Angry Robot posts a list of albums to prove that 80's music doesn't (all) suck. I started to try and list my own personal favourites / things he didn't mention, and I've come up with this for now, in no particular order :

• The Go-Betweens - it's really hard to choose, but I'll go for Spring Hill Fair. It's got Bachelor Kisses on it, after all.

• Lloyd Cole and the Commotions - Easy Pieces : I've already gone on about this one.

• The Church - I can't decide between Heyday and The Blurred Crusade.

• Stephen Cummings - Lovetown - The first one of his solo albums that I really came to grips with (though not until the early 1990's).

• Midnight Oil - Place without a Postcard : raw and with an occasional sense of desperation, they never topped this one, for me.

• Duran Duran's first album : no, really. Girls on Film didn't do much for me, but the rest of the album conjured up all sorts of other worlds. I grew up with this, because my older sister was infatuated with the band.

• The Fall - This Nation's Saving Grace : come and feel the wrath of Mark E's bombast.

• The Mekons - Honky Tonkin' : I found it really hard not to enjoy this, my second Mekons album (but the first to really grab me), when I first heard it.

• The Gun Club - Fire of Love : this blew me away, and I only bought it around the start of this year.

• Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska : a few years ago I was in the 3MU music library with Tom, browsing through all the old records. He picked up this album and said "it's the best one he ever did." I still haven't heard most of his other albums yet, but having heard this one I'm willing to believe.

I don't even want to begin thinking about a list like this for the 90's.