My first memories date from 1981: the Royal Wedding, my grandma’s dog Panda dying, going to the pantomime in the snow. I don’t remember riots. And I don’t remember any music.
Let’s make our penultimate 80s playlist
Alternative playlist URL: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSM6V5dN78_Aj_3y09o3_LqIPGFqf3fxK&jct=VZJPNMIMuub29ENodA6Woywomni2sQ
Hey, what’s my dog doing in this photo?
The 'Spill 
Don’t think I have any 1981 albums, but it looks like there were some cracking singles:
1. The Specials – Ghost Town
Scandalously left off the recent Zeitgeist playlist.
2. Bow Wow Wow – Go Wild in the Country
A fairly recent ‘Spill discovery for me, but I like to think I’d have loved it at age 3 too.
3. Soft Cell – Tainted Love
Freeing up a space in your top 3…
David Barbarossa’s Burundi ritual music-influenced tom-tom drum beats and Annabella Lwin – for an 11 year old boy it didn’t get much better than that!
Soft Cell donds!
Year looks a bit crap when i look at the album list, but still there were some. And as barbryn said, some cracking singles. Where was i – basic college kid, probably a junior / senior.
U2 – Gloria
Tom Tom Club – Genius of Love
X – We’re Desperate
also –
Kim Wilde – Kids in America
Go Gos – We Got the Beat, Automatic
Police – Spirits in the Material World
Rick James – Give It to me Baby, Ghetto Life
Van Halen – Unchained
Mission of Burma – That’s When I Reach for My Revolver
Rolling Stones – No Use in Crying
Gloria is still The Edge’s best riff.
X are a band that I keep meaning to investigate more after stumbling across Johnny Hit & Run Paulene on old compilation tape recently.
Gun to my head, Gloria is still probably my favorite U2 song. I probably didn’t hear of X until Burning House of Love came out in 1985 and i saw the video.
Great songs. Mission of Burma is a great shout.
Drat and double drat – two choice taken from the one and only 7″ single by the band The Past Seven Days
Raindance
So Many Others
I’ll think really carefully about the third choice.
and drat and triple drat – I forgot they were from Sheffield!
The Business – Harry May
Cockney geezers shouting “Oi!” a lot
https://youtu.be/SIR-kgKI6U8
Fad Gadget – Lady Shave
Synth pop (albeit of a slightly darker variety than you would get in the Top 40)
https://youtu.be/i8kNDga1tmM
Echo & The Bunnymen – Over The Wall
Epic sounding post punk moodiness
https://youtu.be/erKtIsnisp4
A pretty good range of what was going on in 1981 if I say so myself
Killing Joke were very close with Unspeakable
Last of the best period for music imho ie 1979 – 82.
Bunnymen donds!
From me too. I first heard that song from you (Wyngate) and i love it.
I’ve gone to bed. No doubt lots of vinyl records in my collection from 1981. I’ll see what scraps are left for me to pick tomorrow.
I was 23 at the time and it was the year I finally left home. Only moved from Merton Park to Putney mind you.
Queen and David Bowie – Under Pressure
Adam and the Ants – Prince Charming
Elvis Costello – Good Year for the Roses
Resisting the temptation to add yet another Blondie number here but donds for anyone who does
Won’t suggest any more possibles but there are plenty of them. Not the best year for me; two small children and one older one, not much money, stuck in the country and couldn’t drive, relied on buses when OH was at work. Got ill, you don’t want to know, got over it but was fairly incapacitated for some time. The Royal Wedding naturally sticks in the mind, kids given a rather badly transfer-printed Charles and Di mug (which I still have) and my mother-in–law knitted the eldest a kind of slip-over top with a design of crowns on it.
That is, the year started out with 2 children under 3 years, and 1 aged 11. Somewhat hectic! Don’t remember buying any music, but was always listening to it. I picked my first choice because it’s a classic (and appropriate, come to think of it!) the second because Adam and the Ants were something very new and different, very 80s. ‘Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.’ – worth remembering, that! The last, because it’s just a very good song, both lyrics and melody.
dond for Bowie / Queen.
