Today we unveil the results of Part 2 of our year-long Best of the ’80s feature, an ambitious, year-by-year poll of Slicing Up Eyeballs’ readers to determine just what were the best albums of each year of the 1980s — and then, when that’s all said and done at the end of 2013, we’ll run a monster best-of-the-decade poll to hash out the overall champs.

For the 1981 poll, we received nearly 25,000 total votes naming more than 200 different albums, with the top five vote-getters more than 1,000 votes apiece. We’ve also got our first tie in the Top 10, with Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Go-Go’s earning the same number of votes to each finish No. 9.

As with our 1980 poll, there have seen a few hitches, including at least a couple regrettable omissions from the original ballot: INXS’ Underneath the Colours and The Suburbs’ Credit In Heaven, each of which received multiple write-in votes, but not enough to crack the Top 100. Finding definitive lists of albums released more than 30 years ago is proving difficult, and we’ll keep trying to improve the balloting process.

So thank you all for voting and sharing your thoughts. Take a look at the Top 100 list below — and feel free to offer your own take on the results, good or bad, in the comments below.

2. Duran Duran, Duran Duran

BACKSTORY: The debut from Duran Duran hit No. 3 in the U.K., but didn’t make much of a splash in the U.S. initially; it would be reissued in the States in 1983 following the success of Rio.
SINGLES: “Planet Earth,” “Careless Memories,” “Girls On Film”
BAND: Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor, Roger Taylor, Andy Taylor
PRODUCER: Colin Thurston
BUY IT: Amazon.com (CD, digital), iTunes (Digital)

Courtesy Slicing Up Eyeballs