My Favorite Artists of the 1980s
Last year, I finished my lists of my top 50 albums and top 100 singles for each year of the 1980s (links are at the bottom of this post). And something I like to do after I've done lists for an entire decade is crunch the numbers and figure out which artists made the most music I love in that period (I've previously done this for the 1990s and the 2010s).
My Top 25 Album Artists of the 1980s:
1. Prince
2. Sonic Youth
3. R.E.M.
4. Elvis Costello
5. The Replacements
6. The Cure
7. John Mellencamp
8. Tom Petty
9. Bruce Springsteen
10. Meat Puppets
11. Talking Heads
12. U2
13. Madonna
14. Squeeze
15. Run-DMC
16. Tom Waits
17. Pretenders
18. Metallica
19. Peter Gabriel
20. Tears For Fears
21. (tie) Kate Bush
21. (tie) The Minutemen
23. XTC
24. INXS
25. Phil Collins
I kind of always accurately figured what the top 2 would be long before I tallied it up -- I mean, how could Prince not be #1? He was, alongside Elvis Costello and The Cure, one of the only notable artists who made more than 5 or 6 albums in the '80s, to say nothing of how amazing most of them are. But hey, Tears For Fears got in there with only 3 albums. Sonic Youth was also my #2 album artist of the '90s, and R.E.M. was the only other act in both decades. I wanna do one of these posts for the 2000s, and I'm sure Sonic Youth will be high up in that one too.
My Top 50 Singles Artists of the 1980s:
1. Prince (solo / with The Revolution / collaborations / writing and producing)
2. Hugh Padgham (producing)
3. Phil Collins (solo / with Genesis / collaborations / writing and producing)
4. Jimmy Iovine (producing)
5. Michael Jackson (solo / with The Jacksons / collaborations)
6. Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis (with The Time / writing and producing)
7. Tom Petty (solo / with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers / with The Traveling Wilburys)
8. Rick Rubin (writing and producing)
9. Mike Campbell (with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers / writing and producing)
10. Madonna
11. U2
12. Mutt Lange (writing and producing)
13. Van Halen
14. Sting (solo / with The Police / collaborations)
15. Steve Lillywhite (producing)
16. Nile Rodgers (with Chic / writing and producing)
17. Mike Rutherford (with Genesis / with Mike + The Mechanics)
18. Ted Templeman (producing)
19. Run-DMC
20. Bruce Springsteen
21. INXS
22. Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz (with Talking Heads / with Tom Tom Club)
23. Genesis
24. David Lee Roth (solo / with Van Halen)
25. R.E.M.
26. Peter Gabriel (solo / collaborations)
27. Janet Jackson
28. George Michael (solo / with Wham! / collaborations)
29. Talking Heads
30. Stevie Nicks (solo / with Fleetwood Mac)
31. Brian Eno (writing and producing)
32. Pretenders
33. The Police
34. Jeff Lynne (with ELO / with The Traveling Wilburys / writing and producing)
35. John Mellencamp
36. Tears For Fears
37. Def Leppard
38. Queen
39. Public Enemy
40. Narada Michael Walden (writing and producing)
41. LL Cool J
42. Billy Idol
43. Pat Benatar
44. Squeeze
45. Journey
46. Billy Joel
47. Daryl Hall (solo / with John Oates)
48. Eric B. & Rakim
49. The Cure
50. Bobby Brown (solo / with New Edition)
For the singles artists list, I let things get more complicated as I'd include production/writing credits and collaborations with other artists in a person's total. Obviously with all the people Prince wrote and produced hits for, he was #1 by an even greater distance than on the other list. The people that are in both this and the '90s singles list were Prince, Tom Petty, U2, INXS, R.E.M., Janet Jackson, and LL Cool J. Legends only!
Of course, it gets a little messy in there to be able to have Phil Collins AND Mike Rutherford AND Genesis AND their producer Hugh Padgham each getting entries on the list based partly on some of the same songs. But I like being able to include people like Nile Rodgers or Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and have the list reflect some prolific hitmakers who made songs with lots of different artists, or people like Sting and Stevie Nicks who were big as both band members and solo artists.
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