25 Essential ’80s Rock + Metal Albums to Pass on to Your Children

What 1980s era rock and metal albums do you feel it’s essential to pass on to your kids?

As a teen in the ‘80s, there was a lot of great music to digest. But as I’ve gotten older, it’s always interesting to see what from my youth has been passed on to the next generation and what has gotten overlooked.

So for this exercise, we’re talking about the absolute must, completely essential albums that were released between 1980 and 1989 that your kids absolutely must know. It’s a crime if they don’t.

To make this even more interesting, we’re narrowing this list down to 25 albums, leading to some hard choices that have to be made.

What would you want your kids to know from the breadth of rock and metal? There’s plenty of different styles to consider, and it’s good to leave your kids with a bit of diversity, right? Give them a chance to gravitate to what they enjoy the most.

For this list, I broke it down into multiple categories, trying to reflect on all the different styles of modern rock, hard rock and metal that graced the airwaves, turntables, CD and cassette players.

READ MORE: Best New Rock + Metal Act of Each Year of the 1980s

This was not an easy list to finalize and I welcome your arguments. I invite you to try to create your own list of 25 albums from the ‘80s that should be passed down to the next generation. Good luck.

So, without further adieu, here’s 25 Essential 1980s Rock + Metal Albums to Pass Down to Your Kids.

Top 80 Hard Rock + Metal Albums of the 1980s