1980

I'm going to have to agree with you. So that must make you write seeing as to how I'm still only a kid. Then again, I am probably the only kid who listens to Killing Joke.

Erm, except I was born, motherfucker.

yeh, so was i.

It's the same for me Ned which was one reason I asked - it's the last year I don't have any strong memories of.

Also Reagan victory and 'Remain in Light'.

(From http://www.vivaroxymusic.com/, sorry about the bandwidth)

I'm saying I'm not sure.

Smash Hits was full of The Police and the Jam too, but I thought that cover gave quite a nice coverage of what was going on.

It still rankles. It does seem a bit less important now.

In 1980 I was 14/15. I was listening to Bowie and Lou Reed, but probably their older stuff. I remember thinking Scary Monsters & Lodger were way inferior to Low & Heroes (little did I know what Bowie had in store for me in the eighties - now of course I think those 2 albums are classics). 1980 was a lot of synth pop - I went through a brief Gary Numan period, also the original Human League. OMD perhaps too - it was when a lot of those synth bands were still on the cutting edge rather than top 40 material. What else - Deutsche Amerikane Freudeshaft (or however you spell it), Birthday Party. I don't remember it as a transitional period, I remember it as a pretty exciting time when things sounded very new. I remember thinking that synthesisers would change everything and guitars would go the way of big bands. The new wave/disco dichotomy was very marked - I couldn't for the life of me see what there was to Donna Summer (but I can now). I think post-punk there was a kind of nihilistic vibe in the air - although I didn't actually get into Joy Division until 1981 - but it felt fresh and realistic, unlike the hippy stuff of five years previously.

XPost on "Crying" - it was number one the week I learned to swim and was played constantly on the coach from school to the swimming pool and back, so always reminds me of that week in school.

I was conscious the previous year that punk had exploded but in 1980 it really started to become apparent how many fragments it had broken into: Alternative, Anarcho-Punk, Blitz, Futurist, Goth, Indie, New Brutalist, New Romantic, Neo-Psychedelia, New Wave, Post-Punk, Psychobilly, Ska revival, Synth Pop. It's funny to think how many of those terms we wouldn't have recognised (post-Punk?) or would have dismissed as meaningless (Alternative, Indie, New Wave) as well as how many of what were separate, distinct, different sub-genres at the time, subsequently got (re-)absorbed into some of others and disappeared.

Without wanting to create a list or records, IIRC it was the year I discovered Bauhaus, Killing Joke and Theatre Of Hate, all of whom were pretty important bands to me over the next few years.

The following year 1981 was more of change/ significant year, as it involved going to the big school, the local comprehensive.

Most of my musical memories are of country songs. Charlie Daniels Band ("Devil Went Down to Georgia", "In America"). Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again". That sort of thing.

My dad was playing a lot of Boz Scaggs and Little River Band. He had a couple of Gap Band 8-tracks in the Lincoln, too.

I remember watching the late news with my head on my mother's lap as they aired the tributes to John Lennon. Mom didn't take that so well.

I consistently rate 1980 as the worst year of my life. No offense to anyone who was born or married in that year.

There was some good stuff: Rush, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush and Talking Heads were all rocking my world that year. But there was too much drab toss week in, week out.

Fortunately, things were about to pick up significantly in '81 (Grandmaster Flash, the whole Bristol jazz thing, ACR's finest moments, Altered Images, ABC, Haircut 100, Scritti, C-81, "Methods of Dance", Orange Juice etc. were all about to make things colourful and fun again.) - so it was just a temporary slump.

Why does that name ring a very vague bell in me head??

The Tourists
Head Boys
Blondie
Prince
Pretenders
Flash & The Pan
Talking Heads
Flo & Eddie (new to me)
R.E.M.
and the dreaded Knack

That is a very, very unfortunate pun.

http://www.angelfire.com/music/PFArchives/Posters/Promopic/FP.jpg

Strange. I thought I read somewhere that black music at that time was as unpopular as it's ever been. Ever.

So, it was all about synths - "Funky Town", Travelogue and the Numanoid. I think I wanted all music to have great blocks of crunchy Ware/Craig-Marsh electronics on it. I don't know why it took me two decades to get back to this position.

At Xmas I got a JVC radio-cassette recorder...the first recording I ever made on it was a few seconds of a local radio production of "A Christmas Carol" - "Ah, yes, your long-lost Uncle, Uncle Ebenahzar*" - poking through inter-channel static before yielding to "(Just Like) Starting Over". I sat it down in front of Xmas TOTP and drew a snort of disgust from big bruv for hitting record for "Dance Yourself Dizzy".

(* - I remember the pronounciation)

What I don't remember is the death of Ian Curtis and, considering the esteem in which he was held by my brother, I'd imagined I would. I do remember Debbie Harry, and particularly the way her hair was lit from behind in the "Heart of Glass" video (OK, '79) and thinking she was beautiful but probably unapproachable and a bit rude. R*bert Del*m*r* had old Motown hitsters written on his bag, while everyone else had Adam & The Ants and The Jam - we were able to leap from a position of ignorance to one of contempt (without passing through understanding) the next year when Smokey Robinson had that soppy comeback #1.

I think it probably depends on your definition of the words "pop" and "better".

"Better" in terms of the absolute amount of good music that's been produced; or "better" in terms of the amount of good music relative to the amount of shit?

Depending on your definition of "pop", I might be persuaded that the second half has possibly produced more good music in absolute terms - but it's definitely produced exponentially more shit.

i remember falling out of love with pink floyd. i had liked "dark side of the moon", "wish you were here" and "animals" a lot but "another brick in the wall" was plain horrible. so cheesy. in my memory it was played in every pub i went to in 1980. not that i was in many (i was 16/17). in 1980 i discovered nick drake. i think i got "fruit tree" for christmas 1979 and i spent that winter listening to the three records. finally i had found a kindred spirit.