1977 by George Benson) — on the Billboard Hot 100, which made it both the first debut album and the first album by a solo female artist to produce three number-one singles.” - Wikipedia

How much you’ll like Whitney Houston correlates directly with how much you can handle an album of cheesy 80s love songs. For me, when the album hits, it hits brilliantly, as in the three number 1 singles named above, each of which you’ll have heard hundreds of times. A remarkable feat considering they’re all from one album. They perfectly demonstrate Houston’s vocal range, and how she’s the absolute queen of the refrain (see Saving all My Love for You and Greatest Love of All in particular). How Will I Know is one of those classics that just gets everyone to the dancefloor and brimming with joy. The song has a cheesy bass line, cheesy synth stabs, and cheesy gated drums, hell it’s like a four-cheese pizza of a pop song, but when you go all in like Whitney did with this track, and pepper it with catchy melodies and a vocal performance that is completely irresistible, you get one of the most iconic pop songs ever recorded, and it’s marvellous.

The rest of the album doesn’t quite live up to the heady heights of its singles, which would have been an impossible ask. Rest assured that there’s plenty else to enjoy here though, that grooooovy (extra o’s intentional) bassline on Someone for Me for one, but there are also moments where the soppy love song lyrical content gets a bit too much, even if the melodies are consistently catchy. If you’re in the mood for it, Whitney Houston is a really fun record. It’s also clearly one of the most influential albums on 90s boy-band and girl-band pop.

Song Picks: Saving All My Love for You, How Will I Know and Greatest Love of All

8/10

The band’s eighth album marks the first in the ‘Brix era’, i.e when lead singer Mark E. Smith’s wife Brix Smith joined the band, having a massive influence and writing most of the music.

I’ve read a lot about this being their most accessible album due to Brix’s pop sensibilities, but it’s still a raucous, and at times brash affair. Mark E. Smith’s vocals are still off-kilter and ranty, and the guitars still grind like particularly energetic factory machinery. What has changed however are the guitar riffs, which are more melodic and catchy. My New House has the air of a pop hit gone deliberately wonky, and Cruiser’s Creek - one of the album’s two singles - is about as catchy a song as you can expect from a band that has Mark E Smith singing in it. A plethora of simple but effective guitar riffs roar as Smith confidently rambles about a raucous office party.

The Nation’s Saving Grace does what The Fall do best, attitude. It brims with ‘we don’t give a shit’ energy, but the active rather than the passive variety, and I’ve always been a fan of that.

Song Picks: My New House, Cruiser’s Creek, Paintwork

8.5/10

The Smiths’ second album was their only album to reach number 1 in the UK album charts, it was also succesful internationally. As you can probably guess from the album’s title, Meat is Murder sees the start of Morrissey’s pro-vegetarian (now vegan) stance, which is famously uncompromising. Even then he forbid the rest of the band being photographed eating meat. Rolling Stone ranked the album 295th in their top 500 albums of all time list.

Meat is Murder feels more cohesive than the band’s debut, and sees the band playing with longer song structures. Jonny Marr’s percussive and pacey rhythm playing once again juxtoposes nicely with Morrissey’s drawn-out vocal style. There’s a meditative feel to the album, with the core instrumental parts often changing very little throughout the song, and the variation provided by Jonny Marr’s chimey guitar licks. That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore is probably the album’s most affecting track, with Morrissey’s realisation that he has depression perfectly elocuted and performed with the lines “I've seen this happen in other people's lives/And now it's happening in mine”, repeated over and over as if saying it enough times will make it not true. We all know Marr’s a master of guitar melody, but his understated chords that finish the bleak Well I Wonder deserve at least a mention here. The album’s title track and closer is probably its weakest track, if only because the whole thing is a little on the nose.

Song Picks: The Headmaster Ritual, That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore, Well I Wonder

8.5/10

“Steve McQueen is the second studio album by English pop band Prefab Sprout, released in June 1985 by Kitchenware Records. The album was released by CBS in the United States as Two Wheels Good in anticipation of legal conflict with the estate of American actor Steve McQueen. The album cover references Steve McQueen's lifelong passion for Triumph motorcycles and the 1963 film The Great Escape.” - Wikipedia

The band’s songwriter and vocalist, Paddy McAloon has claimed the album is more producer Thomas Dolby’s album than his, as he chose the songs from a raft of demos provided by Paddy, and is wholly responsible for the very 80s sound of the record, as the Pitchfork review points out. The production touches add to McAloon’s great songwriting, gently elevating, rather than hiding it. This is largely because although there’s a very 80s sound to the record, the production exercises a level of restraint that the decade isn’t known for, one that matches perfectly with McAloon’s understated songwriting and vocal style. The instrumental touches that flesh things out are always lovely and more than occasionally bloody gorgeous (e.g. that guitar twinkling in the opening passages of When Love Breaks Down).

