(Sorry, below the belt)

Orange Juice You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever, which has a lovely picture of a dolphin on the cover, and this gem:

Not so much unsung as neglected:

Elsewhere in the world:

In the 80s, generally a decade I found musically dull, new country was a real highlight for me - Steve Earle "Guitar town", Dwight Yoakham "Guitars, Cadillacs etc etc", and even mad old Elvis Costello with "Almost Blue", Lucinda Williams' eponymous first album all being highlights.

Anything by The Associates (but probably The Affectionate Punch - Sulk is better but not really 'unsung')

The third Altered Images album (Bite)

The Only Fun in Town by Josef K

And a bit further south...

Tell God I'm Here by Hurrah!

Boat to Bolivia by Martin Stephenson and the Daintees

Get Out and Walk by The Farmer's Boys

Playing With a Different Sex by The Au Pairs

Walking The Ghost Back Home by The Bible!

Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams by The Bodeans

Bring The Family by John Hiatt

and of course

Slippery When Wet by Bon Jovi

...but what about looking at albums by those big names that were really rubbish in the 1980s: The Stones, Dylan, McCartney, Elton John...

Teardrop Explodes - both Kilimanjaro and Wilder
Echo & the Bunnymen - Crocodiles, Heaven Up Here and Ocean Rain (brother James Blast would insist that Porcupine be substituted for Ocean Rain).
Wah! - Nah=poo:The Art of Bluff
It's Immaterial - Life's Short And Then You Die
Dalek I Love You - 1st (and only?) album

and most definitely not from Liverpool

The Sound - From The Lion's Mouth

Sea of Love - The Adventures

Waiting for the Floods - Armoury Show

Go on - do 2 unsung classic 80's albums

Good podcasts btw. Hope the little one is doing fine.

I'd say ABC - The Lexicon of Love, but it's probably not 'hip' enough. Human League - Dare. Also - New Gold Dream - Simple Minds.

Time for a re-issue of 'You Can't Hide Your Love Forever', methinks.

Re: Con_Coleman's comments about really rubbish albums in the 80's by Dylan, McCartney, etc.

I beg to differ. 'Oh Mercy' by Dylan is brilliant.

If British bands such as Ultravox and The Passions affected a certain European sophistication, then Propaganda, assisted by German singer Claudia Brücken’s detached, coldly intellectual vocals, felt like the real thing.

The group are probably best remembered for their single Duel which appears on this album back-to-back with its abrasive, diamond-cut counterpart - Jewel (the same song with all the melody stripped away).

A cover of Josef K’s - Sorry For Laughing, abandons the original’s meandering post punk in favour of a typically Wagnerian Stephen Lipson/Trevor Horn production job that is much better suited to the lyrics.

The theatrics reach their zenith on Dr Mabuse which references the fictional criminal mastermind popularised in films of Fritz Lang and is straight-faced triumph in the face of absurd lyrics and an overblown, everything and the kitchen sink arrangement.

Pretty much the definition of unsung. Should be up there with the Smiths as far as I'm concerned.
Forever Breathes the Lonely Word and Me and a Monkey on the Moon are up there with the best of that decade, and any other decade for that matter. The latter is one of the very few perfect albums for me.

BLONDIE - Autoamerican (always overlooked in favour of Parallel Lines or the Greatest Hits)
BOWWOWWOW - See Jungle etc. (still sounds bonkers)
THE THE - Soul Mining (apparently the only album certified gold in the UK to never make the top 20 in the album chart)
JULIAN COPE - Fried (loopy but great)

And you'll laugh, but
A-HA - Scoundrel Days (still gets regular play "round our way")

I'll also second FELT from an earlier poster.

Tim and Pleased to Meet Me by the Replacements

Women And Children First by Van Halen - unlock your inner 14-year-old!

Around the World in a Day by Prince and the Revolution - much more fun and less bombastic than Purple Rain

Abba - The Visitors

Propaganda - Secret Wish
Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Flaunt It (no come back!, it's actually far more influential than you would imagine)
Big Audio Dynamite - This Is (better than The Clash. Seriously)
The Ocean Blue - they were American, released self titled album on Sire. Very janglesome. Great hair

House of Love's debut on Creation was a perfect guitar record. Still listen at least every couple of weeks and every time am amazed that they didn't become huge. With hindsight it's not massively original, but rarely has that kind of thing been done better.

Shane Macgowan's descent into comedy/tragic drunk and the Pogues status as an excuse for a piss up around christmas time means the quality of what they were up to in the 80s seems to have been forgotten. If I Should Fall From Grace with God is the one that still does it for me. Shane and his colleagues were never on such good form again.

I've said it elsewhere on here before, but Sons & Fascination / Sister Fellings Call and New Gold Dream were both very good albums.

