A couple of my favorite albums were released this year, plus a bunch of stuff that I really like a lot. I don't have or know a whole lot from it, though, so I'm really interested in what you guys post.

The album that got me to pick up a guitar in the first place. Not their best, but still some classic slabs of metal on here.
Basically, this sounds like good, solid Priest. Anyone with an interest in metal should at least check this one out.

A shit ton of great hardcore/punk albums.

A quartet of classics would be:


Black Flag: Damaged
Probably the biggest and baddest hardcore album of all time.


Adolescents: S/T
The origins of Orange County Punk.


Agent Orange: Living in Darkness
Surf rock influenced punk.


D.O.A: Hardcore '81
The boys from the great white north leading the way.

Plenty of other post-punk sorta stuff and more straight ahead stuff, but just figured I'd mention these first. Others great records would include Gun Club: Fire of Love, Siouxise & the Banshees: Juju, Kraftwerk: Computer World, Prince: Controversy, The Replacements: Sarry Ma, Forgot the Take Out the Trash, Black Uhuru: Red, Joan Jett: Bad Reputation, The Blasters: S/T and many more. Great year in my estimation.

My favorite post-Elevators Roky Erickson album:

The songs are as you would expect: paranoid, obsessed with aliens and monsters and whatnot. But his voice -- that otherworldly howl -- is still very much intact, and as powerful as it ever was. Plus, he has a secret weapon on this record in lead guitar player Duane Aslaksen. This guy is, IMO, one of the more-overlooked sidemen in the history of rock. His parts on this record are just flat-out amazing. Not only searing playing, but totally sympathetic to the song and the spirit of the band's leader.
Here is a perfect example.


I love this record and I really wish that Aslaksen had done more stuff like this, with or without Roky.

The last truly great Stones record.

The Fall - Slates

One of my favorite Fall albums - Top 5, at least. It's really short, more like a mini-album. I'd always kind of thought of it as an EP, but apparently it's listed as an album most places. Anyway recent reissues have expanded so a pretty good length.

This might be my favorite song by The Fall:

That Roky Erickson album is pretty great as well. I may like Don't Slander Me from 1986 more than The Evil One, but they're definitely the two highlights of his solo career for me.

Holy shit. This was like the holy grail of new wave geek pop for the longest time, until the band finally reissued the thing a couple of years ago. Thank God for the internet, so the band heard the clamoring. Rudimentary. Amateurish. Yes. And no.
The songs are so fully formed and perfectly catchy that it borders on annoying. (I suppose that, for many it leaps over that border... but there's no accounting for taste.)
STRONGLY RIYL: Violent Femmes, B-52's, the first Feelies record, etc..

Guess that the US release of this stuff didn't come until later, but the original, European release was 1981.

I don't know the European release, as a whole, so my commentary relates to the later, US compilation release that I mentioned above.
Some really great, humor-filled songs here that kinda send up the overly serious Krautrock bands like Kraftwerk and Can and other artsy Euro-synth bands like that, while, at the same time, doing justice to the genre. You all probably know "Da Da Da" from the old car commercials, but the whole record is filled with great stuff along those lines. Great hooks. and a great sense of humor.
I love that they don't take themselves too seriously and I love this album.

Let's cut to the chase here:


This Heat - Deceit

I like this album. The Db's - Stands for Decibals

Okay, another stone-cold classic:

Embodied everything that Stiff Records was all about: ridiculous, loud, FUN rock 'n roll. Eddie Tudor Pole couldn't really sing, but he could rally the troops with battle cry after battle cry. Fun, hooky, catchy, catchy, hooky, and fun -- in that order.
Oh yeah, and stupid. But in the best-possible way.



RIYL: Adam & The Ants, The Libertines, The Bonzo Dog Band, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and drinking with friends.

This is the only OB album I really fell for:


An under-rated band, this one. Wish they did more.

A pretty underwhelming year overall but I like these albums:



Various Artists - Black Slavery Days: The Sounds of St. Anne

This comp of the Arrows (who featured Burning Spear's brother) and the Skulls is one of my favorite roots reggae albums.

Here's the Skulls doing the title track:





Joe Jackson - Jumpin' Jive

Joe Jackson covers '40's jump blues and swing standards



Radio Birdman - Living Eyes
Midnight Oil - Place Without a Postcard

Aussie Punk



Elvis Costello - Almost Blue

Trust was also 1981 but I'm much more inclined to listen to Almost Blue, his album of country covers.



Merle Haggard - Big City

A bit of an underrated Haggard album



The Church - Of Skins and Heart

Probably their best album



The Wipers - Youth of America



Psychedelic Furs - Talk Talk Talk



Stiff Little Fingers - Go For it



Rick James - Street Songs



Creative Arts Ensemble - One Step Out

my birthyear...excited to listen to a few of these...

Yeah, Youth of America is awesome.

Pretty fuckin' great year.



The Cramps - Psychedelic Jungle

The Cramps themselves weren't particularly fond of this album, moaning that it was too conceptual and didn't reflect their scuzzpunk live sound. I guess that's a fair enough complaint. But that same conceptual slowburn sheen - this is by far the most laidback Cramps disc - is what gives Psychedelic Jungle its spooky power. "Goo Goo Muck" and "Rockin' Bones" and so much of everything else shimmer with a weird twilight sleaze that's downright subtle (considering the source). And "Don't Eat Stuff Off The Sidewalk," in a perfectly inappropriate twist of fate, was recorded using Karen Carpenter's hi-hat. So eventually even Lux and Ivy are gonna have to admit they accidentally tossed off a spurt of genius here.




Carlene Carter - Blue Nun

Her last album while still married to Nick Lowe, this one is on par with the more widely known Musical Shapes and features back up by Rockpile (minus Dave Edmunds), Huw Gower of the Records, Bette Bright of Deaf School, Martin Belmont of the Rumour, and Glenn Tilbrook and Paul Carrack of Squeeze.




Ellen Foley - Spirit of St. Louis

For her second solo effort, Foley enlisted her then boyfriend Mick Jones as producer, who also brought along the rest of the Clash as well as Ian Dury's Blockheads for back-up. Joe Strummer and Jones wrote 6 of the tracks, while Strummer cohort Tymon Dogg adds 3 others. It's a strangely non-rock affair, feeling more like a half-remembered dream of cabaret mixed with folk, but song titles like "The Shuttered Palace" and "The Death of the Psychoanalyst of Salvador Dali" let you know that Strummer/Jones weren't exactly in London Calling mode.




A. More - Flying Doesn't Help

Anthony Moore, best known as a prog musician with ties to Henry Cow, dropped an "o" out of his name and put out this solo album. It's not exactly electro-pop, although that description comes close, but its hooks somehow plow deeper and more effectively than expected. Pretty much the definition of a one-off, because (to my knowledge), Moore never returned to music this straightforward again.




The Raybeats - Guitar Beat

Produced by Martin Rushent, the Raybeats featured ex-no wavers Jody Harris and Don Christensen (from the Contortions) and went full-on into instrumental surf rock. Amazingly tuneful and unexpectedly authentic, although there's more going on here than simple twangin'.

Awesome year.


Flesh Eaters & The Clean among my favourites.

I thought I was the only one...

i left it that size on purpose - represents just how big it was in 1981