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Your Ultimate 80s Album – Revealed!

The 80s really went big - big hair, big fashion choices, and certainly no shortage of big albums.

Radio 2 marks this year's 80s themed National Album Day (Sat 10 Oct) with a day of programmes packed full of 80s album tracks, from 8am to midnight.

Meanwhile, Sounds of the 80s with Gary Davies has been asking listeners to vote for their Ultimate 80s Album, and after tens of thousands of votes, the results can now be revealed...

A reminder of the voting process: we had a long-list of 50 to choose from, selected by a of music experts. The shortlist was based on sales from each year of the decade, alongside a selection of albums that have endured the test of time, and some slow-burners that weren't huge hits on release, but are now highly regarded.

So what was your ULTIMATE 80s Albums? And which albums made the Top 10? Find out more below...

= 9. ABC - The Lexicon Of Love

Released: 1982
Highest UK chart position: 1

While many of their synth-pop and New Romantic peers were looking to the future, Sheffield sophisti-pop icons ABC decided instead to take things back to classic-era songwriting but channelled through a thoroughly contemporary lens.

The band's platinum-selling debut combined the grooves of funk and disco, the heart-wrenchingly emotive lyrics of pop and the sheen of the electronica coming out of the New Wave scene, all held together by Fry's bold frontmanship and Trevor Horn's pristine production.

Did you know? The album's title was inspired by a headline from an NME live review of ABC, which used the phrase to describe the band's music.

= 9. Prince - 'Purple Rain'

Released: 1984

Highest UK chart position: 7

How do you top an album like '1999', an extravagant double album oozing with charisma and confidence that fused RnB and pop with a futuristic electronic sound? Well, how about delivering an even more ambitious masterpiece of a record that sold over 25 million copies and came with an accompanying film that grossed over $70 million worldwide. 'Purple Rain' may have been more pop-leaning than what we had heard from Prince before (and after) but it wasn't the tiniest bit compromising. Instead it showcased the sheer extent of Prince's songwriting and sonic talents and reinvented pop in his image.

Billboard Magazine later said of the album's huge impact on popular culture: "Had Prince run for president that year, he would have certainly carried his native Minnesota... and he probably would've cleaned up most other places. The reason: 'Purple Rain', his groundbreaking, genre-blurring, utterly genius sixth album. It was a massive seller wherever there were radios and people with pulses."

Did you know? Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks turned down the chance to pen lyrics for 'Purple Rain''s epic title-track, saying that she was "scared" by the prospect. Nicks later recalled: "It was so overwhelming, that 10-minute track… I listened to it and I just got scared. I called him back and sad, ‘I can’t do it. I wish I could. It’s too much for me. I’m so glad I didn’t, because he wrote it, and it became ‘Purple Rain’.”

8. Paul Simon - 'Graceland'

Released: 1986

Highest UK chart position: 1

Paul Simon has never hidden his interest in global musical sounds, having previously recorded the reggae-inspired 'Mother and Child Reunion' in Jamaica and, after 'Graceland', going on to work with Latin American musicians for 'The Rhythm of the Saints'. His seventh solo studio album 'Graceland', however, would eclipse all these career detours and everything else that came before, with Simon paying warm homage to South African rhythms and telling timeless tales in the songs.

'Graceland' would be controversial due to the cultural boycott of South Africa. However, its success would lead to Simon being one of the very first international artists to perform in the country following Nelson Mandela's release from prison (and after the boycott was lifted). Mandela would attend one of Simon's five shows in January 1992, with Simon saying at the time: "I hope my presence here and the concerts will bring people pleasure as a musical evening and that for those few hours at least people can put aside their differences and simply enjoy the pleasure of the music."

Did you know? 'Graceland' was inspired by a bootleg cassette tape of South African music that Simon had been loaned. He explained: "A friend of mine gave me a tape of ‘township jive,’ the street music of Soweto, South Africa. It was a happy instrumental music that reminded me of 1950s rhythm and blues, which I have always loved. By the end of the summer, I was scat-singing melodies over the tracks. And so I went on a search to find out who they were and where they came from."

