If anyone here is interested, I've been writing a weekly series this year on my favorite albums of 1986 called THIRTY YEAR THURSDAY. Here are the albums I've featured so far, with a link to each post.

THE FIRM - MEAN BUSINESS
https://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/20 ... -business/

VAN HALEN - 5150
https://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/20 ... alen-5150/

JOE JACKSON - BIG WORLD
https://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/20 ... big-world/

ROLLING STONES - DIRTY WORK
https://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/20 ... irty-work/

THE MOODY BLUES - THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE
https://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/20 ... e-of-life/

BRUCE HORNSBY AND THE RANGE - THE WAY IT IS
https://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/20 ... way-it-is/

QUEEN - A KIND OF MAGIC
https://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/20 ... -of-magic/

PETER GABRIEL - SO
https://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/20 ... abriel-so/

STEVE WINWOOD - BACK IN THE HIGH LIFE
https://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/20 ... high-life/

BIG COUNTRY - THE SEER
https://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/20 ... -the-seer/

EMERSON, LAKE & POWELL - EMERSON, LAKE & POWELL
https://kamertunesblog.wordpress.com/20 ... ke-powell/

The two best albums of 1986 were both by Elvis Costello.......
King of America and Blood and Chocolate.

Otherwise, 1986 was better for baseball than music

While I agree with your baseball comment, Charles, I still think there was plenty of great music released in 1986 (including most of the albums mentioned above). I've had a love/hate...or love/disinterest...relationship with Elvis Costello's music for a long time. I only knew a few songs from those albums back in '86 and discovered the full albums later on, so I'll write about them later this year after I've focused on the albums I knew really well that year.

What an odd year for music. I would almost agree with Charles regarding music, but then realized that XTC's Skylarking was released in 1986

I think it depends on your tolerance for the production choices many artists/producers were making by the mid-'80s. As someone who turned 20 that year, it all sounded good to me then, and even though a lot of it sounds dated now, many of the songs & performances are still great. I do think it's an underrated year for music, and maybe this series will help convince others. I'll be writing a post each week through the end of 2016.

Looking forward to reading it. It's interesting to hear a perspective from someone who came of age with these albums, because they probably mean as much to you as releases from the 70's mean to me (and at the time, I recall people telling me how inferior Black and Blue, Animals, Street Legal, and Presence were to earlier albums from Stones, Pink Floyd, Dylan, and Zeppelin

Thanks, GC. I'm glad you appreciate the different perspectives based on age & initial exposure. It's amazing how different opinions can be with only a few years separating people. For what it's worth, I love all four albums you mentioned.

The Prisoners' In From The Cold was my favourite that year. Rich's list shows a better 1986 than I personally remember, but I think I was paying more attention to the Mets than the radio at the time.

I don't know that Prisoners album but will check it out based on your recommendation. I was also obsessed with the Mets that year, as well as the Giants (we were season ticket holders and I saw 8 of the 10 home games on their way to the Super Bowl victory), but I still managed to find plenty of great new music that year. There are just as many great albums from 1986 that I discovered in later years, and I'll be highlighting all of them by the end of 2016.

Other great albums from '86:

The Smithereens - Especially For You
Talking Heads - True Stories
Big Audio Dynamite - No. 10 Upping Street
Duran Duran - Notorious
Genesis - Invisible Touch
REM - Lifes Rich Pageant

New Order: Brotherhood
Pet Shop Boys: Please

Good list, Hank. Four of those will be included in this blog series. One of them will be the featured album next week.

Although I'm not a fan of either of those groups, I'm happy to see that others have favorite albums from 1986. I think it's a better year than most people give it credit for.

I was still locked in on the new wave scene, although by '86 it was starting to morph into "modern rock."

Strong Persuader - Robert Cray
August - Eric Clapton with Phill Collins on drums

Oh yeah, Paul Simon released a little thing called Graceland in 1986.

Jesus & Mary Chain: Psychocandy
They Might Be Giants (S/T debut)

Going by the 1986 at http://www.besteveralbums.com/yearstats ... esc&page=4 , my ten favorite albums that year were:

Bruce Springsteen: Live '75-'85
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Your Funeral... My Trial
Rainmakers: Rainmakers
Johnny Winter: 3rd Degree
Steve Earle: Guitar Town
Albert Collins: Cold Snap
Love & Rockets: Express
Megadeth: Peace Sells, But Who's Buying
Smithereens: Especially For You
Georgia Satellites: Georgia Satellites

There's a few albums I quite like, but it isn't the strongest of years.

One of those will definitely be featured in this series, and the other one is likely. Good choices, Marcus.

I wrote a series on the Paul Simon discography about 5 years ago. Since I already wrote about Graceland, I'll save it for later in this series. I want to focus on albums I haven't already covered at my blog. The same goes for TMBG.

I wasn't counting Bruce's first official live album because it wasn't new material.

I agree that it's not the strongest of years when you compare it to the greatest of all time, but since the mid-'80s is often reviled I wanted to remind people that there were plenty of great albums released that year. I discovered a couple of the albums from your list many years later, and they'll probably be featured in my Thirty Year Thursday series later this year.

I haven't decided if I'll include live albums or compilations in this series. I figured I would focus on newly recorded albums first, and then if there's still time later this year I'll write about a few others. The Springsteen live set is definitely worthy of being discussed among the best releases of 1986.