I’m a little more than halfway through my Decades series, in which I’m covering albums released in each of the 40 years between 1970 and 2009. I’ve covered the first four years of every decade from the 70s through the 00s, plus — most recently — 1975.

That brings me to 1985, the year I turned 13. That’s a formative year in anybody’s life, musically and otherwise, so I’m excited to dive in once again to one of my favorite musical decades.

As always, I will start by counting down my own favorite albums from the year, before featuring critically and/or commercially successful albums with which I am less familiar.

I hadn’t yet become an “album guy” at age 13, so most of my contemporaneous music taste came in the form of radio singles. Therefore my top ten 1985 albums are all records I discovered later in life. Starting with…

#10 – Songs from the Big Chair – Tears for Fears

This one is a bit of a cheat, because I haven’t spent much time with the album as a whole. But any record that boasts the singles ‘Shout,’ ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World,’ and ‘Head Over Heels’ has to get a mention here.

I’m less familiar with the album’s other tracks — ‘The Working Hour,’ ‘Mothers Talk,’ ‘I Believe,’ ‘Broken,’ and ‘Listen’ — but a quick listen reveals they are all of a piece with the more celebrated tracks, if less immediately engaging.

On Songs from the Big Chair, English duo Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith serve up a heady blend of progressive rock and New Wave, crafting melodies as catchy as the soundscapes are enveloping. This is art pop at its finest.