10 Best Alt-Rock Albums Of The 80's

5. Remain In Light - Talking Heads

As the 80's were dawning, punk was quickly shifting into new wave territory, with alternative music not even being a thought in the minds of music enthusiasts. Once new wave act Talking Heads switched up their sound with Remain in Light, there was now a different kind of musical force at work.

Without any musical inhibitions, songwriter David Byrne led the band through a collection of tracks that were some of the most eclectic sonic experiments of the day. Originally suffering from writer's block, Byrne decided to pull from any genre that suited his melody, from world music to dance rhythms to even the beginnings of the hip hop movement.

Even though this idea seems disasterous if in the wrong hands, the band used their creative intuition and producer Brian Eno to bring the wild sounds Byrne was hearing in his head to life. This experimentation even yielded one of the greatest singles of the era with "Once in a Lifetime," whose primitive music video became a staple of the MTV age.

While there is some grey area as to when the alternative movement started to gain traction, Remain in Light seems to be the one documented moment when new wave became alt-rock.