1985 in Music

This page collects my reviews for music released in 1985.

1. The Pogues: Rum, Sodomy and the Lash (10/10)

I have long loved If I Should Fall From Grace With God and considered it pretty near essential, especially as punk treatments of roots music go. It’s got what is probably their most famous song – “Fairy Tale in New York,” the Pogues song that you probably have heard even if you have never heard of the Pogues – and I had always assumed that was the Pogues album to have. Like with so many other things, I was wrong.

This is a fantastic album that expertly blends Celtic music and punk even more expertly, perhaps, than that 1987 album I adore. This is one of those records which reminds me why I devote way too many hours scouring through bands’ back catalogues. Finding something like this reminds me why I love music as well. It is a note-perfect combination of energy and songs. It’s an absolute classic. The originals are strong and the covers are so well curated that it makes me long for an all-covers album by this band.

And, as an aside on those covers: “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” has to be the most devastating song ever written (in English) about war. I will have to try to find other Bogle songs.

Just an absolute classic record. Perhaps the best punk interpretation of roots music ever. (Certainly the best punk interpretation of Celtic music.)

1. Possessed: Seven Churches (10/10)

Metal was relatively tame before thrash but even some thrash can sound tame today, because of the extremes later bands went to. This is, to the best of my knowledge, the invention of the genre of death metal. Read the review of Seven Churches.

1.Tom Waits: Rain Dogs (10/10)

Tom Waits’ second record to fully embrace his new sound is obviously less significant than the first, if only because the first time he did it, he essentially created a new subgenre within Americana that was so unusual it essentially just has to be called ‘Waitsian.’

But I think it’s just as good an album and, whatever it lacks it historical importance compared with Swordfishtrombones it more than makes up with in songs – both some of Waits more distinctive songs and some of his most accessible – and in the performances – both from the man himself, who manages a wide diversity, despite his voice, and particularly from Marc Ribot.

Here is one of America’s best and most distinct songwriters fully in his element. Everything about the album sounds like it belongs, despite a wide variety of sounds. The arrangements conjure a sense of time and place (even if that time and place is, perhaps, imaginary) and most if not all the songs on the record are among his very best.

An absolute classic.

Read my reviews of Tom Waits’ albums.

4. Mekons: Fear and Whiskey (9/10)

Is this the birth of alt country? Read the review of Fear and Whiskey.

5. Celtic Frost: To Mega Therion (9/10)

I don’t particularly listen to Black Metal or Death Metal. I don’t listen to them because the idea of a band focusing on just one style for album after album bores me. So I can’t really say too much about this and its purported historical importance on both of those sub-genres. Apparently it helped establish Black Metal as a thing. And, according to some, it was also an early Death Metal landmark. I’m not really sure which is more true and, frankly, it’s probably an arbitrary thing.

So all I can comment on is the actual music: for 1985, this is some punishing stuff. It’s clearly moving on from Thrash, though there are obviously some major thrash elements. But that’s not what’s really cool about it. What’s really cool about it is the bravado. The bravado to open a metal album with a French Horn. And to have French Horn parts on various tracks on the album. That plus the occasional bizarre falsetto vocal overdub, establishes this as a brazenly different record than a lot of the other metal being made at the time. And it helps add variation to what is otherwise just a pummeling onslaught of slower thrash.

Probably a classic.

6. Slayer: Hell Awaits (9/10)

Slayer!!! (Insert metal horns here.) Read the review of Hell Awaits.

7. Husker Du: New Day Rising (9/10)

The narrative I’ve heard about this record is that the band returns to their hardcore roots. I accepted that blindly the first few times I heard the record but I don’t believe that’s true any more.

While this record is more consistently “hardcore” in its traditional sense than Zen Arcade, it’s still nothing like traditional hardcore and the only reason it is not seen as a massive departure from hardcore is because Zen Arcade already existed.

In many ways New Day Rising is actually possibly a better record – for one thing the lack of ambition does make it more digestible and more approachable, and more concise obviously. (I don’t actually mean that, I’m just pointing out how I think people could like this more.) Mould and Hart have grown and they have found how they could clothe their more traditional (or more psychedelic) ideas in the clothing of hardcore to make it seem as though they are just performing more accessible hardcore.

