10 Perfect 1980s Rock Albums With No Bad Songs

Whenever people talk about the moment when the '80s died, it typically goes back to the early '90s when the alternative nation started to swoop. The minute that Kurt Cobain threw a rager in the middle of a school gym, the era of flashy players and stylish hairdos were out of the question, about to be replaced with the sound of the '90s. That doesn't mean that the alternative nation didn't get a head start though.

Just before the idea of industrial kicked into high gear, Nine Inch Nails debuted ready to kill on Pretty Hate Machine. Even though you'd expect many first albums to be rough around the edges, Trent Reznor had already hit upon the winning formula right out of the gate, putting together glitchy production that sounded like it was on the verge of a breakdown on songs like Terrible Lie or Down In It.

While the genre was just getting born at this stage, you can also hear bits and pieces of Reznor's inspiration on here as well. For a track like Something I Can Never Have, Reznor is still clearly taking a few pages out of Depeche Mode's playbook and sprinkling in a bit of goth rock into the mix as well. We haven't reached the soul shredding of the Downward Spiral yet, but this is the kind of record that Robert Smith would be proud of.