1980 - Goodbye 70’s?
1980 the dawn of a new era? Modernity, sharp lines, technology exemplified by the inexorable rise of the synth, out with the old? Well maybe, but AC/DC, The Stones and Queen, all of whom were doing fine thank you very much, would beg to differ.
Add in the still glowing embers of the disco inferno and it feels like the name above the door has changed but it’s really business as usual. However, though there was some truth to that, you do begin to see an ever-increasing array of alternatives to straight up rock, and the early stages of what is for me the defining characteristic of music in the 1980s: Huge variety and choice.
Context
Before we get to the music, in the wider world some people expressed astonishment that a man who had acted opposite a chimp could become leader of the free world; but at least we’ve not had anything that insane since :-) Whether people realised that Reagan’s election would usher in a new world order that we still feel today, is one for historians. Maybe the eruption of Mount St Helena a few months before was an omen? Either way it dominated the headlines well beyond the US.
Cold war tensions continued and led to the large-scale boycott of the Moscow Olympics allowing amongst other things a dour looking Scot to win the 100M. Except the boycott didn’t ‘allow’ it – Alan Wells subsequently beat all of the Americans (including Lewis) in Koblenz. Given Wells went into the Olympics having to learn to use starting blocks (they had recently become compulsory), getting grief from Margaret Thatcher and with intense back pain that meant he could hardly walk at times, the fact he won and only missed out on the 200M double by 0.02s suggests to me that he never really got his due for a great Olympic performance. He didn’t even figure in the top 3 of SPOTY of 1980 (which was Cousins, Coe and Thompson).
Following the previous year’s return of Big Mal, City finished 17th in the league and by October of ‘80 his mostly disastrous second term was over and John Bond, who I never really took to, was appointed. On the plus side the kit in 1980 was one of my favourites ever and is scientifically verifiable proof that very, very, very occasionally, blue shorts are acceptable.
If City weren’t in great shape, neither was the UK economy, along with other countries dogged by stagflation and in recession. The recently elected PM had got the monetarist religion, was taking an axe to some of the countries traditional industry and unemployment was rising. The political turmoil would spill over into protest including, as we’ll hear, the musical variety.
But it was not all doom and gloom, there were elements of a new age to be seen. If you had £79.95 and a soldering iron you could buy the ZX80 and whilst it was basically a bit crap it did herald the era of affordable computer technology. If you knew your onions, you would have been attracted to the TRS-80 with its superior Motorola 6809 but that was dearer still. If you didn’t have that cash but did have 10p then 1980 saw the debut of our hungry little yellow friend Pacman and at a more analogue level, hours of entertainment or frustration could be had from the newly introduced Rubik’s cube. Though I could do it reasonably proficiently, when a couple of the kids at school started oiling their cube to make their speed runs faster, I was definitely out.
So, the UK in 1980 was a curious mix, new era technology in a country increasingly suffering from a biting post-industrial chill. Decline and protests going hand in hand with a vibrant and expanding music scene. There would be an album that IMO would perfectly capture theses contradictions, but we’ll come to that later.
The single biggest music related event took place beyond the studio or concert hall on the pavement outside the Dakota Apartments in New York. John Lennon’s death was one of those “I remember where I was” moments. Except if I’m being brutally honest, I don’t. Whilst along with the rest of the world I was shocked by Lennon’s death at the hands of the deranged Mark Chapman, it was really the outpouring from people a bit older than me that made me realise how big a thing this was. I liked the Beatles music, but I was a bit too young for them to have been ‘my’ band and truth be told I wasn’t a big fan of much of Lennon’s solo output so when his music re-entered the charts after his death, I was relatively unmoved. Consequently, I don’t have a Lennon song in my initial 10 but I’m sure someone will quickly rectify that omission.