Something from Friday Night In San Francisco by Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin & Paco de Lucía,
something from Reckoning by the Grateful Dead, probably Cassidy
and probably Happy Birthday by Altered Images.
1981 was a shit year, personally and politically.
A tough one to narrow down:
Clock DVA – 4 Hours
Associates – Tell Me Easter’s On Friday
Holger Czukay – Ode To Perfume
Total agreement with Chris re. Friday Night In San Francisco by Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin & Paco de Lucía, wonderful piece of music.
But I feel sad for all you spillers who say what an awful year 1981 was: for me it was a wonderful year, one of the best. So good in fact that there’s no way I can choose three cuts, I can’t even choose three albums. Here’s a random list of 1981 albums, most of which I still have,
Gregory Isaacs – Poor And Clean – African Museum
Jimmy Riley – Love And Devotion – Taxi
Freddie McGregor – Boby Babylon – Studio One
Dennis Brown – Runnings – Dancsi
Leroy Sibbles – Love And Happiness – Jam Rock
Sheila Hylton – Beds Too Big Without You – Island
Nigger Kojak And Lisa – Showcase – Nigger Kojak
The Upsetters – Black Ark In Dub – White Label
Mikey Dread – Master Showcase – Dread At The Controls
Bunny Wailer – Sings The Wailers – Solomonic
Leroy Sibbles – Strictly Roots – Micron
Joe Higgs – Talk To That Man – Solomonic
Bob Marley – Uprising – Island
Black Uhuru – Red – Island
Eek A Mouse – Wa Do Dem – Volcano
Mutabaruka – Every Time I Hear The Sound – High Times
Culture – Innocent Blood (’81 Style) – Joe Gibbs
Jimmy Cliff – Give The People What They Want – Oneness
Aswad – Showcase – Island
Bingy Bunny – Young Lover – African Museum
If I had to choose from three albums they might be;
Gregory Isaacs – Poor And Clean
Freddie McGregor – Boby Babylon
Mutabaruka – Every Time I Hear The Sound
Black Uhuru – Red
Bob Marley – Uprising
Culture – Innocent Blood
Such a great year, it was the year I started my annual Sunsplash visits, four days/nights of solid reggae ’til dawn, it went on for the entire decade during which I saw every one of the above groups..
Donds for Aswad, Culture and the Cool Ruler
It sounds amazing, I don’t know all of those artists and certainly not the albums, but that’s quite a line-up.
Of course it was the year Bob Marley died… there must have been some sadness and commemorations too ?
1981 – Age 10, going on 11.
My aunt made took vacations back home to England every 18 months or so. Despite being told that it was only old people sitting around talking and drinking coffee and that there was no spare bedroom for me, I had nagged long enough that I wanted to go too, that they were actually considering it. My parents were okay with the idea. And I mean, I’d been camping so sleeping on a sofa was no trouble, and I could make friends in the neighborhood, right? I mean that ol’ Southern charm and all that, and I could show ’em how football was meant to be played: run, pass, throw, hike-hike, touchdown!
Ummm…maybe not.
My aunt died of a stroke in December 1980, so that trip never happened. Probably the last chance I ever had of traveling overseas. 😦
How’s this for variety?
1) David Frizzell and Shelly West – You’re The Reason God Made Oklahoma – Shelly was my first musical crush. Still love the song, even if the song sounds exactly like “Rocky Top”
2) Frankie Smith – Double Dutch Bus – I could do the illzay-billzay part to irritate my parents and make this one girl in school laugh. “You so crazy!” Two for the price of one.
3) Generation X – Dancing With Myself – The Elvis-style sneer and vocal flourishes just work perfectly here.
I was finally feeling properly at home in my adopted city of Bristol at the beginning of 1981. I was working as a computer operator and earning what seemed to me at the time was lots of money, mainly overtime. When I wasn’t working, I was working hard at making what was a relatively new relationship work.
