Albums of my life: 1984
Backstory
Some time ago my man Chris Fletch started a series called "Albums of the year as chosen by users of the Fediverse" where - who would have thought - users of the Fediverse choose their favourite album of a specific year. He toots about it here and you can read the blog posts about it here.
Then @ttntm started an "album for every year I've been alive" thing and people like Jake and Banur joined the discussion.
If you know me from Mastodon, you know that I just have to join in.
I will call this #AOML - Albums of My Life and I'll rank albums that are most important to me for each year. I won't rank them by how good I think they are and neither will I include albums that I never really listened too although they might be good.
This is still a massive undertaking, luckily I am an extensive last.fm user with a complete listening history since 2007. Unfortunately last.fm doesn't allow you to sort albums you listened to by year, but there's this neat tool that does that for you: sortedsongs.com/tools/album-explorer/
So without further ado, let's dive in, starting with...
Honourable mentions:
W.A.S.P. - W.A.S.P. I never really listened to W.A.S.P. but after I saw them at Vienna Metal Meeting 2025 where they played their debut album in full, I gave it a couple of spins and I really enjoyed it. It will always remind me of a nice evening in Vienna, that's why I had to include it, even though not ranked.
R.E.M. - Reckoning Same as for the previous album, I never listened to this album much. It's not even among my favourite R.E.M. albums, I ranked it #13 in one of my music journeys, so why do I even include it here? I guess I like the album cover and I know my lads Brian, Jake and Chris on Mastodon like it.
Now on to the ranking...
10. The Smiths - The Smiths
The first time I ever heard about "The Smiths" was in 2001 mentioned in song by Farin Urlaub called "Sumisu".
Und immer wenn wir traurig waren
Traurig waren wir ziemlich oft
Nahm ich dich in meine Arme
Und dann hörten wir die Smiths
And whenever we were sad
And we were sad quite often
I took you in my arms
And then we listened to The Smiths
However I think I was introduced to them a few years earlier because my sister watched Charmed and we only had one TV. So I listened to "How Soon Is Now" before I even knew about The Smiths.
This does however have nothing to do with this album and I actually haven't listened to it in over 10 years (thanks last.fm for keeping track). But when I started Uni some friends were talking highly about The Smiths so that was how I was properly introduced. This album reminds me of that time.
9. Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A.
Now this one is interesting because I am by no means a Bruce Springsteen expert let alone a fan. You know songs you hear every now and then on the radio or somewhere else but you don't know the artist? These are usually Bruce Springsteen songs in my case.
You could say my brother had the biggest musical influence on me in the mid 90s and one time he borrowed this CD from our cousin (I wonder if he ever gave it back...) and I listened to it a bunch. I'm On Fire is my favourite song of the boss by a large margin.
8. Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers
Similar to "Born in the U.S.A." I know this album from my brothers's CD collection. In contrary to the Boss I don't think I ever listened to the CD back then.
I became a real Deep Purple fan much much later, somewhere in the 2010s when I listened to all of their albums. Before, they were just "Smoke on the Water" and this album cover to me. Perfect Strangers is nowhere near my favourite Purple albums, but it's a solid one that's easy to listen too.
7. Leonard Cohen - Various Positions
Leonard Cohen is another one I really got into only in the 2010s. I knew "Songs of Leonard Cohen" because my first girlfriend's dad listened to it a lot and back then I hated it. Now I love it, sometimes things just take time.
Various Positions is the one with Hallelujah. This song has been butchered by so many artists who tried to make it more powerful, more beautiful, more of a tearjerker. But they are all wrong because Cohen already made it perfect with his imperfect voice and a very minimalistic arrangement. But Various Positions is so much more, If It Be Your Will and Dance Me to the End of Love are two of my favourite Cohen songs.
6. Metallica - Ride The Lightning
Can you make a list without this album? I almost did, because event though it's a fantastic album I don't really have that much of a connection to it. But then I hear the bell toll and I instantly think of Zombieland and here we go. I don't really have more to add about it.
5. Anthrax - Fistful of Metal
Anthrax is "my" band of the big 4 of thrash metal. And for me Fistful of Metal was the strongest of each of the their debut albums. Deathrider and Metal Thrashing Mad - how good can a debut album start, right?
As most metal bands I only got into Anthrax in my thirties somewhere in the 2010s. I was introduced to them when they opened for Motörhead in Munich a million years ago. It was a Madhouse.
4. Judas Priest - Defenders of the Faith
Judas Priest is my favourite metal band. Defenders is an awesome album but not my favourite of theirs. That alone tells you how amazing they are.
I got into Priest in 2010 when a friend and I bought a "best of" CD for a road trip from Chicago to New York. Seems like yesterday but that was already 16 years ago.
3. Die Ärzte - Debil
This one might be confusing for non Germans/Austrians/Swiss people but Die Ärzte are huge here, easily the most important punk band to ever come out of Germany.
Paul, Zu Spät, Claudia hat 'nen Schäferhund, Mr. Sexpistols man that's banger after banger and these lyrics were totally suitable for young teenager Thomas. To quote from wiki:
In 1987, the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons put the songs "Claudia hat 'nen Schäferhund" and "Schlaflied" on the List of Media Harmful to Young People, with the effect that they could not be sold to minors, nor publicly advertised or displayed.
Exactly what we were looking for back then. Die Ärzte were probably the second most important band for me when I grew up.
2. Iron Maiden - Powerslave
This is another one of these albums that I only got into later in life. For a long time Iron Maiden was just "The Number of The Beast" and "Run To The Hills" for me. But when I fully embraced the power of metal Maiden was one of my gateway bands.
And Powerslave is my favourite Maiden album. Up the irons!
1. Queen - The Works
The first ever music I remember was Queen. The first song I remember was probably Radio Ga Ga. I grew up with their music because my cousins had all their albums on vinyl, my brother and I borrowed them and dubbed them to cassette. Those were the times...
In preparation of this post I listened to The Works and again I loved it start to finish. As I grow older and older and older and ... I even get into the songs I didn't like as a kid, like Machines (Or 'Back to Humans'). This only tells you how good they were.
Yes, some of their songs were played to death but I don't care, I can listen to I Want to Break Free a million times. And Hammer To Fall, and Tear It Up and It's A Hard Life, ...
I just love it!