Slicing Up Eyeballs’ Best of the ’80s: Overall aggregate results for 1980-1989

With the launch today of the results of our poll to determine the best albums of the entire 1980s, it’s worth taking a look at how those results would have turned out if, instead of conducting a final poll to cap off our year’s worth of voting, we simply ranked the Top 100 based on the total number of votes each album received across the individual, year-by-year polls.

As you can see below, there are many shared entries between the two Top 10s, but, interestingly, while Duran Duran’s Rio got the second-highest number of votes of any album in the individual annual polls, when it appeared on the ballot for the overall Best of the ’80s poll, it came in at No. 18.

Another important note here: As the polling progressed over the last year, the number of votes cast, for the most part, steadily increased, from just over 3,000 total votes in the 1980 poll to nearly 60,000 in the 1989 voting. So that certainly skews the aggregate tally, most notably when it comes to Joy Division’s Closer, which topped the 1980 poll and came in No. 4 on the Best of the ’80s ballot — but only finishes 43rd when ranked by the number of votes cast in the annual polls.

Slicing Up Eyeballs Top 100 Albums of the 1980s: Aggregate results

1. The Cure, ‘Disintegration’
2. Duran Duran, ‘Rio’
3. The Cure, ‘Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’
4. The Smiths, ‘The Queen is Dead’
5. Pixies, ‘Doolittle’
6. The Cure, ‘The Head on the Door’
7. Depeche Mode, ‘Music For the Masses’
8. Depeche Mode, ‘Black Celebration’
9. The Smiths, ‘Meat is Murder’
10. The Smiths, ‘Strangeways, Here We Come’

11. R.E.M., ‘Document’
12. Nine Inch Nails, ‘Pretty Hate Machine’
13. U2, ‘The Joshua Tree’
14. R.E.M., ‘Lifes Rich Pageant’
15. The Stone Roses, ‘The Stone Roses’
16. Pixies, ‘Surfer Rosa’
17. The Smiths, ‘The Smiths’
18. New Order, ‘Low-Life’
19. New Order, ‘Technique’
20. R.E.M., ‘Green’

21. Morrissey, ‘Viva Hate’
22. The Cure, ‘Pornography’
23. New Order, ‘Brotherhood’
24. New Order, ‘Power, Corruption & Lies’
25. The Jesus and Mary Chain, ‘Psychocandy’
26. Beastie Boys, ‘Paul’s Boutique’
27. R.E.M., ‘Murmur’
28. R.E.M., ‘Fables of the Reconstruction’
29. The Church, ‘Starfish’
30. INXS, ‘Kick’

31. Peter Gabriel, ‘So’
32. Jane’s Addiction, ‘Nothing’s Shocking’
33. R.E.M., ‘Reckoning’
34. Tears For Fears, ‘Songs From the Big Chair’
35. The Jesus and Mary Chain, ‘Automatic’
36. U2, ‘War’
37. Echo & The Bunnymen, ‘Ocean Rain’
38. U2, ‘The Unforgettable Fire’
39. Echo & The Bunnymen, ‘Echo & The Bunnymen’
40. Depeche Mode, ‘Some Great Reward’

41. The Cure, ‘Faith’
42. Love and Rockets, ‘Express’
43. Joy Division, ‘Closer’
44. The Cult, ‘Love’
45. INXS, ‘Listen Like Thieves’
46. The Jesus and Mary Chain, ‘Darklands’
47. The Cure, ‘The Top’
48. XTC, ‘Skylarking’
49. The Replacements, ‘Pleased To Meet Me’
50. Peter Murphy, ‘Deep’

51. Kate Bush, ‘Hounds of Love’
52. Siouxsie and the Banshees, ‘Peepshow’
53. Siouxsie and the Banshees, ‘Tinderbox’
54. Nirvana, ‘Bleach’
55. Sonic Youth, ‘Daydream Nation’
56. The Sisters of Mercy, ‘Floodland’
57. The Cult, ‘Electric’
58. The B-52s, ‘Cosmic Thing’
59. Pet Shop Boys, ‘Please’
60. Love and Rockets, ‘Love and Rockets’

61. New Order, ‘Movement’
62. Tears For Fears, ‘The Hurting’
63. Violent Femmes, ‘Violent Femmes’
64. The Police, ‘Synchronicity’
65. Duran Duran, ‘Duran Duran’
66. Depeche Mode, ‘Construction Time Again’
67. Depeche Mode, ‘A Broken Frame’
68. The Replacements, ‘Tim’
69. The Cure, ‘Seventeen Seconds’
70. Depeche Mode, ‘Speak & Spell’

71. Sinead O’Connor, ‘The Lion and the Cobra’
72. Love and Rockets, ‘Earth, Sun, Moon’
73. Echo & The Bunnymen, ‘Porcupine’
74. Ministry, ‘The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste’
75. a-ha, ‘Hunting High and Low’
76. The Clash, ‘Combat Rock’
77. Roxy Music, ‘Avalon’
78. Cocteau Twins, ‘Blue Bell Knoll’
79. The Replacements, ‘Let It Be’
80. The Replacements, ‘Don’t Tell a Soul’

81. Lou Reed, ‘New York’
82. Yazoo, ‘Upstairs at Eric’s’
83. Pet Shop Boys, ‘Actually’
84. Talking Heads, ‘Speaking in Tongues’
85. XTC, ‘Oranges & Lemons’
86. INXS, ‘Shabooh Shoobah’
87. David Bowie, ‘Let’s Dance’
88. The Cult, ‘Sonic Temple’
89. De La Soul, ‘3 Feet High and Rising’
90. The Sisters of Mercy, ‘First and Last and Always’

91. Midnight Oil, ‘Diesel and Dust’
92. Hüsker Dü, ‘Candy Apple Grey’
93. The Mission, ‘Gods Own Medicine’
94. The The, ‘Infected’
95. Cocteau Twins, ‘Treasure’
96. Hüsker Dü, ‘Zen Arcade’
97. The Human League, ‘Dare’
98. U2, ‘October’
99. Public Image Ltd., ‘Album’
100. Simple Minds, ‘New Gold Dream (81-“82-“83-“84)’