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Last Active 07-20-11 1:04 am
Joined 11-20-10
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| Classic Years In Rock: 1980
1980 was a year when rock and metal experienced a rebirth, with new bands making swift breakthroughs, and old bands reviving their vigour. Let's take a look! rA lot of bands who didn't make the list also put out solid releases that year, such as Van Halen or the Michael Schenker Group - but they were merely "solid" releases during a productive point in their careeers. This list is exclusively for notable albums. | | 1 |  | Black Sabbath
Heaven and Hell
This album brought Black Sabbath screeching back to relevance, forging their legendary with vocalist Ronnie James Dio. Both the Sabbath and Dio name would benefit from this partnership - and the album's a classic. | | 2 |  | Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden's debut is not quite perfect, but it's still a stellar release that vastly aided their rise to stardom. It's one of the best gems of the NWOBHM, and a solid record of their Paul Di'Anno-fronted era. | | 3 |  | Ozzy Osbourne
Blizzard of Ozz
The album that launched Ozzy's solo career. After two ropey albums with Black Sabbath, and a reputation as a drunken, drug-addled loser, Ozzy pulled it out the bag with this album - and never really looked back. The formula for his career was set out here, but with the best line-up he would ever work with. Melodic but with a dark set of lyrics. | | 4 |  | Def Leppard
On Through the Night
Def Leppard were half NWOBHM metal band, half pop rock band at this point - this was before their decision to focus on being the latter. It's raw and authentic sounding, with that slightly punk vibe that infiltrated the metal scene of the time, but with the band's trademark pop sensibilities and hooks spread throughout. | | 5 |  | AC/DC
Back in Black
The best-selling hard rock album ever, rammed with anthems. This proved even if AC/DC could never replace their fallen frontman - one of the best there ever was - they could still make one of the best albums of their career. Their live set's leaned heavily on it ever since, and it's unlikely they could have survived their dodgy mid-late 80s albums to release a handful of classic albums and songs in the 90s and 00s without it. | | 6 |  | Saxon
Wheels of Steel
The archetypal example of a NWOBHM album, and the genre and the band's greatest triumph. Like so many albums of the era, it has a title track which everyone should know. | | 7 |  | Judas Priest
British Steel
An album title for patriots, with songs for anyone and everyone. The "Breaking The Law" music video painted metal in a more humourous, fun-loving light than ever before, and, paired with other hit single "Living After Midnight" prepared the band for their transition to American arena metal as the decade progressed. This album is among the few to contain anthems that pre-date the split of metal into commercial and extreme strands - it is for everyone. | | 8 |  | Diamond Head
Lightning To The Nations
Diamond Head are best known for giving the world this one album, specifically the song "Am I Evil?", which almost single-handedly inspired members of Metallica and Megadeth to invent thrash metal. Just for that, this album deserves respect. Both bands have covered a number of songs from this album though - there's more to it than that one song. | | 9 |  | Motorhead
Ace of Spades
Motorhead's career contains more brilliant albums than many people give them credit for, but this is still their most focussed and raging release. The title track is a song every metal fan holds dear, and the album is an example of metal ferocity latching onto the catchiness and fun of rock 'n' roll. | | 10 |  | Girlschool
Demolition
The first album by an all-female metal band. Contains their well known cover of "Race with the Devil". It prepared the band for their breakthrough in 1981, and is a landmark for feminism in metal! | | 11 |  | Saxon
Strong Arm of the Law
Not quite as big or as good as Wheels of Steel, but this made Saxon among the few metal bands cappable of releasing two of the best albums of their career within the span of a year. Their work rate in this period was astonishing. | | 12 |  | Rush
Permanent Waves
This album broke rush to the mainstream, and to widespread audiences accross the world after years of slogging away. The band finally adopted a few elements of pop, allowing young, trendy kids to get into progressive music. | | 13 |  | Queen
The Game
4 of the 17 songs on the UK edition of the band's best-selling Greatest Hits Volume I album come from here and it isn't hard to see why. Today it sounds a little bit generic, but that's only because for the rest of the 1980s a lot of bands were ripping it off. If you're gonna rip someone off - rip off the best, right? | | 14 |  | The Clash
Sandinista!
For a moment, this album made everything all about the music, not the money, for the bands and the fans and the labels. A good punk album is always essentially a good set of singles with a few groovy rockers in between to tide things over, but this album proves varied and diverse - one of the few punk albums that has a stand-out, distinctive sound. One of the few classics from a brief but brilliant era. | | 15 | | Whitesnake
Ready An' Willing
This album featured the best line-up to play in the early, bluesy Whitesnake era. David Coverdale's troupe at this point included two other Deep Purple exiles - Jon Lord and Ian Paice, and the now-established trio of Moody, Marsden and Murray manning the twin guitars and the bass respectively. This album contained one of the band's best-ever singles, "Fool For Your Lovin'" | |
Chrisjon89
11.20.10 | Good list, plenty of good stuff here. I would have included David Bowie's Scary Monsters album. | bungy
11.20.10 | I've always loved Heaven and Hell | Realm
11.20.10 | ew def leppard | Blackbelt54
11.20.10 | needs some dead kennedys, the english beat, x, circle jerks, and bob marley | AliW1993
11.20.10 | Really good list, some stuff I really need to hear. | JamieTwort
11.20.10 | Awesome list, great to see 15 on here. | TheRamblingElf
11.20.10 | @Blackbelt54 I wouldn't count Bob Marley since this list is rock/metal. I'm a big reggae fan, that would go seperately :) | kangaroopoo
11.21.10 | great list, 5+8 classics | Titan50
11.21.10 | Joy Division - Closer
The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables | Dryden
11.21.10 | 1,2 are the best here |
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