7. The Smiths - 'The Queen Is Dead'

Released: 1986

Highest UK chart position: 2

Despite releasing four stunning records during their five years together, it could be said that The Smiths were not particularly an albums kind of band at all. After all, many of their biggest (and best-loved) hits were released as standalone singles: 'This Charming Man', 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now', 'How Soon Is Now' and 'Panic' included. However, their third LP 'The Queen Is Dead' in 1986 not only includes some of their most memorable songs ('Cemetry Gates', 'Bigmouth Strikes Again', 'The Boy with the Thorn in His Side', 'There Is a Light That Never Goes Out') but is strong from start to finish.

'The Queen Is Dead' showed a band at the height of their powers. Morrissey's delivery is as irresistibly idiosyncratic as you'll hear anywhere in rock or pop, his lyrics at once maudlin and wryly funny and the combo of Johnny Marr's jangling guitar, Andy Rourke's melodic bass and Mike Joyce's driving drum beats clicking everything into place.

Did you know? The artwork for the two lead singles from the album both featured photos of famous figures: a young Truman Capote adorning the front sleeve of 'The Boy with the Thorn in His Side' and James Dean on 'Bigmouth Strikes Again'.

6. The Human League - 'Dare'

Released: 1981

Highest UK chart position: 1

After their first two albums, The Human League found themselves at a career crossroads. Their first two albums - 'Reproduction' (1979) and 'Travelogue' (1980) peaked in the UK at No.34 and No.16 respectively, and debts were owed to their label. With founding Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh leaving to form Heaven 17, band leader Phil Oakey recruited vocalists Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley (both of whom he met at a Sheffield nightclub) and pursue a more pop-friendly sound. "We’ve moved away from textures to tunes," Oakey said at the time. "It’s tunes every time."

'Dare', named after a Mekons song and with artwork meant to look like a Vogue magazine cover, showed snooty-nosed purists that pop didn't have to be watered down, that thoughtful music could be accessible and that you didn't necessary need to play 'traditional' instruments to be a 'real' band. It's an album that would inspire countless pop acts after it.

Did you know? Oakey disliked 'Don't You Want Me' so much that he fought against having it on the album at all, describing it as a "poor quality filler track". However, he would soon change his mind upon the song's success, telling Smash Hits in 1981: "It’s the best song I’ve ever written. It’s a proper song, like the kind that Earth, Wind and Fire or ABBA would write."

5. Guns N' Roses - 'Appetite For Destruction'

Released: 1987

Highest UK chart position: 5

Guns N' Roses' 'Appetite for Destruction' is the epitome of a sleeper hit of an album. Released in July 1987, the record initially only made it as far as No.68 in the UK Albums Chart before quickly disappearing from the Top 100. The album would again grace the charts over the following years, reaching No.15 in September 1988 before finally peaking at No.5 in July 1989 - by which point five superb singles had been released from it.

But despite its slow-burning success, the album itself is a mile-a-minute, in-your-face onslaught - from the unwieldy opening ode to Los Angeles 'Welcome to the Jungle' to the soaring 'Paradise City'. Then there's 'Sweet Child O' Mine', proof that power ballads can really pack an almighty punch.

Did you know? The song 'Nightrain' is named after Night Train Express, a brand of fortified wine popular in California and similar to Scotland's Buckfast.

4. Michael Jackson - ‘Thriller’

Released: 1982

Highest UK chart position: 1

If you’re to judge a classic album on its hits, then look no further than Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller'. After the success of 1979’s joyous and disco-tinged ‘Off The Wall’, Jackson wanted his follow-up to be taken up a notch, inspired by producer Quincy Jones to make sure "every song was a killer". And the results truly lived up to that, with no filler in sight with seven of its nine songs being lifted as singles.

The album also broke down racial barriers, and Rolling Stone later wrote of its legacy: "It's hard to imagine the present-day musical landscape without ‘Thriller’, which changed the game both sonically and marketwise… Beyond breaking ground, it broke records, showing just how far pop could reach: the biggest selling album of all time, the first album to win eight Grammys in a single night and the first album to stay in the Top 10 charts [in the US] for a year."