My initial 10 is a mix of the old and new worlds and along the way I’ll provide a few honourable mentions for other albums that I am sure other posters will nominate from. My own preferences at the time were increasingly for the new which felt like ‘my’ music in a way that music up to this point hadn’t really. That said, I will start with a much-loved bunch of recidivists…
Playlist
You have established yourself as commercially successful, but you find the musical landscape changing around you at the same time as you have lost your frontman to an alcohol induced death. Do you:
(A) Call it a day and disband or (B) Record and release the second best-selling album in the history of music?
AC/DC thought about the former but did the latter, with new singer Brian Johnson (recently liberated from the world’s most unimaginatively named band) AC/DC headed to Nassau and recorded Back In Black. To sell in the volumes this album did you need to appeal well beyond your core audience, and I’m going for the very obvious title track partly because it illustrates this point. It’s got all the rock cues you want might want but it’s underpinnings are restrained to the point where you could legitimately say not only does it rock but it grooves too. It’s also got one of their more interesting lyrics, speaking as it does to the situation they found themselves in.
#1 AC/DC – Back In Black
AC/DC are one of those bands I like despite myself, but I have no such trouble with the next band. Motorhead are one of the few metal bands I’ve seen live and the only one I have seen multiple times. In part because I don’t really think of them as metal and, though Lemmy rejected being labelled, for me it’s hard to not think of them as much punk as metal. He was very happy to be around punk bands sharing many of the same characteristics in terms of energy and diy ethos and their gigs attracted a relatively diverse crowd. Again, I’m going for the obvious title track in part because it is one of the most punk like tracks they recorded and partly because it reminds me of watching a guy with a tricolour mohawk offer out the entirety of the mosh pit at a Motorhead gig. Seeing flashes of his hair repeatedly appear and disappear was like watching that Attenborough film where killer whales toss the seal about for sport. He survived, just.
#2 Motorhead - Ace of Spades.
Which in turn bring us to punk itself…
We already had plenty of 'post-punk' bands by 1980 and in some minds, punk was already on the wane. Not true, some were only just getting started. X , a band we have had on the album thread, released their debut album Los Angeles and I’m pretty sure someone else more qualified is going to nominate something from this. Also, from across the water Dead Kennedys released Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables and I remember one of the kids at school getting into trouble for loudly singing Holiday In Cambodia when he should have been reading about ox-bow lakes or something. However, I’m going to go home grown with a band that the aforementioned Lemmy had been very supportive of. I’m picking something from The Damned – The Black Album because it’s indicative of the changes taking place. Up to this point The Damned had been viewed squarely as a punk band, but this isn’t really a punk album, it’s got psychedelic elements and a darker more theatrical feel hinting at proto-goth. 1980 was a time of musical flux and the opening track from this album is illustrative of the desire to branch out and do something new that would come to characterise the 80s.
#3 The Damned – Wait For The Blackout.
The Damned might have produced a double album but The Clash went one better with the epic triple album Sandinistas. In fairness you do need 6 sides of vinyl if you are going to have a crack at every single music genre known to man. Though I’d probably have gone for their reworking of Eddy Grants Police on My Back, again I’m going to leave it to someone else to hopefully pick something from the huge array of songs on the album.
Mention of Sandinistas squarely lands us in the world of politics and music. Despite my still tender age, by 1980 I had run away to join the Trotskyist circus (initially recruited if I remember rightly by a nephew of Shay Brennan), so it would be remiss of me to not mention the increased politicisation of music. Politics has always been part of music though often more confined to the folk tradition and the ‘serious’ singer/songwriters. However, the economic downturn of the early eighties, the cold war and ideological shifts from political leaders, saw political music jump squarely into the mainstream in a way that it hadn’t been before.
This is possibly best exemplified by the gloriously daft tale of how The Beat (or The English Beat to our chums across the water) promoting their album I Just Can’t Stop managed to convince the production team of TVs Cheggers Plays Pop that “no, of course Stand Down Margaret isn’t about Margaret Thatcher; ‘Stand Down Margaret’ is a type of dance popular in Jamaican dancehalls”. Suitably duped, Cheggers and co were then predictably dismayed when the band performed and opened their tops to reveal t-shirts with a cartoon of the PM in front of a nuclear mushroom cloud.
