1985 is often framed as a transitional pause in rock history: a plateau between the last sparks of post-punk and new wave, and the jangling indie renaissance that would define the end of the decade.
But look more closely and the year reveals itself as remarkably rich, varied, and creatively charged. Established artists pushed into deeper, more personal territory; emerging voices forged new sounds out of noise, folk, electronics, and pop gloss. It’s a moment where the studio became both playground and confessional, where accessibility and experimentation not only coexisted but fuelled each other.
You hear bands refining what they’d begun earlier in the decade, and others blowing up their own formulas entirely. From widescreen art-pop to lo-fi ferocity, from stadium-sized sophistication to bare-nerve emotional candour, 1985 isn’t a lull – it’s a convergence. A year where some of the greatest albums of the era weren’t just released, but defined what the future could sound like.
The greatest albums of 1985
23. Rush: Power Windows
The moment Rush fully embrace mid-’80s digital sheen: shimmering synths, gated drums, and gleaming production. While some fans missed the rawer, guitar-forward sound, Power Windows is rich with conceptual ambition, tackling power, control, and modern anxiety with cerebral intensity. Alex Lifeson threads expressive guitar textures through dense arrangements, and Geddy Lee’s vocals soar with precision. It’s not peak Rush, but it’s a fascinating snapshot of a great band adapting to changing sonic times.
Key track: The Big Money
22. Simple Minds: Once Upon a Time
This is Simple Minds at stadium scale: big choruses, bigger drums, and soaring declarations of uplift. Following the global recognition of 'Don’t You (Forget About Me)', the band refines its widescreen sound into something bold and anthemic. At times overwhelming in its bombast, the record nonetheless captures the thrill of mid-’80s optimism and ambition, with Jim Kerr’s vocals carrying the emotional weight. A band discovering just how large they could sound.
Key track: Alive and Kicking
21. INXS: Listen Like Thieves
On Listen Like Thieves, INXS lock into the taut, rhythmic swagger that would soon make them global stars. Funk, rock, and pop blend into a sleek, danceable groove, propelled by Michael Hutchence’s charismatic smoulder. This is the band tightening its identity, pushing toward the sharper, more confident sound of Kick. Not every track hits equally, but the new urgency is unmistakable – INXS become a band ready for arenas.
Key track: What You Need
20. Prince: Around the World in a Day
Prince pivots from the monumental success of Purple Rain into psychedelic whimsy, spiritual mysticism, and kaleidoscopic pop experiments. Flutes, Middle Eastern scales, and playful arrangements fill an album that refuses to deliver another stadium-rock triumph. It’s Prince at his most wilful and curious – an artist using success not to consolidate power, but to explore. While uneven, its imaginative reach is thrilling. Only Prince could follow a masterpiece by rejecting expectations entirely.
Key track: Raspberry Beret
19. Tears for Fears: Songs from the Big Chair
A landmark in lush, widescreen studio pop, Songs from the Big Chair balances emotional vulnerability with immaculate, carefully layered production. 'Shout' and 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World' became era-defining singles, but the album’s real strength lies deeper – in the moody introspection of 'The Working Hour', the aching elegance of 'I Believe', and the patient, slow-building drama of 'Head Over Heels'.
The arrangements are sculpted with precision: saxophones, synths, and harmonies slot together like architecture rather than ornament. This is confident, serious pop that refuses to condescend to its audience. Tears for Fears take personal doubt and psychological complexity and make it sound undeniable, dramatic, and emotionally vast.
Key track: Everybody Wants to Rule the World: a perfect blend of vulnerability and grandeur.
18. Sade: Promise
Understated, elegant, and effortlessly cool, Promise refines Sade’s blend of soul, jazz, and pop into something timeless. Its restraint is its power: emotional confession delivered through subtle phrasing, spacious arrangements, and rhythmic poise. The album feels like a quiet room after a long night – soft light, late thoughts, carefully chosen words. Rather than reaching outward, Sade draws listeners inward. A masterclass in atmosphere and emotional economy.
Key track: The Sweetest Taboo
17. Whitney Houston: Whitney Houston
Released on Valentine's Day, 1985, this landmark pop debut introduced one of the most astonishing voices of the decade. Whitney balances emotional control with effortless power, moving between ballads and dance-pop with total poise. The production is glossy mid-’80s studio pop, but her phrasing, warmth, and tonal clarity transcend fashion. The record lays the foundation of modern pop stardom: vocal mastery as spectacle, vulnerability as presence.
Key track: How Will I Know
16. Talking Heads: Little Creatures
After years of rhythmic experimentation, Talking Heads turn toward melodic warmth, Americana imagery, and surprising straightforwardness. Bright horns, conversational vocals, and singable choruses replace their earlier nervous intensity. Yet the intelligence and wit remain – David Byrne examines American myth-making with equal parts curiosity and irony. Little Creatures feels like a band exhaling after pushing themselves to extremes, rediscovering joy without abandoning complexity.
