Previously on the Years in Music series, I talked about the 1970’s as a whole in regards to its music. From here
on in we’ll be looking at individual years. Now musically-speaking, the year
1980 is basically a part of the 1970’s I’ve found, so I ended up skipping that
year because I couldn’t really find enough music I liked from that year to fill
an entire mix CD. A few songs from 1980 did end up on the 1970’s mix as a
reminder (like “A Forest” by The Cure).
As
a reminder of the qualification rules for these Years in Music mixes, the song
has to have been recorded or released in some form during the year in question
(either as a single or on an album), and I have to have to like it. I also have
to have heard of it, obviously, or else how would I be able to include it?
Although making these mixes has forced me to go digging for music I haven’t
heard before, which is another good reason for me to make them. Other than that,
it can be any genre, mainstream or obscure (but usually more obscure). It’s
like those “NOW That’s What I Call Music” compilation mixes, except actually
good, and not just full of mindless drivel that the big corporations want to
shovel into your brain! (Okay, okay, I think they’re good, but not everyone
will, musical tastes are like fingerprints and no two people’s are the same). I’ve
been making these as CD mixes. I don’t know if I’ll ever do extended cassette
versions of them, but I would need to come across a lot of blank tapes to do
that and my stock is limited on those. But the impermanence of the CD medium
has been a boon in a couple cases. When the CD’s get too scratched up, I can
remake the mixes and update them with any new songs I’ve discovered from that
year since I first burned the CD, or any song I forgot about and accidentally
left off.
When
I started doing these mixes about five years ago, I didn’t go in chronological
order. The first one I did was 1986, the year I was born, then I did 1990, the
year both my wife and sister were born, and it went from there, just doing
random years for a while until I filled in all the gaps. I’m up to 2007 now. I
need to do 2008 soon, it’s been several months since I made a new Years in
Music mix. As for the ones I’m going to be chronicling in this blog in the near
future, I almost didn’t think I’d find
enough music I liked from this early in the 1980’s to do a year mix, but how
wrong I was! By the time I was finished, I realized the I liked music from the
early 1980’s better than music from the late 1980’s.
1981 in News and Culture
So, what was going on in 1981 then?
It was five years before I was born, so I wasn’t there. From what I've seen, it wasn't an all-too historic year. I know that Pac-Man and Donkey Kong
were all the rage in the arcades, Ronald Reagan became US president, Raiders of the Lost Ark debuted in
theaters, and the events of second half of season 1 of the cancelled-too-soon TV
show Freaks and Geeks took place. Have a look on this website for some 1981 trivia if you like. I'll include more in this section when discussing future Years in Music mixes, when I get to more eventful years.
1981 in Music
My favorite album of 1981 is Kraftwerk's Computer World, and my top 3 favorite songs from 1981 are "Home Computer" by Kraftwerk, "I'm Falling" by Ministry, and "Charlotte Sometimes" by The Cure. These favorites can always change if I discover something else I haven't heard yet from the year.
In 1981, Disco was dying, and New Wave was
taking its place. That sets the stage for this mix. Expect to hear a lot from
the blossoming UK New Wave scene, where a lot of bands popped up, released one
album, and then disappeared into oblivion. I had to do a lot of research to get
enough music for this mix, I must confess. Most of the songs on this mix I
heard thanks to the YouTube channel 80zforever, and their ongoing series of
playlist videos, “A Trip to Rare Hits of the 80’s”, which catalog songs like
this which never quite found their target audience.
The
link below will take you to my somewhat sad attempt to reproduce the mix on
Spotify. It’s only seven songs. But hey, maybe I’ll update it if I get some
good recommendations. For the many songs Spotify doesn’t have, I’ll link to
YouTube or elsewhere.
And here’s
the track list:
David
Bowie and Queen – Under Pressure
A collaboration between two
legendary bands that was so influential Vanilla Ice had to steal the beat from
it. It’s kind of nice to get the most mainstream songs on these mixes out of
the way first off. It sets the time period, so that when we get into the
obscure music you can think “wow, so this music coexisted with that mainstream
song I’ve heard before”.
Journey
– Who’s Crying Now
Exhibit B in my ongoing argument
that Journey has other good songs besides “Don’t Stop Believing”, here we have
another favorite of mine from this band. This song and “Separate Ways” are my
two favorite Journey songs. The song is here to represent the 80’s power
ballad.
Ministry
– I’m Falling
Ministry was just getting its start
in 1981, a full two years before their first album With Sympathy was
released, which I’ve written about before and will revisit again when I get to
1983 in Music. This was their first single, and it is really catchy. I of course prefer early, synthpop Ministry to
the later Industrial Metal incarnation.
And here’s the first song Spotify
didn’t have. It was inevitable, best get used to that. So follow the link above to listen to it on YouTube. The Quarks would seem
like one of those bands from this era that released one album and vanished.
But, that’s because their record label didn’t like that their band name was a
type of cheese in Germany and demanded they change their name. They changed
their name to President President; apparently a type of cheese in France. The
singer Martin Ansell went on to do other things, and has a Bandcamp page for
those interested.
