not necessarily what you were listening to at the time, but looking back, what are the best albums for each year since you were born? use this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_musical_events to jog your memory (click "popular music timeline" table on the right to get a yearly breakdown by decade including notably releases.)

1983: Echo and the Bunnymen - Porcupine
1984: Echo and the Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
1985: The Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy
1986: Sonic Youth - EVOL
1987: Loop - Heaven's End
1988: Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden
1989: Spacemen 3 - Playing With Fire
1990: Jane's Addiction - Ritual de lo Habitual
1991: My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
1992: Spiritualized - Laser-Guided Melodies
1993: Flying Saucer Attack (s/t)
1994: Bark Psychosis - Hex
1995: Future Sound of London - ISDN (White version)
1996: Swans - Soundtracks for the Blind
1997: Radiohead: OK Computer
1998: Massive Attack: Mezzanine
1999: Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile
2000: Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Lift Yr Skinny Fists...
2001: Low - Things We Lost in the Fire
2002: Boards of Canada - Geogaddi
2003: M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
2004: Bark Psychosis - Codename: Dustsucker
2005: Serena-Maneesh (s/t)
2006: Benoit Pioulard - Precis
2007: Low - Drums & Guns
2008: No Age - Nouns
2009: Black Ryder - Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride
2010: The Besnard Lakes - ...Are the Roaring Night
2011: Psychic Paramount - II
2012: Goat - World Music
2013: My Bloody Valentine - mbv

a couple of these don't quite sit well with me (I like the NIN and Black Ryder albums listed, but they're not *that* good and I couldn't think of anything better from that year. I figured putting the CD version of F#A#Infinity for 1999 would be cheating.)