A closer look at The 100 Best Albums of the 1980s.

To accompany last week’s sprawling list of FACT’s 100 Best Albums of the 1980s, we decided that it would be a good idea to put together a series of mixes to soundtrack the experience. Since there’s so much stuff in the list that isn’t exactly your typical canonical choice, it made sense to put together a selection of our favourite tracks and give you all the chance to make up your own minds.

Each day this week we will be rolling out a twenty track mix, each one selected and pieced together by a member of the FACT team, and with any luck it should give you a brief look into exactly what made us choose this particular 100 in the first place.

The first chunk has been picked and mixed by John Twells, and rounds up albums no. 100-81. You can click on the track names below to read more information on the release it came from.

Tracklist:

01 Virginia Astley – A Summer Long Since Apart
02 Hans Joachim Roedelius – Mein Freund Farouk
03 ESG – UFO
04 Skin – Come Out
05 Einsturzende Neubauten – Hören Mit Schmerzen
06 Lustmord – Utterance
07 Whodini – Out of Control
08 Soul II Soul – Keep on Movin’
09 Mad Professor & Pato Banton – Gawrn! (Go On)
10 Charanjit Singh – Raga Meghmalhar
11 Tantra – Hills of Katmandu
12 M.E.S.H. – Meet Every Situation Head On
13 Bathory – Call From the Grave
14 Carcass – Carbonized Eyesockets
15 Naked City – Shangkuan Ling-Feng
16 Scraping Foetus off the Wheel – Throne of Agony
17 Philip Glass – Vessels
18 Aztec Camera – Pillar to Post
19 Eurythmics – Jennifer
20 MOMUS – Closer to You