The Blue Nile · 1989 Spin it Again - Nigel Godrich and the band spent months removing notes instead of adding them—and somehow made the most patient pop album of the 80s.

Cocteau Twins · 1984 Spin it Again - Robin Guthrie turned reverb into an instrument, Elizabeth Fraser into a voice beyond language, and the '80s into something that didn't have to choose between coldness and feeling.

Spandau Ballet · 1983 Spin it Again - They spent two years in four different studios to understand how to be the thing they sounded like they wanted to be. This is where they figured it out.

Haircut 100 · 1981 Spin it Again - A band with one chance to make the record right, working with an engineer who understood that layering four instruments doesn't muddy a song if you know where to place each one.

Guadalcanal Diary · 1988 Spin it Again - A record that gets quieter the more closely you listen, and that's exactly the point.

Vicky Brown · 1982 Spin it Again - Vicky Brown made this in 1982 with Quincy Jones and vanished; Doug Sax engineered it like it mattered; almost nobody heard it.

Juice Newton · 1981 Spin it Again - Rod Argent produced this like he understood that Juice Newton's restraint was the whole point.

Beastie Boys · 1986

Jive Bunny and Mastermix · 1987

2 Men A Drum Machine & A Trumpet · 1988 Spin it Again - Three musicians decided the only way forward was to remove everything but trumpet, drums, and voices, and they were right.

Richard Marx · 1987

Bobby Brown · 1988 Spin it Again - New Jack Swing meets mainstream pop with no apologies, and a twenty-year-old who knew exactly what he wanted to prove.

New Kids on the Block · 1989

LeVert · 1988 Spin it Again - Gerald Levert's voice wrapped in silk arrangements and synth-age luxury—stop treating this as background music and hear what the sequencing and production actually meant.

Mötley Crüe · 1987 Spin it Again - It took a death, a near-death, a shattered arm, and roughly two years of studio wreckage before this record finally locked in — and it sounds like exactly that.

Bon Jovi · 1986 Spin it Again - Bob Rock engineered it, Desmond Child co-wrote it, and Jon Bon Jovi almost left the best song off the record.

Chicago · 1986 Spin it Again - Peter Cetera's last album with Chicago sounds like a man already halfway out the door — and somehow that's exactly what the songs needed.

Loverboy · 1987 Spin it Again - Tom Werman, Little Mountain Sound, and a band that was better at their job than the red leather pants let anyone admit.

Don Johnson · 1986 Spin it Again - Richard Perry produced it, Steve Lukather played on it, and two million Americans bought it — the part your music-snob brain has to just sit with.

Prince & The Revolution · 1984 Spin it Again - He stripped the bass line out of 'When Doves Cry' at the last minute and it somehow has more bottom than anything on the radio that year.