This
song provides a nice time capsule of the “technological 80’s”, as the lyrics
state, where technological innovation was ramping up. The lyrics explore many
of the same themes as Kraftwerk’s album Computer World, also released
this year, predicting a time when electronic devices rule our lives. People saw
it coming back then, and didn’t know whether they should fear it or not.
The
Electronic Circus – Direct Lines
The minimal synth genre was in its infancy at this
time, and here’s a classic example of how it sounded. The Electronic Circus
only ever released one album, and was the project of Chris Payne, once a musician
for Gary Numan (you might have heard his song “Cars”, he was on my 70’s mix).
Kraftwerk
– Heimcomputer
Computer World (or Computerwelt
in German) is in many ways the last really good classic Kraftwerk album. 1986’s
Electric Café is alright, but not quite up to par with their material
from the late 1970’s, and I think most would agree with me. It’s a concept
album about the growing role computers will play in society in the future, and
suffice it to say they were correct in their predictions. As much as I like the
song “Pocket Calculator” I had to go with this one, in its original German
language. You can hear how much Kraftwerk influenced later Industrial bands
with this track, which carries with it a dark, creepy vibe which can make you
question whether Kraftwerk was trying to say the coming dominance of computers
in our lives was a good or bad thing.
The
band is called Laser, and the song is called “Laser”. How futuristic. They should have titled the album it was on Laser, and released it on Laser Records. So I did
some digging on this track, apparently it was first released in 1979 and then
reissued in 1981, which must be why it kind of has that disco sound to it. It’s
an instrumental track by the way, no lyrics. The intro to the song though
sounds very 80’s. It kind of makes one wonder what direction disco might have
evolved toward if it hadn’t been so brutally murdered in the early 1980’s.
Logic
System – Unit
Logic System was the project of
Japanese electronic musician Hideki Matsutake; one of the former members of
Yellow Magic Orchestra, a band which in the early 1970’s was one of the
pioneers of electronic music, alongside of course Kraftwerk. The track “Unit”
gives us a nice example of early synthpop, and sounds good after the previous
track as it also has a slight disco sound to it. So there’s a nice history
lesson for you.
Panoramas was a French
post-punk/coldwave band, of which there’s not a whole lot of information out
there I was able to find. And of course, Spotify doesn’t know who they are
either. But I do like this track quite a bit, much more lyrical than the last
two. People forget about music from outside the US a lot when talking about
older music. We’ve had tracks from Germany, Japan and France thus far.
Silent
Scream – The Maze
Another rare post-punk track here. I haven’t been
able to find out a whole lot about this band either, just that they’re from the
United Kingdom and released a cassette album with this track on it. As a cassette collector that’d
be a nice find. There’s also a whole bunch of other bands with the same exact
name or something close, so that makes hunting it down even more difficult. I
like this song a lot. Kind of has that goth rock sound to it, but from before anybody
was calling this type of music “goth”. There exists an
extended demo of this song too, which I need to check out.
Someone did a fan-made music video
for it, so there’s that to check out at least.
The
Cure – Charlotte Sometimes
Alright, back again to a band most
people have heard of (for the last time on this mix). This was a single
released after their third album, Faith, but before their breakthrough
album Pornography. It’s based on a book by the same name apparently.
This is off the only solo album released by one
Henry Badowski, a talented musician from the UK who was in various punk bands
before going solo. This song has that somewhat silly-sounding early 80’s vibe
to it, but it’s a fun song.
Back to France again, The Staff is another of those
New Wave bands that only ever released one album. I’d compare the sound of this
song to something from the B52’s maybe.
This is a band from Newcastle, England. In my search
for information I uncovered an interview with the band from 1981, from after a cancelled gig. Sounds like
they didn’t get along well and split up after only releasing one album. This
song has a low energy droning sound to it which reminds me of later coldwave
bands from when the genre was more defined, but the guitars place it more under
the New Wave umbrella.
All I could dig up on this band was
that they were from Chicago, and released about three albums. Same genre as the
last few songs, early New Wave. And of course, like many of these songs, only
available on YouTube by the looks of things. I feel bad when I can’t support a
band and pay for their music because it’s just so unknown it’s not for sale
anywhere. Might as well make it public domain at that point. But, what can you do?
Yay, some more obscure post-punk from the UK. This
is off the two track EP Rising Sun. As with a lot of these bands, there’s
not a whole lot of information out there on them. I wonder what the members of some
of these bands went on to do, and what they’re doing today.
Eh, okay, I’m finally beaten, I can’t
find anything about this band anywhere. There’s supposed to be an umlaut over
the “y” for some reason, but I don’t know how bothered I am to get my keyboard
to do that. All I know is that they’re from the UK, and this came off their EP
titled Mercy Killer. And that this song might have technically been
released in 1980. Oops. 80zforever must have been mistaken.
Conclusion
Anyway, I hope if nothing else I’ve
shined a light on a lot of these obscure bands and that maybe they’ll get some
more attention, which they very much deserve after all these years. Join me
next time for 1982 in Music, where we’ll get more of The Cure, some New Order,
and of course more bands you haven’t heard of but should.
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