Really, the only thing I can think of keeping this from the top of the list of the best alternative records of the 1980s is the existence of its predecessor which, were it not for the Minutemen existing, invented an entire new genre of music, of which this album is one of the foundational documents.

8. Oliver Knussen: Higglety Pigglety Pop! (9/10)

This is the kind of “children’s music” more children should be exposed to. This is the kind of music that will offend musical conservatives but will delight (and possibly scare) children because they don’t know any better. Oh to have heard something like this when I was a kid in the 80s. It would have changed my life.

As an opera, I doubt it’s really one of the great ones of its era, but I quite like it; it’s got moments that stick with you despite the relatively radical nature of the music.

Note: I have only ever heard the 1999 revision and I don’t know what changed.

9. The Jesus and Mary Chain: Psychocandy (8/10)

Full disclosure: I do not like Shoegaze. I don’t really get “noise pop” particularly. I don’t know why (but my guess is that it’s too one-dimensional for me). So I guess it should come as no surprise that the band that is probably more responsible for shoegaze than anyone else is not a band I like.

But it’s ridiculous of me to say this is a bad or average record because the particular innovation of The Jesus and Mary Chain (pairing pop melodies with at times abrasive distortion) is somehow unimportant. Because, seriously, there is no shoegaze without this band and this record. And there are probably any number of other indie pop trends that never occur because of this record.

So I must say that, despite my personal lack of interest in this style of music, I recognize this as a bit of a landmark.

10. Gothic Voices: A Feather on the Breath of God (8/10)

This is, by all accounts, the album that started our time’s fascination with early Medieval music. So from that point alone, this is an important release. But as with other Hildegard releases, I don’t know enough about her music to know whether or not these pieces were meant to be sung together. I suspect there’s been a lot more research since and so recordings of this century may be better informed, but whatever.

The music is beautiful and ethereal. Don’t know enough to say much else.

11. Kate Bush: The Hounds of Love (8/10)

I’m not sure her most ambitious album is her best. Not there yet, anyway. Read the review of The Hounds of Love.

12. Meat Puppets: Up on the Sun (8/10)

Cowpunk goes (kinda) psychedelic. Read the review of Up on the Sun.

13. Megadeth: Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good! (8/10)

Faster thrash. Read the review of Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good!

14. Talking Heads: Little Creatures (8/10)

One of the most innovative bands of its era puts out a conventional record for the first time and it’s…good. Read the review of Little Creatures. Or, why not read all my reviews of Talking Heads albums?

15. Various Artists: Lost in the Stars (8/10)

The way tribute albums should be done. Zorn was definitely paying attention while he participated, as this seems to be the inspiration (or partial inspiration) for his fantastic Great Jewish Music series.

16. Hüsker Dü: Flip Your Wig (8/10)

Not a masterpiece in my opinion but still very good, as you would expect from this band. Read the review of Flip Your Wig.

And, while you’re at it, check out my other reviews of Hüsker Dü’s albums.

17. New Order: Low-Life (8/10)

Post punk turns into dance music and I don’t hate it. Read the review of Low-Life.

18. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: The Firstborn is Dead (8/10)

The Bad Seeds’ blues album, which was a big surprise to me. They take both old blues tunes and a not so old country tune (I think it’s country) and turn it into a demented re-imagining of the Blues that sounds much more like the early Bad Seeds – and even, at times, the Birthday Party – than it does the blues being made by most contemporary American artists at the time and, especially, British artists. As noted elsewhere on RYM, this is about as good as foreign approximations of the Blues get, in the ’80s anyway.

If you’ve never heard the early Bad Seeds, this might come as a shock – i.e. if you’re only familiar with their much more accessible later music – but this is probably their most accessible early album (at least that I’ve heard). And it’s thematic and musical consistency makes it a standout, even if Cave hasn’t quite yet developed into the great songwriter he eventually became.

Read my reviews of all Bad Seeds albums.

19. Volcano Suns: The Bright Orange Years (8/10)

Nearly a decade ago I wrote:

Like an unholy marriage of the Dream Syndicate and Hüsker Dü, with a touch of Mission of Burma. Pretty fun. Everything great about US alternative rock in the mid-’80s even if it is more than a little derivative.

