Best of 1981

YEARS

← THE BEST OF 1981 →

-1-

Fair Warning

Van Halen

1981 was the first year I really took an interest in music. To be fair, I wasn't listening to Van Halen and Ozzy and Judas Priest yet. But Joan Jett's I Love Rock 'n Roll was the first album I learned all the lyrics to and Foreigner's Juke Box Hero and Journey's Don't Stop Believin' were also in heavy rotation. I wasn't really aware of musical genres yet, but I was beginning to figure out what I liked. I liked Joan's attitude and her crunchy guitars (and her cover of Crimson and Clover!) and I loved Steve Perry's harmonies on Stone in Love or the soaring vocals of Lou Gramm, were awakening something in me, so those albums still hold a special place in my heart. But even though those records were starting me down a path, there weren't a lot of other albums in 1981 that stuck with me. It was still a struggle to fill a top 10 list. Eventually though, I would backtrack and find songs like Crazy Train, Unchained, Desert Plains, and Fire Down Under and things would change...