1980's: Top 5 Best Selling Albums

It's been a long time since I Rock n' Rolled, by which of course I mean it's been a while since I wrote for my blog. I think my way sounds better though. Anyway, it was only when one of my adoring groupie girl fans (my besty Liz) asked me where my blog had gone, that I realized how long it had been.

So at the request of my adoring groupie I have decided to write about this rather groundbreaking, life and death topic, The 5 best selling albums of the 80's.

So pull out your tube socks, put on on your leggings and attach some hula hoops to your ears. This is a decade that saw hippies squashed by a new government super power, commercialism. It's a time when fashion took a turn off course, through a bush and on off a cliff. It was a magical cocaine fueled decade where everything was fun because, well, everything was completely irrelevant. The best things in life where free, but you could give them to the birds and the bees.

So in a world where shiny Compact Disk's where the technology of the day. What albums were we spending our hard earned cash on? Let's find out.

5. Kylie (1988)

1988 was a year to remember. Ireland beat England in the Euro's, Tom Cruise was showing us some brotherly love in "Rain Man" and most importantly of all, there was a little bundle of joy set to arrive on my mother's steps... ME!

Something of much more cultural importance happened this year though. There was a young Australian heart-throb about to hit the scene and make men everywhere drool on their shoulder padded pink suits. Surely looks couldn't alone carried Kylie's debut album to the title of fifth best selling album of the decade? No not quite. Kylie had something up her sleeve, or in the sleeve of the album cover at least. A secret weapon. The Loco-Motion. A song so unstoppable, so masterfully written and so representative of a decade that threw taste out the window, that it helped Kylie's debut album, so ingeniously named "Kylie", to reach an unforeseen sales peek. Selling over 5 million copies worldwide and being certified platinum 7 times in the UK.

Yes even the Brits couldn't deny Kylie her right as a true ambassador of the 1980's.

4. Queen Greatest Hits (1981)

If ever a musician defined a decade it was Mr.Freddie Mercury. He had it all, a voice, a look and what to this day is arguably one of the greatest bands of all time. There place in this top five is not surprising, especially when we are talking about there greatest hits. The 80's was a decade of greatest hits albums.

Queen's greatest tracks include the likes of Don't Stop Me Now, Flash, We Will Rock You and some other tracks that never really took off like Bohemian Rhapsody.

this was the bands most successful album, selling 6 million copies in the UK alone and hitting a whopping 8x Platinum status in the US.

To this day the band and the album are considered to be one of the best of all time. While Freddie himself is no less than an icon of rock music.... or music in general for that matter.

3. Thriller (1982)

The 80's saw many many strange and cringe worthy things happen. Michael Jackson is responsible for the vast majority of brilliant music in the 80's which certainly isn't unusual. What was unusual was that as Michael passed through from 1980-1989 something about him was changing. Not his music that was as incredible as ever. Not his dance moves, they were still being mimicked by EVERYONE EVERYWHERE! 

No during the 80's Michael Jackson transformed himself from the biggest Black African American pop musician of all time into... Well.... The biggest WHITE African American pop musician of all time.

The people had their theories maybe he was being racially abused at gigs. Maybe he took the Thriller video a tad too serious and wanted to actually become a zombie, unfortunately he did manage that but not until the 90's.

But no something even more shocking was actually going on. The biggest pop star in the history of the world apparently wanted to be Peter Pan. Fair enough I suppose, I wanted to be Peter Pan once... I was EIGHT, But sure different strokes for different folks.

Anyway, I don't need to tell you about the Thriller album, we all know the songs, the video, the creepy dance moves and the soon to be creepy artist. It was only 1982, he still had his looks.

Thriller may be the third best selling album of the 80's but it has a much more important title, one that makes me shake a little. It was, still is, and probably will forever be, the single greatest selling album of all time anywhere. At one point it was selling more then a MILLION copies a WEEK!!! nobody knows exactly how many copies of it has sold to date, but I'll tell you this, the likes of Axl "Dickhead" Rose wouldn't have been allowed shine Michael's shoes, and my god were his shoes shiny.

It didn't manage to outsell these next two albums within the constraining years of the 80's, but it stood the test of time better then anything ever written by any artist on earth.

2. Bad (1987)

Then he went and did it AGAIN. 30 Million copies worldwide and 9 time platinum. The bad album was just proof that Michael Jackson was the biggest artist of the 1980's by a long shot.... though he was starting to look a little pale. Making money is stressful.

1. Brothers in Arms (1985)

This was a surprise to me too... Dire Straights as good as they are, would have never outsold Michael Jackson... Surely, but they did, in the 5 years that Brothers in Arms had in the 80's it sold more then Bad by about a hair, a long permy hair at that. In the long run? well not too shabby... it has sold almost exactly the same amount as Bad has and is also of course 9x platinum.

The secret? "Money for Nothing", one of the first music videos ever to be aired on MTV and certainly the first to use 3d animation. Looking back, it is a horribly hard to watch music video. At the time though it was revolutionary and sent people running to the stores to pick up the album.

Let's not take away from the album itself. "Money for Nothing" is considered to have one of the catchiest riffs of all time and other tracks like " Walk On Life" and "Your Latest Trick" are some of the 80' biggest tunes.

It is with great pride and quiet a bit of... ehh,REALLY?... That Dire Straights are given the prestigious title of Commercial Genius's of The most Commercial Era in Human History.... Despite trying to do quiet the opposite.