The Best Records of 1982!

 

PEAK POST-PUNK!

by BK Munn

It's taken me over 40 years, but I've finally whittled down my list of the Best Albums of 1982!

As I wrote in my notes for 1986, the first one of these I attempted, this list comes with a number of caveats and blindspots, and I think I'm going to stick with the same quirky, personal format. So: this is a largely English-language, rock-oriented list reflecting my continued fetish for post-punk and garage rock sounds. There are a couple German records here, but that's about it. In part, this is a nostalgic list, but as usual most of the records here were totally unknown to me at the time. Some are new to me this week, but most have crossed my path at some point over the last four decades, and many I even own in vinyl format!

In 1982, I was only 12 but obsessed with not only Top 40 radio but also the synth pop and New Wave sounds coming out of Toronto's fm station CFNY.  I distinctly remember hearing the dj for Hamilton's CKOC introduce Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue" for the first time. I was a year or two away from real teenage rebellion and the discovery of our local college radio station CFRU, but nevertheless I thought I was cool because I had discovered David Bowie and listened to Scary Monsters and the ChangesOne compilation incessantly (Let's Dance didn't come out until 1983, I think). My tastes have changed since those days, but some of the records I liked back then I still like, meaning I can still stand to listen to them without too many unpleasant associations.

This is not true for most of the big hits of the day. 1982 was the year of Michael Jackson's Thriller and despite it's continuing centrality to our culture and Western Civilization, I feel close to blowing my brains out whenever I hear the opening notes of any of the megahits from that album these days. I was pretty much burned out on that record by 1983, even as a kid. Ditto for most of the 1982 Top 40. 

1982 was a year that funk and hip-hop started to register with white people, post-Disco, but my list has very little of either. I decided to eliminate jazz from the list as well, even though there are excellent records from giants like Ornette Coleman, Nina Simone, and Alice Coltrane that year, as well as jazz-inflected things like Rip Rig and Panic, and Indian and African stuff like Rupa and Manu Dibango that interest me. No soundtracks on this list either, even though Morricone (The Thing) and Vangelis (the amazing Blade Runner soundtrack) were out there (David Lynch released his soundtrack for 1977's Eraserhead in 1982 as well). 

I'm pretty proud of my curation of the first 30 or so records on this list, but to be honest, the rest of the list is more or less a random assemblage, with not much thought given to rankings. I have another 20 or so records that I could easily substitute for any 20 of the records in the bottom 52.  Maybe I'll post those separately. For now I'm sticking to the gimmick of matching the number of slots with the year, so I'm limited here to 82 in total. I'm sure I've missed something! Let me know!

1. The Fall, Hex Education Hour
2. Lilliput, Lillput
3. Kate Bush, The Dreaming
4. English Beat, Special Beat Service
5. Gang of Four, Songs of the Free and Another Day/Another Dollar
6. Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, The Message 
7. Trio, Trio aka The Album/Da Da Da
8. REM, Chronic Town
9. Daniel Johnston, Don’t Be Scared
10. Prince, 1999
11. Cocteau Twins, Garland
12. Sonic Youth, Sonic Youth
13. The Clean, Great Sounds Great, Good Sounds Good, So-so Sounds So-so, Bad Sounds Bad, Rotten Sounds Rotten
14. Gun Club, Miami
15. The Clash, Combat Rock
16. The Cure, Pornography
17. Blue Orchids, The Greatest Hit (Money Mountain) 
18. Siouxsie And The Banshees, A Kiss In The Dreamhouse
19. Dead Kennedys, Plastic Surgery Disasters
20. Waitresses, Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful
21. Simple Minds, New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84)
22. X, Under the Big Black Sun
23. Talking Heads, The Name of This Band is Talking Heads
24. Chic, Tongue in Chic
25. TV Personalities, Mummy Your Not Watching Me/They Could Have Been Bigger than the Beatles
26. The Birthday Party, Junkyard
27. Wall of Voodoo, Call of the West
28. Fleshtones, Roman Gods
29. Judy Nylon and Crucial, Pal Judy
30. Laurie Anderson, Big Science
31. XTC, English Settlement
32. Familie Hesselbach, Familie Hesselbach
33. Lee "Scratch" Perry and the Majestics, Mystic Miracle Star
34. Tom Verlaine, Words from the Front
35. Nightingales, Pigs on Purpose
36. Misfits, Walk Among Us
37. Nurse With Wound, Homotopy to Marie 
38. John Cooper Clarke, Zip Style Method
39. Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, D.T.K. (Live At The Speakeasy)
40. The Jam, The Gift
41. Marine Girls, Beach Party
42. The Sound, All Fall Down
43. Pere Ubu, Song of the Bailing Man
44. Romeo Void, Benefactor
45. D.O.A., War on 45
46. Iron Maiden, The Number of the Beast
47. Eddy Grant, Killer on the Rampage
48. Tall Dwarfs, Louis Likes His Daily Dip
49. Bauhaus, The Sky's Gone Out/Press The Eject and Give Me the Tape
50. Cleaners from Venus, Midnight Cleaners/On Any Normal Monday
51. George Clinton, Computer Games
52. The Psychedelic Furs, Forever Now
53. African Head Charge, Environmental Studies
54. Material, One Down
55. Duran Duran, Rio
56. Culture Club, Kissing to Be Clever
57. Bad Brains, Bad Brains
58. The Descendents, Milo Goes to College
59. Mission of Burma, Vs.
60. Brian Eno, Ambient 4: On Land
61. Neil Young, Trans
62. Thomas Dolby, The Golden Age Of Wireless/She Blinded Me With Science
63. Lou Reed, The Blue Mask
64. Flipper, Album Generic Flipper
65. King Sunny Adé and His African Beats, Juju Music
66. Yazoo, Upstairs at Eric’s
67. Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska
68. Grace Jones, Living My Life
69. Madness, The Rise and Fall
70. Rick James, Throwin Down
71. Go-Go’s, Vacation
72. Devo, Oh No! It’s Devo
73. Nina Hagen, NunSexMonkRock
74. Motorhead, Iron Fist
75. Fear, The Record
76. Men Without Hats, Rhythm of Youth
77. Peter Gabriel, Security
78. Bow Wow Wow, I Want Candy
79. Hunters and Collectors, s/t
80. Strange Advance, World’s Away
81. Dream Syndicate, The Days Of Wine And Roses
82. A Flock of Seagulls, s/t