I think I got it backwards a bit: this is so Mission of Burma it’s not even funny. I don’t really hear the other two bands much any more.

But I love it unconditionally even though it’s just the Mission of Burma drummer trying to keep that band’s sound alive.

Mission of Burma are a way better band and I’ve overrated this. But I love it.

20. Camper Van Beethoven: Telephone Free Landslide Victory (8/10)

Imagine Kaleidoscope, if they were ’80s college kids (and, so, liked the Velvets), had far more interest in ska, far less interest in learning to play foreign instruments, and with a sense of humour, and you maybe sort of get the idea of these guys.

The instrumentals tackle a variety of styles but many of them have a vaguely ska-ish feel underlying them (sort of like ska world fusion or something). The songs with lyrics are pretty much all parodies of either contemporary music styles, scenes or subcultures but given enough of an ’80s college radio feel that the album still manages to sound roughly coherent.

I love bands like this, but I must say that their lyrics sometimes let me down. I’m sure “Where the Hell is Bill?” was really funny in 1985, but not being familiar with how people dressed on American campuses in 1985 (I was 4) I can’t really laugh. “Ambiguity Song” does not live up to its title. Etc.

My favourite song with lyrics here is probably “Club Med Sucks,” which is still relevant today (am I joking?).

And yes, they do sound like a much kinder version of the Butthole Surfers. Perhaps they influenced them.

21. Philip Glass: “String Quartet No. 3 ‘Mishima'” (8/10)

The ‘Mishima’ quartet may be his most famous (just a guess) because of its inclusion on a soundtrack and also because it is far and away the most obviously Glassian of his quartets up to the time of its composition. As such, what you think of it likely depends on whether or not you like Glass. I think it’s great, though I am inclined to rate the first quartet higher, but I also have become quite the Glass fan recently. It’s as a good place as any to enter into Glass’ oeuvre, as it’s short enough but representative enough to give you an idea of whether or not he’s for you.

22. Minutemen: 3-Way Tie for Last (8/10)

I have come to the Minutemen completely backwards. I have been a fIREHOSE fan for quite some time but am only now getting to the point of listening to these guys and of course I listen to their last album…

Anyway, this is a set of rock songs (and song fragments) that varies from righteous anger about US politics to reflections on the nature of story-telling, with a bunch of covers (from literally all over the place). The music is pretty typical post-hardcore with the kind of silly, mild experimentation that makes so much American ’80s alternative music great.

Though these guys are serious, they’re fun. And they don’t see the boundaries that tradition has erected.

Good stuff.

Read my Minutemen album reviews.

23. Carnivore (8/10)

A ridiculous metal record – likely a major inspiration for GWAR – that manages to pack in more musical diversity than most early thrash records. Read the review of Carnivore’s debut album.

24. The Replacements: Tim (8/10)

I think when I first heard this record, as with Let it Be, I felt some kind of pressure to like it more than I did. I mean, it’s the Replacements. If there’s one American underground band you’re supposed to like, it’s them.

But I struggle with this record at times, trying to decide whether or not it’s very good, or just good, having abandoned trying to decide that it’s Great.

And the reason I struggle isn’t the band itself. They did a brave thing, after all. At a time when everyone was very much punk, they revived pop rock traditions that were very old fashioned. And they did it better than other bands attempting to do the same thing.

No, my reservations about the Replacements and this record in particular lie with Westerberg. I have encountered many songwriters in my life: some I love, some I don’t mind, some I find overrated, etc. But I don’t think I’ve encountered another songwriter who can make me admire him and get annoyed with him within the same record – within the same song! – as Westerberg. He has these great character sketches, and he is able to capture the confusion of youthful hormones better than most. But then he has some lines that are just awful – like his lines about smoking on an airplane on “Waitress in the Sky.” And yes, sometimes all of these are wrapped up in the same song.

Ah well. It’s still a good record. Just not quite the classic I’ve always wanted it to be.

25. REM: Fables of the Reconstruction of the Fables of the Reconstruction of the Fables of the… (8/10)

REM was the first contemporary band I was ever persuaded to listen to. I can’t remember when I bought this, but it’s been about two decades or so. I don’t know if I can be objective.