#4: The Beat – Whine and Grine/Stand Down Margaret.
Other notable ska releases in 1980 included The Selector’s Too Much Pressure, which hopefully someone will put something up from; and Jerry Dammers confused the fans and most of his bandmates too with the direction of More Specials which though interesting was the beginning of the end for the band.
In the Ska adjacent world of reggae, and yet again with overt political leanings, UB40 released Signing Off. Often later decried as ‘reggae lite’ , UB40 started off strongly and the album deserves a place as one of the top albums of 1980; the track Burden of Shame has probably caused more pub arguments than I care to think of. Bob Marley and The Wailers released their last album within his lifetime - the spiritual Uprising. Mention of Marley reminds me that Stevie Wonder returned to form in 1980 with the album Hotter Than July which included a tribute to Marley, who had been opening for him, in the shape of Master Blaster. Back with reggae, Black Uhuru propelled by rhythm greats Sly and Robbie released the overtly political Sinsemilla, again an album the playlist would benefit with a track from.
In fact, the politics were everywhere, even the nice kids from the Wirral were getting in on the act. That trite description is unfair to Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark who have nearly always ploughed their own furrow. They had two albums out in 1980 but as we had a great early single from their eponymous debut in the last playlist, we’ll go with a track from their second album Organisation. It would be much cooler to pick a deep cut, but the reality is 1980 is the year they released the song they’ll forever be associated with and more importantly as a piece of music it has aged remarkably well. If in the early 80s our politicians seemed intent on sending us to MAD, it was clear that as well as protesting, if we were going down then we would dance our way to Armageddon.
#5: OMD – Enola Gay.
If OMD weren’t your cup of tea there were plenty of other emerging electronic acts. Still driven by Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, The Human League’s album Travelogue was released this year and to the best of my knowledge still has the distinction of being the only album to feature a song protesting the fate of silkworms. Probably falling into this category too is arguably the most underrated album of 1980, Colossal Youth by Young Marble Giants.
Though a song like Enola Gay sounded very different from most of the music of 1970s and things were changing, one thing held true. Irrespective of genre, quality music and musicians will always find a place. King Crimson had yet to officially reform for their imo excellent early 80’s incarnation but they were playing together as a band/project called Discipline. More importantly for our playlist, a couple of them were lending more than a bit of a hand to a couple of great releases from 1980.
David Bowie’s Scary Monsters once again reinvented him and spawned songs like Fashion and the huge hit Ashes to Ashes, but if I want to get an easy rise out a Bowie fan I proffer the opinion that Scary Monsters is nothing without Fripp. Whilst I clearly don’t mean that, there are points in the album where his contribution is indispensable, the title track being one of them. An object lesson in picking your musical collaborators wisely.
#6 David Bowie - Scary Monsters
Meanwhile and literally next door to where AC/DC were recording their behemoth album another band were creating a very different blueprint for what rock could be and one that would go on to influence countless bands from multiple genres. In this case the plan was to nick pretty much everything from everywhere including the African based polyrhythms that underpin the album and give it a vibrancy and undeniable groove. I’d argue Remain in Light is Talking Heads best album. On the track I’ve chosen they were assisted by another (soon to be) King Crimson member. Presumably inspired by the deranged rhythms, Adrian Bellew adds equivalent guitar parts to make a track that is too hard to keep still to.
#7 Talking Heads – The Great Curve.
The post punk world continued to expand in multiple directions and whilst some bands were getting started some were closer to their end than we knew. I still find it hard to get my head round the fact that by 1980 The Jam were on their penultimate album. Listening to Sound Effects there’s no sense of a band running out of steam. I won’t make the joke about The Beatles ripping off The Jam but nonetheless I will nominate the relevant track
#8 The Jam – Start.