Key track: Road to Nowhere
15. Prefab Sprout: Steve McQueen
The criminally underrated Prefab Sprout reached a high in 1985 with this album of art-pop with velvet edges: soft, romantic, literate and longing. Paddy McAloon’s songwriting is tender yet meticulous, full of turns of phrase that catch the listener off-guard. The production, courtesy of Thomas Dolby, wraps everything in a warm glow – lush but never saccharine. These are songs about the effort of feeling deeply while trying to stay composed. A quietly devastating classic that rewards attentive listening.
Key track: When Love Breaks Down
14. R.E.M. : Fables of the Reconstruction
Dark, humid, and mysterious, R.E.M''s third LP immerses the listener in a richly imagined Southern Gothic world. The familiar jangly guitars remain, but they now shimmer through a fog of ambiguity, supporting tales of rootless drifters, haunted small towns, and fractured emotional landscapes. Recorded in London during a turbulent and uncertain period for the band – and with production duties handled by Joe Boyd (Pink Floyd, Fairport, Nick Drake) – the album feels introspective and tense, a quiet reflection of displacement and dislocation.
Michael Stipe’s vocals often act as another instrument, weaving through murky textures and shadowy narratives. This is R.E.M.’s evolution from enigmatic cult favourites to evocative chroniclers of place, memory, and myth. Challenging on first listen, Fables rewards patience, revealing subtleties and depth that have made it a quietly enduring classic.
Key track: Driver 8 – Jangle-rock meets mythic Americana atmosphere.
13. New Order: Low-Life
Here, New Order perfect the balance between post-punk emotion and electronic propulsion. Sadness becomes danceable; introspection moves with momentum. Bernard Sumner’s vocal earnestness, Peter Hook’s melodic basslines, and Stephen Morris’s precise rhythms fuse effortlessly with synth atmospheres. Low-Life is less icy than earlier work and more emotionally open, proving that electronic music can ache just as deeply as guitar rock.
Key track: Love Vigilantes
12. Dead Can Dance: Spleen and Ideal
Expansive, gothic, and deeply atmospheric, Spleen and Ideal marks Dead Can Dance’s full evolution away from post-punk into ritual mysticism and neoclassical drama. Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry conjure music that feels both ancient and eternal – voices echoing through cathedral-scale space. Hammered dulcimers, orchestral drones, and funeral-march percussion create a soundworld entirely their own. This is not background music – it is total immersion.
Key track: De Profundis (Out of the Depths of Sorrow)
11. The Cure: The Head on the Door
An explosion of colour, melody, and mood, The Head on the Door finds The Cure eschewing the grey gloom of their early 1980s work, and broadening out into a joyously eclectic, if often neurotic world. 'In Between Days' and 'Close to Me' bring buoyancy without sacrificing emotional resonance. The variety is striking: Spanish guitars, pop hooks, swirling psychedelia. It’s the sound of Robert Smith discovering that darkness and playfulness are not opposites but equal tools in his palette.
Key track: A Night Like This
10. The Waterboys: This Is the Sea
The culmination of the band’s 'Big Music' era, This Is the Sea is sweeping, poetic rock driven by spiritual yearning. Mike Scott sings like someone trying to break out of his own body –straining toward transcendence. The arrangements are grand yet organic, with pianos, brass, and swirling guitars creating a sense of emotional scale. It’s an album that reaches upward and outward, searching for the infinite in the everyday.
Key track: The Whole of the Moon
9. The Fall: This Nation's Saving Grace
Groovy, caustic, and hypnotically repetitive, This Nation’s Saving Grace captures The Fall at their most swaggering and vital. Mark E. Smith’s vocals spit surreal invectives, half-spoken, half-shouted, threading through riffs and rhythms that feel simultaneously shambolic and precise. The band’s jagged energy transforms abrasive textures into something compulsively listenable, with each track bristling with dark humour, sarcasm, and sly intelligence.
The interplay between guitar, bass, and drums drives a relentless momentum, making the album feel urgent and alive. It’s post-punk stripped of polish, yet full of character and wit – an unfiltered expression of Smith’s vision. This Nation’s Saving Grace proves that refinement isn’t required for brilliance; personality, conviction, and daring can be more than enough to create a lasting, influential record.
Key track: Spoilt Victorian Child. Furious charm, sneer, and groove in one shot.
8. The Pogues: Rum Sodomy & the Lash
Produced by Elvis Costello, this is folk-punk as raucous mythmaking. Celtic melodies meet drunken romance and battered pride. Shane MacGowan emerges as a storyteller of extraordinary empathy – part poet, part street brawler. The arrangements balance tenderness and chaos, allowing vulnerability and mayhem to coexist. It’s music for late nights, bruised hearts, and people who sing to stay alive.