So, what was I listening to and buying? Adam And The Ants were dominating the charts, as were The Police, who I hated then and still do now. I can still remember seeing them at The Nashville in 1978 when they were treated to a shower of beer by an audience of disapproving punks. I was playing Sound Affects by The Jam a lot. I’d had it for Christmas in 1980 and it was an album I really liked for the first part of 1981. I think I played it to death and went off it.
Albums I bought were;
Siouxsie And The Banshees – Juju
The Human League – Dare
Byrne and Eno – My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
Kid Creole And The Coconuts – Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places
UB40 – Present Arms
The Beat – Wha’ppen?
Echo And The Bunnymen – Heaven Up Here
Joy Division – Still
New Order – Movement
King Crimson also released Discipline but I didn’t buy it, because I was unsure of their new direction at the time and I was completely unaware of The Grateful Dead‘s marvellous live setReckoning until years after.
I got Magazine‘s Magic, Murder And The Weather and Sleep No More by The Comsat Angelsfor Christmas, so didn’t really know any of the songs on those at the time. and I didn’t buy Japan‘s Tin Drum until the following year.
The standout singles of the year for me were New Order‘s Ceremony, Papa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag by Pigbag and Ghost Town by The Specials. There were a lot of great singles, though. Far too many to list out.
So, to my three tracks. I’ll definitely have “Papa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag” and a couple of album tracks. So;
Pigbag – Papa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag
Siouxsie And The Banshees – Spellbound
New Order – The Him
I love Spellbound
Yeah, it is one of Siouxsie’s best, I think.
From the collected tweets of Rev Richard Coles:
At St Alban’s Cellarer’s Feast I meet the Vicar of Hitchin, whom I think I recognise. He says, “I used to be in Pigbag”
Ha! Excellent.
Three great songs.
Pigbag donds!
I remember the St Paul’s riots, in Bristol, but that was 1980. The Royal Wedding saw me in Lee on Solent with my then boyfriend and his friend Neil – the shooting ranges were closed for the day so we went and sat in an old tank in the middle of the beach – somewhat worse for wear (us, and the tank). It was very hot, but the only place we could think of where there wouldn’t be crowds of people! We had escaped the dreaded street party my boyfriend’s sister was hosting, and her four kids. One of the albums I remember best from that time is Steve Winwood and “Arc of a Diver” – played it to death. Reminds me of helping to decorate my friends house in Bath – a load of us were there, all hairy and paint-spattered and hung-over, when there was a knock at the door – the Police! “Can we speak to the home owner, please?” (Various looks of panic, etc., was the music THAT loud? Had the smoke drifted like a sweetly scented cloud over the Police Station?) I was despatched to find Pete, who was smoking something interesting in the back garden … more panic … anyway, all they had come to say was that they’d found his car, which had been pinched the week before! “Thank you very much, officer … ” Anyway, long story short, my noms are:
Steve Winwood – Arc of a Diver
Rickie Lee Jones – Pirates
Stray Cats – Rock This Town
Donds for all three.
I’ve always loved Steve Winwood’s voice. I adore Traffic and I used to have his first few solo albums on vinyl. Perhaps I should revisit them on CD? Blue-eyed soul was going to be HUGE chartwise in the years after 1981.
Funnily enough, when I saw this week’s year was 1981 the last thing that entered my head was the royal wedding. I know it was hot and sunny and I remember that my then partner and I went out around 11am and got very drunk in the pubs down by Cumberland basin and fell asleep in Greville Smyth Park down by the City ground at Ashton Gate.
Sounds remarkably similar to our afternoon in the tank …
I love Winwood’s voice too, and i love Traffic.
I saw The Stray Cats at the old Lyceum ballroom at Aldwych, showing off my enthusiastic but unrecognisable version of rockabilly boogie-ing.