Did you know? The album was almost called ‘Midnight Man’, while ‘Thriller’, the song, originally went by the name ‘Starlight’. Quincy Jones had tasked songwriter Rod Temperton with coming up with a title for the album, leading Temperton to make a list of over 200 possibilities. After deciding upon ‘Midnight Man’, he woke up one morning with the idea of ‘Thriller’. Temperton later recalled: “Something in my head just said, this is the title. You could visualise it on the top of the Billboard charts. You could see the merchandising for this one word, how it jumped off the page as 'Thriller.'"

3. The Stone Roses - 'The Stone Roses'

Released: 1989

Highest UK chart position: 19

A key part of the Madchester scene, Stones Roses’ debut paid nods to the dance sensibilities of their peers’ acid house sound while also harking back to the psychedelia of the 60s and classic rock and pop songwriting (like the timeless and flawless ‘I am the Resurrection’). As SPIN later put it, the album featured a “mixture of... the universal melodies of the Beatles, the gorgeously ringing guitars of the Byrds, the cheeky (and quintessentially British) humor of the Smiths, the self-fulfilling arrogance of the Sex Pistols”.

Despite the Stone Roses’ own influences though, their album would go on to have a massive impact on British guitar music. The LP would be named the best British album of all-time by NME writers in 2006, while Oasis' Liam Gallagher told Mojo in 2019: “Every time I put the Roses’ tunes on, it just wasn’t gloomy. It was sunny, y’know? Even though they were from Manchester... It’s pissing down outside,the sounds are taking you somewhere else. I started realising music was magical.”

Did you know? The album’s closing song, ‘I Am the Resurrection’, was based on a Beatles song, namely the Fab Four’s 1966 ‘Revolver’ track ‘Taxman’. Drummer Reni later recalled: "[Bassist] Mani would play the riff backwards during sound-checks and we played along over the top for a laugh. Finally we said, Let's do this joke-song properly and see what happens.”

2. Dire Straits - ‘Brothers In Arms’

Released: 1985

Highest UK chart position: 1

Dire Straits were never too concerned with commercial success. After all, their predecessor to ‘Brothers In Arms’, 1982’s ‘Love Over Gold’, featured a 14 minute opening track and its briefest song just short of 6 minutes. But their 1985 release became, perhaps unexpectedly, a phenomenon like we’ve rarely seen. It has gone platinum 14 times in the UK alone, sold over 30 million copies worldwide and was emblematic of a turning moment in music history, becoming the first album to shift 1 million copies on CD - marking the first time that CD sales rose above that of vinyl LPs.

Frontman Mark Knopfler said of how the album changed the band, who would split just three years later: “It did get big, and I just felt that it got too big to be real and to be manageable. I think there’s an optimum size for things.” Perhaps because of the album’s overwhelming popularity, and its ubiquitous place in popular music, it sometimes gets overlooked as being an all-time classic. But now it finally gets the recognition it deserves with its runners-up place in our Ultimate 80s Album poll. Make no mistake, there are few albums with songs that pack a groove like Sting-featuring lead single ‘Money For Nothing’, the emotive resonation of ‘So Far Away’ or sheer rousing joyousness of ‘Walk Of Life’.

Did you know? Sting’s guest appearance on the track ‘Money for Nothing’ came about because he was on holiday on the same Caribbean island where the band were recording their album. "Sting used to come to Montserrat to go windsurfing and he came up for supper at the studio," bassist John Illsley later revealed. "We played him 'Money for Nothing' and he turned round and said, 'You've done it this time, you b******s.' Mark said if he thought it was so good, why didn't he go and add something to it. He did his bit there and then."

1. U2 - 'The Joshua Tree'

Released: 1987

Highest UK chart position: 1

U2 had a run of albums like few other bands in the 80s, from their ferocious 1980 debut ‘Boy’ to 1981’s pensive and self-questioning ‘October’ to 1983’s powerful and politicised ‘War’. After 1984’s moody and ambient ‘The Unforgettable Fire’, Bono and band made the step-up to mega-stardom with ‘The Joshua Tree’, an album that saw the band top the charts in over 20 countries, win Grammy Awards and to date shift over 25 million copies worldwide to date.