Key track: A Pair of Brown Eyes
7. The Smiths: Meat Is Murder
More political, more severe, and more emotionally confrontational than the band's eponymous debut, Meat Is Murder expands The Smiths’ sonic range and ideological intensity. Marr’s guitar tones shimmer and shift; Morrissey’s lyrics are sharper, sometimes combative. Whether addressing institutional cruelty or private despair, the album feels personal and defiant. It’s a statement of belief and identity – unyielding, deeply felt, and still provocative. 'Barbarism Begins at Home' is devilishly funky, too...
Key track: That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
6. Hüsker Dü: New Day Rising
A radiant storm of distortion and melody, the third album from Minnesota's seminal indie punks Hüsker Dü sees the band transforming hardcore fury into emotional, tuneful songwriting. Beneath the feedback lie songs of longing, doubt, and urgent self-expression. The tension between rage and beauty defines the album’s appeal – it’s messy, heartfelt, and explosive. One of the foundational records of alternative rock.
Key track: Celebrated Summer
5. The Replacements: Tim
Ragged, funny, sad, and deeply sincere, Tim captures the Replacements at their most emotionally direct. Paul Westerberg writes songs that embrace vulnerability without sentimentality, mixing barroom humour with raw heartbreak. The band’s messy charm remains intact, yet the songwriting cuts deeper than ever. It’s rock music about trying hard, failing, and trying again. A beloved cult masterpiece.
Key track: Bastards of Young
4. Tom Waits: Rain Dogs
A ramshackle port-town of an album – junk percussion, wheezing accordions, twanging guitars, and Waits’s gravelly poetry. Rain Dogs is full of characters living on the margins: sailors, hustlers, lonely drifters. The music feels hand-built from scrap and memory. It’s theatrical yet deeply human, grimy yet tender. An album that expands the possibilities of what songwriting can evoke.
Key track: Hang Down Your Head
3. The Jesus & Mary Chain: Psychocandy
A revolution disguised as a pop album. Beneath Psychocandy's sugar-sweet melodies lie vast walls of feedback, distortion, and white noise, creating a sonic tension that feels both abrasive and oddly romantic. The Jesus and Mary Chain take the simplicity of classic pop songwriting and warp it into something startlingly modern, where sweetness and chaos coexist in uneasy harmony.
When it was released in 1985, some listeners were horrified, while others recognized its radical potential. The album’s legacy is immense: it laid the blueprint for shoegaze, dream pop, and countless indie rock bands, proving that noise could be expressive, tender, and beautiful. Psychocandy introduced a new musical language – one where melody survives within the storm of sound, making the abrasive thrilling rather than alienating.
Key track: Just Like Honey. Noise dissolves into sweetness; a new aesthetic is born.
2. Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms
Brothers in Arms is a sleek, atmospheric, and immaculately produced blockbuster that came to define not just Dire Straits’ career, but the sound of the emerging CD era itself. The production is spacious and polished, allowing every guitar line, drum hit, and keyboard shimmer to breathe with clarity. Mark Knopfler’s guitar work is sublime – clean, expressive, and unhurried, communicating as much through silence as through notes.
The songwriting blends melancholy, narrative detail, and quiet grandeur, from the anti-war lament of the title track to the world-weary loneliness of 'So Far Away' and the wry commentary of 'Money for Nothing'. While the album’s sophistication and smooth surfaces made it a staple of hi-fi demonstrations and dinner-party soundtracks, its emotional depth runs far deeper than its reputation sometimes suggests. Thoughtful, spacious, and quietly devastating, Brothers in Arms stands as one of 1985’s defining records – and adult rock at its very finest.
Key track: Brothers in Arms. Slow-burn emotional depth, delivered with quiet majesty.
1. Kate Bush: Hounds of Love
Visionary in structure and fearless in scope, Hounds of Love is the rare album that marries pop immediacy with unapologetically experimental ambition. Bush doesn’t simply write songs – she builds environments. The first half is a masterclass in inventive, emotional pop: 'Running Up That Hill' turns longing into a pulsing, anthemic plea; 'Hounds of Love' races headlong into romantic fear; 'Cloudbusting' transforms memory and loss into radiant uplift. Every track feels alive, dynamic, and cinematic.
Then, without warning, Side Two – The Ninth Wave – pulls the listener into something deeper: a drifting, dreamlike suite about fear, survival, water, identity, and the thin membrane between consciousness and oblivion. Voices whisper and overlap, rhythms dissolve and return, melodies appear like distant lights on dark waves. Bush treats the studio as an emotional instrument, shaping sound, breath, and silence with painterly intent.
The result is not just a brilliant pop album – it’s one of the most influential art-pop statements ever made, a blueprint for adventurous musicians for decades to come.
Key track: Running Up That Hill. Epic urgency and emotional mysticism in motion.
Artist pics Getty Images