I would also recommend Happy Families by Blancmange (despite its appalling cover), Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics, and the first, self-titled Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark album.

Non Stop Erotic Cabaret

George Best - The Wedding Present; brilliantly bittersweet lyrics. The epitome of jangle pop.

Rage in Eden - Ultravox

Steeltown - Big Country - Hugely underrated - get the version with Wonderland tacked on. Just some really great guitar playing.

Darklands - JAMC (better than Psychocandy!)

Screaming Blue Messiahs - "Gun Shy"

The Godfathers - "Hit By Hit"

I love these records - raw, guitar driven, angry and melodic - the antithesis of the over-produced 80's standard.

Julian Cope's first two solo albums "World Shut Your Mouth" and "Fried" were also packed full of great songs and riffs.

I'd agree with the recommendation for this one, already made above, by The Daintees. Standout track for me was always 'Little Red Bottle'

Despite all the production polish prevalent(woah there Alliteration Boy!)during that time there was still some basic, effective guitar strumming going on. 'The Georgia Satellites' I remember as being tongue in cheek Tom Petty-type stuff and highly enjoyable.

put me off a lot of records of the time, I think this was touched on in a recent Podcast too.
Aztec Camera being a good example, I could never stand their sound on record and it was only a few years back when Mrs Kitson dragged me to a Roddy Frame solo show and hearing the songs stripped down acoustic that I realzied what a superb songwriter he was.

'Pillows and Prayers' with artists from the Cherry Red label. One of the best albums of the 80s. But does it count as being an album technically because it's a compilation? Oh, how I fondly remember paying 99p at HMV, and having no clue what it was all about (I just bought it because it was cheap), and being thrilled by what I heard when I got home.

Felt, The Monochrome Set, Kevin Coyne, Marine Girls, Attila the Stockbroker (Is there life in Peckham?), etc., etc.

A gem from start to finish, and it's lost not one jot of its cachet after all these years.

I give you Chasing Shadows by The Comsat Angels & The Bible by The Bible, which features my Single Of The 80's in Honey Be Good. Also, I'm ashamed to say I'm only just getting into XTC - their 80's output is uniformly excellent. King For A Day from Oranges and Lemons is my new favourite song. How did I miss this...

'Animal Magic' and 'She Was Only A Grenngrocers Daughter'

Microdisney's finest. (The Cathal Coughlan fanclub is out in strength this week... all 3 of us).

Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express by the Go-betweens.

I'd add my vote to Rattlesnakes and If I should fall from Grace with God as well.

"Against Nature" or was that the 90's?

Nobody talks about Soul Mining anymore. This saddens me - and probably Matt Johnson, too.

Absolutely - The The, XTC, Lloyd Cole, the Mighty Go-Betweens - it was quite another 1980s. Can't wait to hear this radio show; hope it is pocastable from Australia.

I'll look forward to the podcast. And just realised the aforementioned Oranges and Lemons by XTC was 1989 - for some reason I always pegged it in the 1990s. Maybe it's just timeless.

Go on. I dare you!! A classic according to some people (well, me anyway).

... a couple of '80's albums I refound when putting vinyl into the PC - that still stand up really well

Thomas Lang - Scallywag Jaz
Working Week - Working Week

somehow they work even better with the clicks and hisses of vinyl..

Working Nights is the album name

By Thomas Dolby

and Don't Stand Me Down by Dexy's.

I'd also go for Gone To Earth by David Sylvian.

The Wrong People is a classic 80's album for me. Love it, still gets played and is transferred onto the i-pod. It's the one with the hits on too.

Also like Stephen "Tin-Tin" Duffy's album from around 84, the Ups and Downs.

David Sylvian - Brilliant Trees - (he was 25-26 when he made this, imagine a 26 year old making this kind of solo album nowadays, incredible!) - and once again I plead with Word magazine for a re-appraisal of the man and his music, long overdue for the mag (well you do feature Tom Waits and Nick Cave quite alot... just for a change eh guys?).

Depeche Mode - Construction Time Again - these guys were well ahead on the intelligent pop and industrial sound!

Scritti Politti - Provision - hey it had Miles Davis on it, how untra-un80's cool is that!

OMD - Dazzle Ships - imagine a successful selling band doing this kind of uncommercial suicide album nowadays - er hang on, were Radiohead taking notes early on?

Personally I think there were a huge amount of fantastic unsung 80's albums, it was a decade of real creativity and also dross (rhymes with Bros wierdly)

We'll be choosing soon and broadcasting 1st week september. You folks had a wee mention in issue #23, which featured Queens of the Stone Age and Velvet Underground

Their 80's catalogue is unbelievable.
"Of Skin And Hearts"
"Blurred Crusade"
"Heyday"-(this has "Myrrh" on it!!! the guitars, the guitars...)
"Starfish"

Good thing is they are still going strong and producing their best music.