Elvis Costello makes his first appearance on this list at #11, but trust me, it won’t be his last. The 80s proved to be the man’s strongest decade by far.

Get Happy!!, Costello’s fourth album, typified the sort of stylistic shifts he had already made on his early records and continues to make to this day. Having explored punk and new wave (filtered, as always, through his own cerebral sensibility) on This Year’s Model and Armed Forces, he turned his attention to R&B.

From the instrumentation and choice of cover songs to the retro style of the album sleeve, this record would fit in alongside the Stax records Costello so loves.

Get Happy!! runs by at a frantic pace, featuring 20 songs, almost all of which clock in at under three minutes. Costello’s trademark wordplay is on full display — he “steps on the brake to get out of her clutches” and “strikes lucky with motel matches,” leaving no pun unturned.

In hindsight, this album feels like the last time Costello really cut loose and treated a studio record like a live show. On future albums, he would increasingly rely on production tricks to fulfill his vision, but here it sounds as if he and The Attractions are onstage in a smoky club tearing through a set like they’ve just been told the power’s going out in 45 minutes.