We watched the royal wedding on TV – in a terribly knowing and ironic fashion of course. There were subtitles for the narration/voice over and they were obviously produced very rapidly and phonetically. The BBC chap’s posh voice meant that we were watching “Lady Jah Nah” and for some reason the groom’s father was “the jew of Edinburgh”. Very odd.
Donds for Ghost Town, Tainted Love and Spellbound. Also the albums, Dare and, Wha’ppen which, along with Elvis C’s Trust were played incessantly throughout 1981. Loved Madness’s Grey Day which came out that year and was rather overshadowed by Ghost Town I think.
The Sound released their second album, “From The Lion’s Mouth” in 1981. I bought it about three years later. Second hand. I had seen them play live only once (at The Venue in London) and been quite impressed but at that stage I was more likely to see Adrian in the pub than on a stage.
Abba released their album The Visitors in November that year which still sounds like the best thing they ever did. There was a trend at the time to embrace pop music more fully and somebody at the NME pompously labelled it “the retreat from rock”. If you say so squire.
Anyway, I think this my (partly) retrospective choice:
The Sound – Sense of Purpose
Smokey Robinson – Being With You
Elvis Costello – Shot With His Own Gun
Being With You is a beautiful song, and made it easy for the British public to show their taste and buy it in large numbers.
The Sound
I was 19 years old, at university and enjoying life tremendously – studying natural sciences was amazing, coming from a comprehensive school to Cambridge meant I had the twin pleasures of enjoying privilege and feeling like a rebel.. The enjoyment wasn’t about the stereotypical student pleasures, though I did discover the charms of alcohol that year, having initially been deterred by the excesses of others. The Arts Cinema did a whole brilliant season of Buster Keaton films…
If there was a sign of the growing confidence of the right wing, it was the emergence of a confident decadence and the “Brideshead Revisited” style, compared to the year before when the elite seemed a bit more reserved and the first Old Etonian I met was wearing a donkey jacket.
My favourite album of the year I first heard visiting my best friend from school who’d stayed n London to (not) study. I think I was visiting for a gig of the band he was in, and Tempted by Squeeze came on the jukebox. My friend pointed out the Stevie Wonder-style soulful growl just before the repeat chorus near the end. East Side Story is full of brilliant songwriting and storytelling and I could easily pick a top three from there.
Squeeze – Tempted
Earth, Wind and Fire – Let’s Groove; I really didn’t like all the 1980s stuff that was starting to dominate the charts and discos, but this song made it worth going out dancing; I went with a good university friend to see them at Birmingham that year, taking advantage of a crazy free student train ticket offer.
Madness – Cardiac Arrest; a great video on a London bus, a song featuring a crossword clue, and a message that a young man could take as a guide for life.
In between lectures and where I lived was Cambridge Market, and on Cambridge Market was Andy’s Records. I started delving into and catching up with soul, blues and reggae music in spectacular quantities.
East Side Story is eclectic and perfect.
It is !
One of the best ever years for soul, can’t pick 3 from these !
You’re the One for Me – D Train
I’m In Love – Evelyn King
Never Too Much – Luther Vandross
Let’s Groove – EWF
Its a Love Thing – The Whispers
Love Has Come Around – Donald Byrd
Never Gonna Give You Up – Patrice Rushen
Warm Weather – Pieces of a Dream
Wait For Me – Slave
You’re Lying – Linx
If You Thing You’re Lonely Now – Bobby Womack
Going Back to my Roots – Odyssey
We’re In This Love Together – Al Jarreau
Running Away – Maze
Love TKO – Teddy Pendergrass
Oh yes, that Odyssey song is brilliant, it might’ve bumped its way into my top three ! Written by Lamont Dozier out of Holland-Dozier-Holland.
Seconding all of those. I still have the Intuition album by Linx. Brilliant bit of Brit funk. Could add in some Quincy Jones, Cameo, Grace Jones, Gap Band, even the Chic & Debbie Harry collabo, which sounds much better today than it did back then.