This is, in many ways, a transitional album, from their sort of “punk Byrds” Americana mysticism to their later, more polished sound. It’s the first album where more of Stipe’s lyrics are intelligible than not – and, apparently, the first one in which he was actually trying to make lyrical sense, which is a bit of revisionist history, but anyway – and it marks their first use of session musicians (I think). They worked with Joe Boyd, he of the British folk rock revolution of the late ’60s and early ’70s. (I learned something new recently: Joe Boyd is American!) It’s also the only album they recorded outside of the US, even though it is very much about the US. As someone else on RYM noted, there is a definite attempt at creating something akin to the college rock version of Faulkner.

I like pretty much all the songs, but that’s because I’ve known them for 20 years. But regardless of whether or not I can be objective, the idea that this is their worst album – or worst album prior to Berry’s departure – strikes me as kind of insane. I’d much rather listen to something like this that, for all its more professional sound, still retains something of their indecipherability than a couple of their polished later missteps. This still sounds like the band that somehow managed to bridge punk with traditional American music in a way that (at least to my ears) no other band could do. (The rest of them all sound like they are of their time – early REM sometimes strikes me as out of it.) And this is probably the last time they ever sounded like that.

Read my reviews of other R.E.M. albums.

26. The Fall: This Nation’s Saving Grace (8/10)

To this day, this album remains the only Fall album I’ve ever heard. And I never realized that the edition I’m familiar with is an expanded one, so it’s hard for me to really review the original. I am used to almost 1/3 as many more songs, and a slightly different order. Anyway…

This is supposed to be the best Fall album. I have no idea. I do know that I read all the criticism and just sort of accepted that this is near-classic. I used to do that a lot.

But I find that though I appreciate what they are doing – in many ways connecting with pre-punk rock traditions through both the lens of punk and the lens of art rock – this rarely grabs me like it’s supposed to. It’s a record that I can put on and ignore – ignore might be the wrong word. I put it on, I enjoy it, but I never think “Wow, I want to listen to that over and over” or “Wow, this moment is amazing.” And I don’t really know why I don’t feel that way, because, intellectually, I like what they are up to.

And so this is more one of those “respect” records than one I love. But I still greatly respect it, and really want to like it more than I do.

27. Tears for Fears: Songs from the Big Chair (8/10)

Was it high school when someone lent me this album? It must have been because there’s no recorded review. I suspect I just wasn’t in the mood at the time, and I’m barely in the mood now, having just struggled through contemporaneous albums by Whitney Houston and Phil Collins. Hopefully I can be fair.

Tears for Fears always appealed to me more than other synthpop bands, not just because they had bigger hits (mostly from this record) in North America but because of their conventional instruments. (In fact, it feels kind of unfair to call them “synthpop” in part because of how prominent guitar, bass guitar and live drums are in their arrangements, though those drums are sometimes gated.)

And I still find them instantly more accessible today, for the same reason. If I’m going to listen to heavily ’80s music, I want to listen to music that still has rock elements to it, as this does. It walks a fine line between vaguely new wavish rock music and synthpop (and occasionally sophistipop), and that’s more appealing to me than those latter genres.

I’m not sure the songs are always there – at least melodically – but, for once for the mainstream music of this era, I find the overall arrangements strong enough that I don’t always care. And I should reiterate my caveat: I generally like the lyrics but I’m not sure how much I love the melodies of the deep cuts. But then, their performances, often full of attitude, help sell them.

I’m not sure how much of my positive reaction comes from familiarity with this album and band more than most mainstream 1985 records, but I still like it more than a lot of them.

28. Rites of Spring (8/10)

Post hardcore without the artiness. I guess that’s just emo? Read the review of Rites of Spring’s debut album.

29. Anthrax: Spreading the Disease (8/10)

A little too close to power metal for my liking. Read the review of Spreading the Disease.

30. Exodus: Bonded by Blood (8/10)

Good thrash metal. Read the review of Bonded by Blood.

31. LL Cool J: Radio (7?/10)

No idea how important this is. Read the review of Radio.

32. Run-D.M.C.: King of Rock (7?/10)

Dated. Read the review of King of Rock.

33. Mauricio Kagel: Sankt Bach Passion (7/10)

This is a rather crazy oratorio, based on the idea that Bach was a saint, I guess, and featuring texts drawn from his letters and other sources.