Steve McQueen is the type of album I think anyone can enjoy, with a bunch of thoroughly enjoyable pop songs that are varied enough to make it a) fly by, and b) a joy to return to time and time again.

Song Picks: Appetite, Lucille #1, Desire As

9/10

The Replacements are back, this time with their fourth album, first on a major label, and their last with founding member and guitarist Bob Stinson. Like their previous album Let It Be, it’s generally regarded as an all-time classic.

Tim is certainly The Replacement’s most polished album to date sonically. There’s a consistency with the guitar, drums and vocal sound across the album that just wasn’t there with Let It Be. This can make Tim seem more samey on the initial listen, but the production hides another album showcasing Westerberg’s ability to write in all sorts of styles. We’ve got the bouncy I’ll Buy, the rock ‘n’ roll Waitress in the Sky, the drunk, messy and roared Bastards of the Young, and the superb faux acoustic Here Comes a Regular. I think the Replacements’ comparative lack of commercial success can be largely linked to Westerberg’s refusal to fit into any sort of genre box. He could get angry, but he could also be soft. Westerberg is the ultimate punk, he doesn’t care that you should use this sound, or sing like that, or write about that just to fit in, he just writes what he likes and it leads to another record of great songs.

Although packed with great songs, it’s Westerberg’s softer songs that really stand out here. Siwning’ Party features a refrain that is melodically irresistible, and Westerberg’s grainy vocal performance makes it all the more affecting. The album’s closer is a goosebump moment. Here Comes a Regular essentially uses Dylan’s Knocking on Heaven’s Door chord progression to craft a masterpiece about an alcoholic. It’s sad, poignant, and features a twinkly piano part that brings tears to my eyes. It also features one of my favourite lyrics:

“All I know is I'm sick of everything that my money can buy”

I can’t confirm at this point, but I think it might be the closing track on the ‘Clive’s favourite songs of all time mixtape’, which I aim to put together before I die.

Song Picks: Here Comes a Regular, Swingin’ Party, Bastards of the Young, Waitress in the Sky

9/10

The Cure’s sixth album is the first to feature Boris Williams, and also sees the return of Simon Gallup on bass, who’d been on the band’s first three albums.

The Head on the Door isn’t as gloomy and atmospheric as the Cure’s earlier records, and has much more of a pop focus. Robert Smith made a concerted effort to feature a wide mix of musical styles which leads to everything from flamenco (The Blood) to the more oriental (Kyoto Song). It’s this variety, and its irresistible pop accessibility, that makes the album so darn good. In Between Days is classic pop the Cure, with a speedy rhythm guitar part driving along a catchy melodic number. I love the way the song builds up in the first ten seconds, exploding into headbopping joy, before Smith sings: Yesterday, I got so old/I felt like I could die over the top in a juxtapositionally happy way. It’s like he’s found a home in the sadness, and is flourishing through acceptance. That synth part is one of the happiest things in music, period. There’s darker, sparser moments like Kyoto Song and Six Different Ways, but even those bring joy with their nursery rhyme melodies. Push is the one where everyone in the crowd holds their hands up to the heavens, beaming their dreams into the night. That opening guitar riff is surely one of the most effective openings to any song, and the way the song instrumentally builds up into a triumphant melange on top of Gallop’s punchy bass part, taking nearly half the song before Smith’s vocals appear, is glorious. Close to Me’s percussive breaths open a song that sounds impressively modern, but again it’s the infectious melodies, both in the xylophone part and Smith’s vocal, that endear the song to your heart.

The Head on the Door is a perfect pop album. It has the catchy melodies and rock-solid production, but it’s also steeped in Smith’s penchant for inventiveness. It’s like the Cure have been squeezed through some sort of pop music blender, and it’s great.

Song Picks: In Between Days, Push, Close to Me, Sinking

9/10

4. Songs from the Big Chair

Tears for Fears

Songs from the Big Chair is the second studio album by English pop-rock band Tears for Fears, released on 25 February 1985 by Phonogram Records. The album peaked at number two in the UK and at number one in the US, becoming a multi-platinum seller and the band's most successful album to date. Songs from the Big Chair spawned the commercially successful singles "Mothers Talk", "Shout", "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", "Head over Heels", and "I Believe - Wikipedia

Songs from the Big Chair is a hit machine. From the opening twinkles and explosive drums of Shout the album sounds massive. Heavily reverbed instruments and vocals create an engulfing sound that combines electronic and acoustic instruments seamlessly. 80s saxophone has a reputation of being cheesy, but here it’s tastefully done, adding an element of jazz pizzaz to proceedings. In fact, the whole thing manages to sound completely 80s, while also feeling like something that could have come out today. With production as good as I’ve heard on this journey, and consistently engaging songs and soundscapes, Songs from the Big Chair has quickly become an 80s favourite.

Song Picks: Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Shout

9.5/10

3. Psychocandy

The Jesus and Mary Chain

The Scottish band’s debut album was massively influential on the upcoming shoegaze genre, but also on alternative rock in general. It is regularly cited as one of the best albums of all time.

