Best of the Decade

Bruce Springsteen: The River (Columbia, 1980). Born in the U.S.A. was the record that made the Boss a legend, but the bleak majesty of this two-LP set shows the bedrock of his talent.

The Unknown Kurt Weill (Nonesuch, 1981). Acerbic rarities from the composer of The Threepenny Opera, sung by opera's sexiest soprano, Teresa Stratas.

Wynton Marsalis: Think of One (Columbia, 1983). The award-winning album of a trumpeter who was jazz's hope of the decade, as well as its hottest, coolest talent.

Bob Marley and the Wailers: Legend (Island, 1984). Marley died in 1981, but this collection of some of his best songs was no epitaph. It was a perpetual baptism of Jamaican soul.

Prince and the Revolution: Purple Rain (Warner Bros., 1984). Not only the best rock sound track ever written, Purple Rain is the most contained and passionate work to come from this protean regent of R. and B.

The Mapleson Cylinders (Distributed by Metropolitan Opera Guild, 1985). Calve sings! And so do Nordica, Sembrich and De Reszke on these treasures from the Met, recorded on wax cylinders by the company's librarian between 1900 and 1904.

Bob Dylan: Biograph (Columbia, 1985). A premature but timely career retrospective of rock's most formidable writing talent, Biograph was also a welcome reassertion of Dylan's primacy. Was great, is great, will be great.

U2: Rattle and Hum (Island, 1988). In which the rockers with the decade's biggest reach and most tender conscience discovered America, and outdid themselves, besting even their breakthrough The Joshua Tree album of 1987.

John Adams: Nixon in China (Nonesuch, 1988). The decade's most exhilarating and accomplished new opera: a waltz across the Great Wall with Dick, Pat, Henry, Mao and his missus.

Jerome Kern: Show Boat (Angel/EMI, 1988). With a cast that boasted the likes of mezzo Frederica von Stade, the landmark American musical was revealed for what it is: a landmark American opera as well.