There is a lot going on in this piece and, even after 3 listens, it’s hard to really put into words what I think about it. I do think that, along with Kagel’s other tributes to major composers, it has a lot more to do with Kagel than the object of tribute, in this case Bach. But that doesn’t make it bad. This is a monumental work which, like so much of Kagel’s work, probably suffers from streaming online through the Toronto library. It deserves serious consideration and I’m not sure I’m quite at a place where I can give it, not just because I haven’t watched it, but because Kagel pulls from so many things (he always does, but here it feels like much more than usual). In some ways I guess this is sort of the Ulysses of oratorios – well, it doesn’t have a reputation like that but it sure is dense.

But whatever we may think of this provocative and long work, it deserves notice.

34. The Cure: The Head on the Door (7/10)

Pretty good though the songs could be slightly better. (Though my favourite Cure song is here.) Read the review of The Head on the Door.

35. Prince and the Revolution: Around the World in a Day (7/10)

The production is too murky. Read the review of Around the World in a Day or why not read all my Prince album reviews?

36. Yello: Stella (7/10)

If you’re looking for 11 variations on “Oh Yeah”, you’ve come to the wrong place. Read the review of Stella.

37. Killing Joke: Night Time (7/10)

Now you can dance to them. Read the review of Night Time.

38. The Smiths: Meat is Murder (7/10)

Okay, okay, I’ve come around. A little. Read the review of Meat is Murder.

39. Fine Young Cannibals (6/10)

A fine, ahem, new soul singer is held back by the ’80s slickness of his band and producer. Read the review of Fine Young Cannibals’ debut album.

40. a-ha: Hunting High and Low (7/10)

There’s a lot more to this band than “Take on Me”. Read the review of Hunting High and Low.

41. The Chameleons: What Does Anything Mean? Basically (6/10)

British post punk that is slightly more musically diverse – acoustic guitars, dreamy synths – and jangly than what came earlier. But it’s still extremely imitative of what came before. Read the review of What Does Anything Mean? Basically.

42. Black Flag: In My Head (6/10)

Their final album is definitely more “post hardcore” than their earlier records. Read the review of In My Head.

43. Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms (6/10)

Ten years ago I wrote the following:

This might not be so bad if they had actually hired a producer.  It’s like Knopfler put a big stamp on this record saying “This album was recorded in the ’80s!”  Knopfler’s production is the aural equivalent of those ’50s sci-fi films that imagined the “futuristic” ’70s and now make us laugh…oh how silly they were to think that’s what the future would look like, te he he.  They tried to make this sound “modern” and hear what happened.

His songs aren’t all mediocre.  “Money for Nothing,” aside from having one of the classic guitar licks from the ’80s, is a pretty good attempt at replicating what regular joes probably felt when looking at synth pop/”hair metal” bands on MTV.  “Walk of Life” and “So Far Away” would have been decent without the “Hey, did we mention it’s ’85?” production.  However, “Your Latest Trick” is about as bad as pop music posing as “fusion” gets.  Something else might’ve resulted had they actually found someone who can make records.

Read the rest of the review.

44. Phil Collins: No Jacket Required (6/10)

The most 1985 of albums. Read the review of No Jacket Required.

45. Sting: The Dream of the Blue Turtles (6/10)

The sound of man who has completely lost his edge. Read the review of The Dream of The Blue Turtles.

46. The Cult: Love (6/10)

The liner notes actually make this worse. I’m not saying it’s bad. It’s certainly better than most of the “rock” being forced upon us by mainstream radio during this decade. But any claim to it being “important” is ridiculous.

47. Heart (5/10)

A hard rock band reinvented as an ’80s pop rock band. Read the review of Heart’s self-titled album.

48. Whitney Houston (5/10)

A great voice, poor song selection and production. Read the review of Whitney Houston’s debut album.

49. Motley Crüe: Theatre of Pain (5/10)

The band has abandoned any trace of metal in their sound. Read the review of Theatre of Pain.


Not Ranked:

New York City Opera conducted by Christopher Keene: Satyagraha by Philip Glass (10/10)

This is the middle of Glass’ “portrait opera” trilogy (which aren’t really operas in the traditional sense, as they lack narratives) though I’m listening to it last.

Unfortunately the review was deleted.