What were the record buying public thinking of in.... 1981?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vion-f7IPOk

Actually heard Steve Wright playing this on Radio 2 in my dads car on the way up to the doctors last week. Was 50s revivalism still going on then?

Every time is the right time for an occasional 50s revivalist single.

Also 1981
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4EsTEpCZHE

christ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2v7FQ87SBI

haha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCXdlxZ5RiM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uIveUw5BzA

this stuff makes Dollar and Bucks Fizz (big hits in 81) look genius

Van Halen invents Dubstep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptbkH5p3s6o

I dunno, none of this stuff surprises me. Looking back through all the old issues of Smash Hits and watching the old episodes of Top Of The Pops kinda proves that there has always been quite a great deal of crap in every year alongside the good stuff.

For me, 1981 is all about Architecture & Morality, Faith, Rage In Eden, Tin Drum, Dance, Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call etc. etc.

My favorite Kings song came out that year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9ObLGRq33o

Also the NWOBHM was in full effect. I was too young but had I been old enough (and um, in the UK) I woulda been wearing a denim jacket with patches & pins and enjoying some of the best metal to even be made, concentrated in one place and time.

Fair Warning is excellent! Undoubtedly my favourite Van Halen album, that one.

This single actually was the #1 single in the land (well, in the land of America) for one glorious week in 1981:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bGQ1-Gmoso

Since I was too young for the NWOBHM, this was my gateway drug:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLHc-yIAPbg

our UK charts were better at being shit than the USA. Is that all you got?

It was also a year where two defining monster releases indicative of the decade's hard rock excesses could be released mere weeks apart: Foreigner "4" and Journey "Escape"

Which inspired this poll: Foreigner "4" vs. Journey "Escape" - Which is the most Arena Rockinest

This came out, still my favorite Replacements album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQWpozAfXWM

this isnt a thread for good stuff!

And the two songs that inspired my user name came out that year...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAgnJDJN4VA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPOIS5taqA8

(Note that while "Back In Black" was released in 1980 the single was released the following year.)

brian dude i dont think you got the point of the thread :(

sorry ilm but this really was shit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRFrCe3mLZk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY3E4rosQis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt71OZ3R0mM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fIa2xJ75Jw

oh god ahahahahahahahahaha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LGqB740DMc

Was 50s revivalism still going on then?

iirc Shakin' Stevens spent a couple of months on top of the singles charts across 1981.

lol literally everything AG is posting itt is awesome

agreed

reagan/thatcher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwDMFOLIHxU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huNejF17gzg
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6e657_prince-let-s-work_music#.UTzprRz_mSp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xbtlW16Gts

You missed this classic, #20 in June 1981.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbhwnsv56m8&hd=1

'Mirror, Mirror' best thing on this thread apart from 'Back in Black'.

Is this the thread for posting 1981 hits that AG probably doesn't like? Or maybe it's the "Is this racist?" thread...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCH1IlOfDTM

(lol in my youtube recommended sidebar for this song I have a track by Discharge)
(lol pt. 2 "Over the last five years, (Joe) Dolce has achieved further recognition as a serious poet and essayist winning the 25th Launceston Poetry Cup in Tasmania in 2010. He has set over one hundred poems to music, including works by Sappho, Sylvia Plath and C.P. Cavafy.")

"Do the Hucklebuck" = yeah 1981 Rockabilly revival my first scene affiliation

"Stray Cat Strut" = first couple of Stray Cats albums are mint fuiud

"Birdie Song" = yay holidays

"Ossie's Dream" = kinda look back with FA cup songs with fond memories now football is owned by GlobalMegaCorp

i mean hey popular music used to have this broad public fanbase now it's all cool shit i don't know Marcello is better at getting grumpy about this than me

"Japanese Boy" is actually straight fire if we can ignore the Scottish lady doing racial stereotypes

1981 is one of my alltime favourite years for music

1981 saw the release of several left field post-punk lps I really love. Die Kleinen Und Die Bosen, The Birthday party's s/t or Hee Haw set, Einsturzende Neubauten Kollaps, The Associates 4th Drawer Down, Eurythmics In The Garden, the Gun Club's Fire of Love, Panther Burns' Behind The magnolia Curtain, Clock Dva's thirst, and several others

I was thinking Tragic Figures by Savage Republic but checking it turns out to be a year later.

But maybe that's more underground than you wanted to go

just found the extended 12" mix of Japanese Boy on youtube, it's great

also digging Wikka Wrap but needs less Wikka (that one took me a minute, despite sounding exactly like my father's impression of the same) and more Chic ripping

MES rendered the hucklebuck as the hassle schmuck, iirc

1981 was generally a great year, but this was awful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hhm0NHhCBg

(Great video for 1981 though - now that's something at least)

Bite me. "O Superman" was great.

Geir is always right.

impression I always get scrolling through, say, the acclaimed music album list for 81, is that the year was basically split down the middle between noisy ugly transgressive postpunk and sleek robodisco/synthpop, and that these two were still seen as the same impulse taken in opposite directions. Like, later on pigfuck/hardcore & New Pop would harden into disparate, warring factions but Damaged and Dare were still seen as two sides of the same coin in '81.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPO46xvT0Xk

I guess I would just wonder at what point you would say that those directions were no longer seen as two sides of the same coin.

xp

i'd probably say around 84, but this is all surmise on my part, mind you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG0jUDYrLG8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlCOLGS5PRc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q54ZQy9dOGY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFY5t2Hsw8E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8bAfaXFxK4

What's weird I remember is that the old TV show Solid Gold would play Physical and I swear then play Back in Black in the same episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTbLPvYBK7E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx9uniAIjJM

I remember is that the old TV show Solid Gold would play Physical and I swear then play Back in Black in the same episode.

yr memory is correct

Still the most extraordinary ToTP appearance ever was from 1981 …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ5vHyAvTYI

That is genius...

this thread confirms that the British record buying public have never more astute and OTM than they were in 1981.