82 Albums from 1982: A Listening Quest

After starting off 2021 by listening (over 54 days) to 81 albums from 1981, I decided to start 2022 in approximately the same way, by listening to 82 albums from 1982, which was the year I turned 17.

Ground rules: Listen to the albums listed below (okay, some are actually EP’s or mini-albums or whatnot) in any order, one at a time or bunched together, ideally with the track selection and sequencing, even if found on youtube or some internet streaming service, of the original vinyl configuration (the U.S. one if there was a U.S. pressing) without the sort of extra bonus tracks that are often piled on in CD/digital/online reissues. For a few of these, if you want an “online” version you may need to assemble it yourself track by track.

As with last year, this is not a best-of or personal-favorites list, but an attempt to create a representative cross-section of the full range of what was out there to be listened to in 1982 in the world of rock and rock-adjacent music, good, bad, and ugly. Albums that went platinum and albums that never made the top 200. Major labels, minor labels, stuff only available in the import bins, and maybe a few things that you would have had to travel overseas to find at the time. Albums that were critically lauded, albums that were critically derided, and albums that were critically overlooked and ignored. Albums that the kids I ate lunch with in the high school cafeteria liked, albums that those other kids we didn’t eat lunch with liked, and albums no one in our high school, including myself, even knew about at the time — plus that category that no longer exists of albums that we knew existed because we’d seen them in a cool record store or read about them in Trouser Press, but they weren’t played on the radio so we had no idea (unless and until we were willing to spend the money to buy) what they actually sounded like.

If you find this list less than fully satisfactory for the task, you are encouraged to create your own on similar principles. I’ll put some “leftover” suggestions after the list, along with a link to my 1981 list. One could easily write an essay about what this list suggests about the various musical trends and booms bumping up against each other and buffeting the teenage music enthusiasts of 1982, but I will leave that commentary implicit.

ABC — The Lexicon of Love
King Sunny Ade and His African Beats — Juju Music
John Anderson — Wild and Blue
Angry Samoans — Back from Samoa
Anvil — Metal On Metal
Asia — [self-titled]
Bad Brains — [self-titled]
Captain Beefheart — Ice Cream for Crow
Berlin — Pleasure Victim
James Booker — Classified
Bow Wow Wow — Last of the Mohicans

Glenn Branca & John Giorno — Who You Staring At?
Buckner & Garcia — Pac-Man Fever
Burning Spear — Farover
Chrome — 3rd from the Sun
Circle Jerks — Wild in the Streets
Ornette Coleman — Of Human Feelings
Josie Cotton — Convertible Music
John Cougar — American Fool
Kid Creole & the Coconuts— Wise Guy (a/k/a Tropical Gangsters)
Crosby, Stills & Nash — Daylight Again

Descendants — Milo Goes to College
The Dream Syndicate — Days of Wine and Roses
Duran Duran — Rio
The English Beat — Special Beat Service
Donald Fagen —The Nightfly
The Fall — Hex Enduction Hour
Fear — The Album
Felt — Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty
Flipper — Generic Album
A Flock of Seagulls — [self-titled]

The Gap Band —Gap Band IV
Marvin Gaye — Midnight Love
Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five — The Message
Nina Hagen — Nunsexmonkrock
Robert Hazard —[self-titled mini-album]
Iron Maiden — The Number of the Beast
Joe Jackson — Night and Day
Ronald Shannon Jackson & The Decoding Society — Mandance
The Lords of the New Church — [self-titled]
Wynton Marsalis — [self-titled]

Material — One Down
Missing Persons — Spring Session M
Van Morrison — Beautiful Vision
New Race — The First and Last
Aldo Nova — [self-titled]
Mike Oldfield — Five Miles Out
Orange Juice —Rip It Up
Pop-O-Pies — “The White EP”
Prince — 1999
Queen — Hot Space

Rainbow — Straight Between the Eyes
Lou Reed — The Blue Mask
Steve Reich — Tehillim
R.E.M. — Chronic Town
Roches — Keep On Doing
Roxy Music — Avalon
Rush — Signals
Scorpions — Blackout
Ricky Skaggs — Highways & Heartaches
Sparks — Angst in My Pants

Bruce Springsteen — Nebraska
Billy Squier — Emotions in Motion
The Stray Cats — Built for Speed
Richard and Linda Thompson — Shoot Out the Lights
Toto — Toto IV
Trio — [self-titled, 3d German pressing w/ “Da Da Da”]
Trouble Funk — Drop the Bomb
James Blood Ulmer — Black Rock
Various Artists — American Youth Report
Various Artists — Dunedin Double

Various Artists — Fast Times at Ridgemont High (soundtrack)
Various Artists — Metal Massacre
Various Artists — Not So Quiet on the Western Front
Various Artists — Recommended Records Sampler
Tom Verlaine — Words from the Front
The Waitresses — Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?
X — Under the Big Black Sun
XTC — English Settlement
Yaz — Upstairs at Eric’s
Neil Young — Trans
Frank Zappa — Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch

• Recording artists seriously considered but weeded out during the editing of the list included: Laurie Anderson, Lou Ann Barton, Blancmange, The Clash, Marshall Crenshaw, Dire Straits, Frida, Green on Red, Husker Du, the Mighty Diamonds, Mission of Burma, Eddie Money, the Alan Parsons Project, Red Cross, the Replacements, the Suburbs, and the Virgin Prunes, each of whom had a valid claim to be heard, but I didn’t want to make it a “99 Albums from 1982” project. Feel free to include some of them in a list of your own.
• My 81 Albums from 1981 list can be found here: https://jwbrewer.medium.com/81-albums-from-1981-a-listening-quest-40ac6c932f98