Like I mentioned in the Anniversary Article for this year, there was a lot of stellar music in 1981, so putting together a Top 5 was difficult. There were no obvious winners, but more than a handful solid albums, and it took quite a bit of nit-picking to get the list down to five. Naturally, there are a lot of honorable mentions, including Mötley Crüe's debut Too Fast for Love, Rush's Moving Pictures, and Foreigner's 4. Even Saxon and Survivor had a chance to get in, but they couldn't quite make it. As always, this is just my opinion, and I can't listen to everything, but this my Top 5 for one of the best years for melodic rock and metal.
While following up the iconic Back in Black would have been a challenge no matter what, but they certainly gave it a shot anyway. It's not a perfect album, but it has a lot of energy, and the title track is purely anthemic. A solid sophomore effort from Brian Johnson as the band keeps doing what they do best.
I mentioned that this was a shoe-in for the Top 5 in the review, but it was a matter of where. After reviewing all these albums, this isn't as complete as the ones above it, though the hits are iconic and classic. Despite all the praise I gave it, #4 is the highest I can put it against such tough competition.
The second of the Dio Sabbath albums, when I reviewed this, I mentioned it wasn't as good as Heaven and Hell. While I do still feel that way, it doesn't change the fact that it's still a very solid album. The title track and "Sign of the Southern Cross" let Dio soar majestically, and I'm thinking I'm liking his Sabbath albums more than Ozzy's (sacrilege, I know), but this is a great album to represent how metal was evolving at the time.
When I posted my retrospective of this band earlier in the year, I stated that this album kinda falls off in the second half. However, when you listen to it as an album, the ending does work as a good match to the start, and solid book ends do help an album seem strong. There's also a lot of nostalgia for this band, so they were gonna end up pretty high, no matter what!
I internally debated hard about what to put at #1 for this year. Styx seemed like the obvious winner, but as I continued to listen to Def Leppard's second album, I found it to be very consistent and enjoyable. Just a lot of solid hard rock. While it does lean into some AC/DC territory (largely because Mutt Lange was producing), with so many catchy hooks and choruses, I finally decided to put them at the top of what is a very excellent list. They would go on to bigger things from here, but let it be said with this and their debut, they started from a great foundation.
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