1988

So we begin with 1988, the year in which I properly started buying music instead of taping it off the radio or playing my Dad's brass band records, I was 12 (aaaaahhhh). This is mostly the stuff I was listening to then, hence the large initial cheese factor & the glaring omissions, with a few later discoveries thrown in.
So, ranked in no particular order:

Martika - Martika
The Sugarcubes - Life's Too Good
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
Morrissey - Viva Hate

Martika is unquestionably the greatest record to come out of the 1980s. Songs about Tarzan AND Heroin, aw-ee-aw-ee-uhh! The Sugarcubes were mad, mad I tell you! The big single 'Birthday' seemed to be about paedophilia and crows, when that was acceptable subject matter for a pop song. The first two are actually the only ones I got that year. I didn't get into the Pixies till a late-night-late viewing of the Breeders a couple of years later. Sonic Youth was an even later discovery, and Morrissey later still, though I always had a soft spot for The Smiths.