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| 1. | Alphaville |
| Forever Young |
| 1984 |
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It may look a bit illogical that a band that more or less just copied English
synthpop bands tops this list with the originators placed behind them or not
being featured at all. But there's not much logic in this list anyway. Nevertheless
this is still one of the best albums made by
a German band in the last 30 years. Which says a lot about the state of the
German music scene of this era.
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Tracks still ace : |
half of them
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| 2. | Duran Duran |
| Arena |
| 1984 |
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Back in the 80s boy groups still were regular bands where each member played an
instrument albeit in a kind of cute way. And they wrote their own songs.
The concept behind this album is a bit diffuse. It either can be seen as a
live album with all the crowd noise removed or a greatest hits album with
some of their biggest (and best) hits (Rio, The Reflex, Girls On Film) missing. |
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Tracks still ace : |
The Wild Boys, Save A Prayer
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| 3. | Depeche Mode |
| Black Celebration |
| 1986 |
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This signified the start of my infatuation with DM. A year or so later this
list would have featured at least 4 DM albums in the Top 5. Today I look
back at this time with a smile, although I think there are worse bands to
waste your teenage years on. This is certainly not one of their best albums
but as it was their current album then it was my favourite at this point.
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Tracks still ace : |
Stripped, A Question Of Time
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| 4. | Depeche Mode |
| Speak & Spell |
| 1981 |
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This album still has a place in my heart. On this and the two Yazoo
albums Vince Clarke crafted pop songs of perfect simplicity. An ability
he sadly seemed to have lost when working with Erasure later on. The obvious
homoerotic nature of some of the lyrics written by him certainly must have confused
singer and macho in the making Dave Gahan a bit.
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Tracks still ace :
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most of them
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| 5. | Mike Oldfield |
| The Complete Mike Oldfield |
| 1985 |
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Apparently I had my prog-rock, guitar solo indulgence phase very early.
Hopefully that spares me from buying Grateful Dead records when I'm 40.
This Best Of retrospective of the then quite successful Mr. Oldfield, thanks to some mayor
single hits, was a double album with three sides filled with instrumental
work. With lots of guitar solos of course.
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Tracks still ace :
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Excerpt From Tubular Bells
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| 6. | Frankie Goes To Hollywood |
| Welcome To the Pleasuredome |
| 1984 |
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Even back then I thought this would have been much better as a single
album. Much of its fascination certainly came from its aura of excess,
danger and debauchery. Astonishingly they never got banned for anything in Germany.
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Tracks still ace :
| Relax, The Power Of Love
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| 7. | Alphaville |
| Afternoons In Utopia |
| 1986 |
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After loosing their main songwriter they had a bit of a problem with, well,
writing songs. They tried to distract from it by using lots of sophisticated
arrangements. It didn't work of course.
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Tracks still ace : |
none
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| 8. | Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark |
| Crush |
| 1985 |
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In their early stages they created a few classic synthpop songs like "Electricity" and "Enola Gay".
But in the mid-eighties their creativity had run dry which this album sadly shows. But back then
I didn't care about such things and enjoyed the simple pop songs as they were.
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Tracks still ace : |
none
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| 9. | Various |
| Top Gun Soundtrack |
| 1986 |
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The most embarrassing of them all. A soundtrack to a Hollywood blockbuster
movie! Glorifying the U.S. Army! Staring Tom Cruise! It featured a lot of
dull, ordinary MOR soft rock songs symptomatic for mainstream music in the
80s.
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Tracks still ace :
| absolutely none
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