Psychocandy’s distorted guitars fizz like a giant shaken bottle of coke as Jim Reid’s brit-pop melodies swim amongst the foam. The fizz feels like a blanket of white noise to shut my brain up, and that allows Reid’s lovely melodies to have their maximum comforting impact. Rolling Stone described the album as “bubblegum pop drowned in feedback”, and that is the most apt description I can think of. Psychocandy feels like that pick-me-up chocolate bar or bag of sweets, but without the inevitable crash afterwards. It’s an album that is almost medicinal to me.

Song Picks: Just like Honey, Some Candy Talking, The Hardest Walk, Never Understand

10/10

Hounds of Love is the fifth studio album by English singer Kate Bush, released on 16 September 1985 by EMI Records. It was a commercial success and marked a return to the public eye for Bush after the relatively low sales of her previous album, 1982's The Dreaming. The album's lead single, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), became one of Bush's biggest hits. The album's first side produced three further singles, Cloudbusting, Hounds of Love, and The Big Sky. The second side, subtitled The Ninth Wave, forms a conceptual suite about a woman drifting alone in the sea at night. - Wikipedia

It’s hard to imagine an album exists with a stronger first side than Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love, starting with the iconic Running Up That Hill, a singular song with one of the most magical soundscapes ever created, moving into Hounds of Love, full of perfect pop melodies with Kate Bush’s signature quirkiness, then the marching The Big Sky, before taking a minute to breathe on Mother Stands for Comfort and finishing with Cloudbusting’s glorious strings.

The second half features none of the hits but works as the perfect companion to the opening side and is still rooted in Bush’s pop sensibilities, even if it is more experimental. Tracks like Waking the Witch and Dream of Sheep once again show just how unique Bush’s production and songs are, there’s just nothing else quite like it out there.

Hounds of Love sounds completely iconic as soon as you put it on, and a lot of that feels like it comes from just how deep into the cultural zeitgeist the first side’s tracks are, but once you get to side two’s lesser-known material you realise that’s nothing to do with it. It’s iconic because rarely has an artist been so singular, bewitching and captured as well as Bush has here. The whole album feels unlike anything else, and yet is completely accessible. Magic.

Song Picks: Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), Cloudbusting, Hounds of Love, The Big Sky, And Dream of Sheep, Watching You Without Me

10/10

Rain Dogs is the ninth studio album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in September 1985 on Island Records. A loose concept album about ‘the urban dispossessed’ of New York City, Rain Dogs is generally considered the middle album of a trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild Years. - Wikipedia

Rain Dogs is an absolute marvel. The gruff, bar room sound Waits introduced in Swordfishtrombones (which I loved) is perfected here. There’s a percussiveness to the tracks, often a lack of any instrument playing chords to drive the track and a sense of space that makes each overdriven guitar riff ring out with a beautiful clarity. Waits’ vocal performance is consistently engaging as he growls out stories of the dispossessed in a style completely his own, his lyrics adding to the completely visual palette created by this audio recording. An exercise in minimalism in terms of production, where reverb is used very sparingly, the whole thing feels intimate, like a performance in a small basement just for you.

When Waits turns back to his earlier, more melodic style on masterpieces like Time and Downtown Train, bringing back the idea of guitar or piano chords carrying a song, he does so like a guy who has just written a song so good that he has no choice but to sing it, regardless of how much he feels like it might harken back to the past. Time’s initial verse is a great example of Waits’ evocative lyrical style and its chorus one of the most beautiful things ever written. Here’s the verse, which of course is even more effective as Waits quietly hums it:

Well the smart money's on Harlow
And the moon is in the street
The shadow boys are breaking all the laws
And you're east of East St. Louis
And the wind is making speeches
And the rain sounds like a round of applause
Napoleon is weeping in the Carnival saloon
His invisible fiance is in the mirror
And the band is going home
It's raining hammers
It's raining nails
Yes, it's true, there's nothin' left for him down here

Downtown Train has quickly become one of my favourite songs of all time, not just the 80s. The way the chorus kicks into motion like the downtown train it describes is superb, and is all the more succesful due to the album’s careful sprinkling of guitar riffs, one that Waits has spent the duration of the album successfully selling you on.

I’ve said sparse a lot here, but I don’t think that’s exactly what I mean. There’s a lot going on in these tracks, and often a whole bunch of interesting instruments (the instrumental Midtown is a good example), but nothing owns the track, your mind is barely drawn to one thing, like a driving riff or bass line, but instead your brain takes in the twinkles, pats and thuds of everything happening as well as Waits’ gritty vocal. As I listen to Rain Dogs’ rich and singular sonic palette, my brain jumps from sound to sound, and it feels completely alive. Rain Dogs is the most exquisite and yet rooted cup of coffee, one where you can taste the struggle.

Song Picks: Time, Downtown Train, Union Square, Clap Hands,

10/10