And Kate Bush 1985
Jackson in 1982
Im wrong on all 3 lol.
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Hey @Jeanne @J3RK @sacguy71 no cheating please 
Pick one, I know it’s hard.
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, sacrifices had to be made (dozens of my favorite albums of various genres and years/decades), but… if I really had to choose, music of '95 is at the top of which I absolutely wouldn’t have to be without.
Yeah these we’re my closest competitors.
2003 might be my favorite post 2k musical year, especially for Hydrophonic Garden by CBL (and also Ott’s Blumenkraft). These got me, although a few years later, into psybient, which is now one of my favorite music genres.
And in '03 I’ve also released my own first album 
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1983-
the year Blue Monday came out by New Order
Duran Duran album Seven and the Ragged Tiger one of their best
Depeche Mode- Everything Counts
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I see what you’re saying, but I don’t make unnecessary sacrifices. 
Ok one: 1989 because of Paul’s Boutique.
In fact, we could add the Dust Brothers into the “Genius” thread.
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1983 was brilliant. Some of my fave bands were at the start of their careers in that year.
- Cocteau Twins - Head Over Heels
- Sisters of Mercy - Alice, Reptile House, Temple of Love
- Dead Can Dance debut (slightly cheating, as it was released early 1984)
- The Chameleons - Script of the Bridge
- The Go-Betweens - Before Hollywood
And thats not including albums by Bauhaus, Depeche Mode, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Soft Cell, Yazoo, Duran Duran. Awesome year.
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Man, I went down a rabbit hole trying to figure it out and I’ve got nothing. It’s so genre specific and even then, I couldn’t tell ya.
For metal, it’s maybe 1999?
Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder (still in my top 10 all time)
Cradle of Filth - Cradle to Enslaved
Dark Tranquilty - Projector
Dimmu Borgir – Spiritual Black Dimensions
Evergrey - Solitude, Dominance, Tragedy
Gamma Ray - Power Plant
GWAR - We Kill Everything (not their best album, but they were awesome on this tour)
Sonata Arctica - Ecliptica
Type O Negative - World Coming Down
But 1999 is also a year where I was seeing a lot of shows and super involved in the scene, so it’s probably more nostalgia than anything else. And I was 17 and didn’t have any real responsibilities.
In all honesty, 2025 has been a banger of a year too. So many bands put out stuff that I couldn’t even fathom in the past. But I’ve also been more intentional about listening to new music, and more independant music.
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and you mistook hell for love 
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indeed and it was also a watershed year for thrash metal when Metallica’s debut album “Kill 'em All” came out. Slayer’s Show No Mercy, Accept’s Balls to the Walls and Ozzy’s Bark at the Moon all came out as well in 1983.
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lol it gets worse.
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1741. J.S. Bach’s Goldberg variations aka Aria with 30 variations.
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1980 !!!
The Clash - London calling
The Cure - Seventeen seconds
Joy Division - Closer
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the year i became a ‘new romantic’.