1981 was the year when I really started listening to pop music, having had a rather weird childhood with no television and very little radio. In an awful lot of ways it may be true to say that I’ve never quite left 1981, and certainly it defines pop music for me to a considerable degree. No mention yet for one of my favourite songs of all time, Ultravox‘ Vienna. OTT rock from Rainbow, I Surrender and Toyah, Thunder in the Mountains; classic avant-garde pop from Blondie with Rapture; heartbreak from Squeeze with Labelled With Love; and one of the spookiest songs ever from Godley & Creme with Under Your Thumb. Adam and the Ants, the Specials, the Jam… Hey, this is when even UB40 were great, with One in Ten. Happy days…
You emerged with fully-fledged diverse tastes ! Or maybe if you don’t know about genres, you just like the music…
Exactly; at this point I was utterly ignorant of the whole thing, just seizing on what appealed to me for whatever reason. Did manage to become a ‘proper rock’ snob by the end of the decade, but always leavened by love of great pop music.
Romeo Void – Never Say Never
The Psychedelic Furs – Pretty In Pink
Simple Minds – Theme For Great Cities
on the playlist I put Reward by The Teardrop Explodes; Rise Above by Black Flag; and The Unguarded Moment by The Church
I could choose a top 300 or so…
if we are having the date Never Say Never was recorded – then that would have been in my top 3 of my 300 as well – yippee!
The Psychedelic Furs; the cause of the pinkification of the entire female population (except the goths) – (and the other tribes that rebel against it). Shame on you Furs.
Is it not 1981? Well then, I’ll have The Au Pairs – It´s Obvious.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjbBr1_rSD8
The Furs are responsible for all the pastel pink ra-ra dresses in the 1980s. Bastards. But hang on! Wasn’t one of the blokes in the the pink dress too? Never heard So Many Others before, Great.
think the Never say never EP was released Jan ’82 recorded Dec ’81 – because I cursed myself for forgetting it that year!
Wait! The goal line technology says it’s over. Yes! The zoom in on the image says it’s 1981.
“I thought he’d hit too well, Clive!”
https://www.discogs.com/Romeo-Void-Never-Say-Never/release/1333889
yep – says ’81 on the label – wherever I read it being recorded in Dec ’81 and released Jan ’82 when we did 1982 – was wrong (I will track them down and tickle them until they are unconscious).
it would be in my 3 three what ever year.
Late to this as usual (finally back home after an epic one month-plus trip back to Blighty for family and Sweden for business), where I managed to pick up a cracked rib…must be getting old!
Donds for Specials and especially Adam and the Ants (I’m told they were my first gig). Will go for:
Minor Threat – Straight Edge (45 seconds that launched a global youth subculture that’s still going strong 35 years later)
Tom Tom Club – Wordy Rappinghood
REO Speedwagon – Keep on Loving You (oh, come on, it’s ace!)
– honourable mention for Shakin’ Stevens who as a 5 year old I was most definitely listening to at the time.
… “Shakin’ Stevens who as a 5 year old I was most definitely listening to at the time.” Would that have been hiding Behind the Green Door?
that was me (Ali)
It was indeed….I didn’t know what they were doing, but they were laughing a lot….!
“…Sweden for business), where I managed to pick up a cracked rib…must be getting old!”
Confess! You took an elbow in a Swedish mosh-pit! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyGgKHOzOLE
BTW. Rise Above and Straight Edge in the same year. 1981 is a bit special.
If only it was that cool. I think I did it coughing too hard!
I know, two classics. It was the the first proper year of the whole US hardcore scene, which was all but over by ’83..a special one for sure.
that Flying Fuckers was ace!
Have to admit, I typed in Svensk punk 1981 and it sent me to the Flying Fuckers. Glad it did. Cheerio for now.
Okay, you’re younger than me so I feel less bad; I cracked a rib falling out of bed over the Christmas holiday, and it’s still not 100%…