‘The Joshua Tree’ saw U2 not only harness their sound to its purest form, but also amplify it too. They had never sounded more cinematic, primed to pack stadiums for the years to come, or had singles quite as universally rousing as the still-ubiquitous "With or Without You" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". But the increased grandiosity didn’t mean the subject matter had to become any less vital though, with songs like 'Mothers of the Disappeared' and 'Red Hill Mining Town' touching on topics such as crimes by dictatorships or the miner’s strike.

Did you know? The joshua tree depicted on the back sleeve of the album was actually located in California’s Mojave Desert, rather than the Joshua Tree National Park as many presume. The tree in question sadly fell in 2000, but a fan later installed a plaque at its site featuring the words “Have you found what you’re looking for?”, a reference to one of the album’s lead singles.

U2’s The Edge says: “The Joshua Tree changed everything for us as a band. It was written in the mid-Eighties, during the Reagan-Thatcher era of British and US politics, a period when there was a lot of unrest. And it feels like we’re right back there in a way, politics are still so polarised. We’ve had the privilege of playing The Joshua Tree live all over the world in the last few years and it’s almost like the album has come full circle. We’re just thrilled that people are still connecting with these songs, night after night, year after year. Huge thanks to Radio 2 and everyone who voted!”

Gary Davies says: "Because there were so many brilliant albums in the 80s having to choose just one is really difficult. I’m very pleased to see that the Radio 2 listeners have impeccable taste by choosing an album from my all-time favourite band and agree with me that the Ultimate 80s album just has to be The Joshua Tree from U2."

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The rest of the Top 40

11. Kate Bush – 'Hounds Of Love'
12. Duran Duran - 'Rio'
13. Tears For Fears - 'Songs From The Big Chair'
14. Bruce Springsteen - 'Born In The USA'
15. AC/DC - 'Back In Black'
16. Deacon Blue - 'Raintown'
17. Frankie Goes To Hollywood - 'Welcome To The Pleasuredome'
18. INXS - 'Kick'
19. George Michael - 'Faith'
20. Pet Shop Boys - 'Actually'
21. Peter Gabriel - 'So'
22. Queen - 'The Works'
23. Bon Jovi – 'Slippery When Wet'
24. The Cure – 'Disintegration'
25. Tracy Chapman - 'Tracy Chapman'
26. Fleetwood Mac - 'Tango In The Night'
27. ABBA - 'Super Trouper'
28. David Bowie - 'Let's Dance'
29. a-ha - 'Hunting High & Low'
30. Wham! - 'Make It Big'
31. Madonna - 'True Blue'
32. Depeche Mode – 'Music For The Masses'
= 33. Soft Cell – 'Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret'
= 33. Whitney Houston - 'Whitney'
35. Phil Collins - 'No Jacket Required'
36. Sade - 'Diamond Life'
37. Public Enemy – 'It Takes A Nation Of Millions'
38. Spandau Ballet - 'True'
39. Soul II Soul - 'Club Classics Vol. One'
40. Kylie Minogue - 'Kylie'

More National Album Day on the BBC

Here's a round-up of more programmes celebrating National Album Day -

On BBC Radio 2:

Hear 80s album tracks throughout the following shows on Saturday 10 October


Plus there are these special programmes from the archive with Andrew Ridgeley and Guy Garvey:

On BBC Radio 6 Music

6 Music presenters will be sharing their favourite 80s albums throughout the day:

On BBC Radio 1:

On BBC Asian Network:

  • Weekend Breakfast with Jasmine Takhar - marking National Album Day with National Album Day ambassador and R&B singer-songwriter Celina Sharma
  • Eshaan, Sunil & Nim - reminiscing their favourite music as part of National Album Day
  • Gagan Grewal - featuring a Bollywood Disco 80s Megamix
  • Dipps Bhamrah - featuring The SOS Bhangra Mix: 80s Megamix
  • Plus National Album Day ambassador, superstar DJ and Producer, DJ Frenzy has made a special 80s Bhangra Mashup which will be heard across the week on BBC Asian Network.

On BBC Four: