25 of my favourite releases from 1980

richardh wrote: Logan wrote: Now that I have gone through all of the 80s years, although because of how I did it I missed putting in many favourites of mine (and forgot others), I just want to stress that to me it is fantastic decade for music, and a very "progressive" decade at that. Some people accuse everything about the 80s as being so slick and shallow, but then maybe one is digging too shallow a furrow to ferret. Plenty of gems to unearth. I was always a seventies man really. Even the punk stuff was harder edged and more interesting for me, with the 80's bringing a more 'over produced' sound and style of music that grated on me. I like drums to sound like drums. That said there were some good bands such as China Crisis, Simple Minds, Talk Talk and Propaganda. I also reckon that Iron Maiden did everything in the 80's that the seventies prog bands did, just under the guise of 'metal' becoming the main innovators of 'prog metal'. I'm a rock fan at heart and that will never change although at least in the 80s I explored some of the 'New Age' releases with the likes of Mark Isham and Stephen Caudel doing some sterling work and also became a Tangerine Dream fan ( Still love all their 80's releases up to and inc Underwater Sunlight) as well catching up on classic prog as I was a bit late to the party. I also started listening to Kate Bush when I realised she wasn't just a novelty act

I was born in the early 70s (birthday was yesterday even though I was not born yesterday despite any reports to the contrary), and some of the 80s music I remember liking in the 80s was Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson, Madness, The Who (I liked It's Hard), Echo & the Bunnymen, Midnight Oil, Icehouse, Divinyls, various Rush, The Cure, various post-punk and experimental music that I would hear on university radio, various soundtrack music, and I was very much into Kitaro at the end of the 80s and getting into Enya and Clannad, into Vangelis very much then... After finding PA, then I noticed a huge affinity for the music in the RIO/Avant Prog category, and Art Zoyd was an early stand-out, then other RIO and avant prog acts like Cardiacs which I had heard in the 80s or early 90s but did not like then (sounded too weird and forced, but then I was exposed to the not best-for-me-music early on). It was only in more recent years that I got into music I really love such as Siouxsie and The Banshees, Nick Cave, Cocteau Twins, Joy Division...

I adore music of the 70s. I also adore music of the 60s, the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s etc. Currently I am most listening to music of this millennium (had an obsession with Sufjan Stevens music of late). I do have and know more music of the 70s than any other decade in my collection, but I appreciate music of so many years and eras. And every decade has lots of music that will not interest me too, but the internet (searching, charts, recommendations, this forum) has helped me to find music I really like from every decade from the 50s up. And I continue to discover music that I like from all of those decades.

Edited by Logan - Yesterday at 10:22

Joy Division, Kate Bush, Peter Hammill, Peter Gabriel.

My favourite from this year is Rainy Sundays ... Windy Dreams by Andy Irvine.