In contrast to The Jam, Pretenders were just getting going and released their debut album. I can never think of Chrissie Hynde without being reminded of how subjective and subject to fortune our tastes in music can be. My ex-business partner who remains a close friend shares similar music tastes to me and by rights should be a Pretenders fan. Unfortunately, he was the student union ents officer at his university and had booked them prior to their success which had very much kicked in by the time of the gig. They turned up but in an absolutely foul mood and he is convinced this was because they viewed the venue as beneath them by that point in time. The final straw for him was when having blagged a bank note off him for pre-gig coke imbibing, Hynde then told him to fuck off. Consequently, he has to this day refused on principle to like any of their music. His loss I feel and it’s one where we have to agree to disagree. For my part it’s a hell of strong debut and I often wonder what Johnny Marr would have ended up sounding like without the late James Honeyman Scott as an inspiration as a youngster? I’m not going to nominate a track because I’m sure that at least two of our posters are likely to. I’m fairly sure I can guess which track one of them will go for but that’s hardly an achievement as it’s no mystery which his favourite is.
Before I go to my final album, I’m going to pick another political track that will also allow me to have a rant about a scourge of 80s music. Through technology the world was becoming a smaller place and protest music wasn’t limited to domestic issues. Peter Gabriel’s third album, or Melt as it is sometimes called, is possibly my favourite of his and the closing track is one of my favourite protest songs. However, the opening track contains, if you’ll pardon the pun, the genesis of possibly the most despicable aspect of 80s music. Gated reverb. The distressing thing is it came about accidently, there was a mic hanging from the ceiling in the recording studio that was used to communicate with the players from the desk. During recording Hugh Padgham noticed that it was inadvertently picking up the sound of Phil Collins’ drums. So far, so harmless, lets sort it out and move on lads. But no. The mic compression characteristics were such that it was filtering out part of the sound via a noise gate. Again, no problem, just move on now gents. But no. Gabriel was intrigued by the sound, he couldn’t let it lie, he had to pick at the threads and with his little mate Collins to try and replicate it on purpose which they duly did on the opening track Intruder. The second track on the album is called No Self Control and when it comes to gated reverb this was all too prophetic. By this point in time little Phil was probably already excitedly hatching how he was going to inflict this new sound on the world and indeed it would serve both him and the chocolate gorilla very well. Fast forward further into the 80s and before you know it perfectly acceptable mostly dry drums would fall into disuse to be replaced by the musical monstrosity of the massively gated reverb. Gabriel could record quality music until he’s 120 years old and probably still not atone for this, however end of rant and a song like Biko reminds me he has many virtues too.
#9 Peter Gabriel – Biko.
So my final pick is from my favourite album of 1980 and the one I personally consider to be the best. If 1980 was a year of uncertainty, recession, cold war dread and the clash between the optimism of new technological possibilities and the unease of what was happening in the here and now, then Joy Division’s Closer was the album that gave voice to this and channelled that uncertainty. The excess has gone, to be replaced by an austere, anxious, alienated sound; the warm joy and comfort of 1970s rock excess replaced by an icy unease. But, if that was all it was it would surely have been too alienating, too austere. The genius of Closer was that it acknowledged that things were very far from alright but at the same time defied you not to move your arse to its many strangely danceable songs. Ian Curtis’s lyrics derived much from JG Ballard as evidenced by the opening track Atrocity Exhibition, but it’s not just Curtis’s combination of disturbing lyrics and plaintive delivery. The music developed by the band in what were essentially jam sessions and Martin Hannett’s meticulous production are all integral to the sound and when combined together create something very modern, almost minimalist and very distinctly European in comparison to much of rocks American roots. Curtis didn’t live to see the album released and the closing track Decades remains to this day a heartrending way for him to have signed off. Though not my favourite track from the album Isolation encapsulates the strange mixture of dislocation and danceability.
#10 Joy Division – Isolation.
So that’s my somewhat random 10 and a few hopeful nudges for additional tracks. I haven't even mentioned some of the huge bands of the day like The Police, Blondie, Roxy or St Winifred's School Choir so I know a number of posters have plenty to add. Have at it folks.
