as you are i am sure aware, i ttly love making lists. after reading sebastian’s list of albums for each year since he has been alive, i decided to traverse back in time and point out my favorite albums of the past few decades-worth of years.

here is the 1980s addition:

1985

The Jesus and Mary Chain
Psychocandy
(Blanco Y Negro)

This was a really, really hard choice. The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy, Killing Joke’s Night Time, New Order’s Low-Life, The Replacements’ Tim, The Smiths’ Meat is Murder and The Cure’s Head on the Door were ALL released in ‘85, and every one of them is one of if not the best record(s) by each band.

For me it came down to JMC, The Cure and The Replacements (and probably Killing Joke too). Though I actually prefer the stripped-down sound of JMC’s later work, I still love Psychocandy for all its fuzzed-drenched power. And The Replacements’ Tim is easily my favorite of theirs (and includes the essential bar song “Here Comes a Regular”). The Cure’s Head on the Door, too, is their best in my opinion. Night Time contains Killing Joke’s two best songs (“Darkness Before Dawn” and “Love Like Blood”). And let’s not forget the closing track “Eighties”, from which Kurt Cobain aped the riff for “Come As You Are”.

Shit man, it was hard, but I decided to go with Psychocandy just barely over Tim. The Reid brothers are just too intoxicating. Also, it’s probably one of my top 5 album covers of all time.