How Good Was The Year (in music) - 1985?

Music
,
1

The HGWTY series continues with today’s rolls of the die landing us on 1985, which will be the first time we have had a year immediately adjacent to one already polled (1986 is in 6th place on the leaderboard already).

A reminder of the premise of the thread

Rate the music of the year out of ten, based on the albums, singles, gigs, whatever that stand out for you that year. Non-musical nostalgia is welcome in the thread but that’s beside the point of the poll.

Everyone may nominate one album and one song from the year which will then be collated into side-polls on the final day of the thread (in one week) - please make it clear when you post a nomination for the poll, e.g

Leaderboard
Rank Year Rating Top Album Top Song
1 1997 8.60 Radiohead - OK Computer The Beta Band - Dry The Rain
2 1967 8.48 Love - Forever Changes Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood - Some Velvet Morning
3 2013 8.29 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Jubilee Street
4 2004 8.10 Madvillain - Madvillainy / Arcade Fire - Funeral The Walkmen - The Rat
5 1976 7.47 David Bowie - Station to Station Bob Dylan - Hurricane
6 1986 7.42 Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
7 2009 7.10 Fever Ray - Fever Ray Animal Collective - My Girls
8 1974 6.95 Neil Young - On The Beach Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - The Bottle

image

image
image1920×1258 258 KB

1985 was the year of Live Aid, Back to the Future, the Heysel stadium disaster, when the wreck of the Titanic was located and Eastenders aired for the first time.

We said goodbye to Yul Brynner, Orsen Welles and Rock Hudson, and hello to Lana Del Ray, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lewis Hamilton and Carly Rae Jepsen.

How good was the music?

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
0 voters

(Poll open until evening of Tuesday 22nd Feb, album and song polls will go up evening of Sunday 20th based on your nominations)

Some lists for inspiration:

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/6-highest-rated/1985/1
https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/1985/

Nominations will be tallied here as the week goes on:

Album Nominations

Song Nominations

2

image
image905×702 39.1 KB

I’ll nominate this one as best album.

8 Likes
3

Best album of the 80s:

Nominate album: The Pogues - Rum Sodomy & The Lash

9 Likes
4

Best song

2 Likes
5

Nominate single: Katrina & The Waves - Walking On Sunshine

Don’t care what you say it’s fucking fantastic

2 Likes
6

So so good!

1 Like
7

Can’t see anything other than this being my album nomination

Nominate:

6 Likes
8

Banger alert!

2 Likes
9

Top releases from Husker Du, R.E.M., Tom Waits, but I’m starting with a chooooooon.

10 Likes
10

Some seriously good albums to choose from in 85

Nominate song REM - Driver 8

11 Likes
11

It’s my favourite album ever and probably always will be

:sob:

…Steve McQueen AND Rain Dogs this year too. Wow. Oh shoot Raspberry Beret has just been posted…Driver 8 too…how can this not be my first 10.

7 Likes
12

Banger alert!

7 Likes
13

Nominate album Meat Puppets - Up on the Sun

6 Likes
14

Nominate track:

7 Likes
15

great record!

1 Like
16

Dire Straits- Brothers in Arms Top 3 for me of the year.

17

I’ll stop after this one, but one more banger alert!

3 Likes
18

Nominate Song: The Waterboys - The Whole of the Moon

A trite choice perhaps, but it’s pretty much the perfect song. I guess many people (myself included) associate it with the early nineties as it went relatively unnoticed on its original release and only found major success after being used as the lead single for their best-of in 1991

now that I’ve nominated this, somebody else will need to nominate Aikea-Guinea :wink:

9 Likes
19

Nominate album: The Fall - This Nation’s Saving Grace

My intro to them and a good recommended starting point

6 Likes
20
3 Likes