Albums From the 80s to listen to with Fresh Ears

The opening track of Fight Fire with Fire blew a lot of minds including mine: blending classical sounds with metal's power and punk's speed. Influenced everything that followed.

Had the hit Rock Lobster. A great album. huge hit song. Hard to appreciate how WEIRD that song is ! The rest of the album is great. If you listen with a good stereo or with a subwoofer notice how few notes are played on the bass!

Started the wave of virtuosic rock guitar for the next decade

These songs are really well done. Recently I was reading an article that pointed out how good they were and how unique their sound was. They combined pop, synths, rockabilly and a little punk.

This is the album with "Whip It." Mark Mothersbaugh went on to be a major composer including the Rugrats show, Lego Movie and dozens of other credits

great album: influenced many. Catch their performance on the Young Ones TV show!

A great album with excellent recording, interesting and intelligible lyrics, great musicianship and tight songwriting. One of my "desert island" albums!

Great instrumentals from Frank Zappa. His lyrics can be off-putting so this can be a good introduction to the music: it is great.

Produced by Rick Rubin who has worked with dozens of artists including Kendrick Lamar.Considered by many (some? Just me?) to be "perfect:" you can't add or subtract a single note including the bizarre and hard to transcribe guitar solos.

The band has gone through many lineups in their 5 + decade career: this is one of the best.