How Good Was The Year (in music) - 1980?

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Last time, the earliest year that will be covered in the series - 1960 - proved just too dated, or at least too shallow in terms of the range of music available to dip into compared to the years that followed, and as such it now sits squarely at the bottom of the table.

This time we jump forward exactly 20 years, to 1980.

A reminder of the premise of the thread

After a period of posting and reminiscing, Polls will be posted to rate the music of the year out of ten (based on the albums, singles, gigs, whatever that stand out for you that year) and voting for your favourite of the nominated albums and songs.

Everyone can nominate one album and one song from the year which will then be collated into side-polls which will be open for a few days - please make it clear when you post a nomination for the poll (as opposed to when just posting about songs and albums you like, which are very welcome).

Leaderboard
Rank Year Rating Top Album Top Song
1 1994 9.46 Portishead - Dummy Beastie Boys - Sabotage
2 1991 8.98 Slint - Spiderland Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
3 1988 8.93 Pixies - Surfer Rosa Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Mercy Street
4 1968 8.67 Van Morrison - Astral Weeks Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman
5 1997 8.6 Radiohead - OK Computer The Beta Band - Dry The Rain
6 1967 8.48 Love - Forever Changes Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood - Some Velvet Morning
7 1995 8.45 Radiohead - The Bends The Smashing Pumpkins - 1975
8 1977 8.41 Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express Donna Summer - I Feel Love
9 1969 8.35 The Velvet Underground The Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog
10 1998 8.3 Boards of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children Massive Attack – Teardrop
11 2013 8.29 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Jubilee Street
11 1992 8.29 Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted Pulp - Babies
13 2019 8.14 Self Esteem - Compliments Please Big Thief - Not
14 2007 8.13 LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver / Radiohead - In Rainbows LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends / M.I.A. - Paper Planes
14 1975 8.13 Neil Young - Tonight’s the Night / Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Cortez the Killer
16 2004 8.1 Madvillain - Madvillainy / Arcade Fire - Funeral The Walkmen - The Rat
16 2001 8.1 The Strokes - Is This It Roots Manuva - Witness (1 Hope) / Mogwai - My Father My King
18 2002 8.06 Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge
18 1981 8.06 The Cure - Faith New Order - Ceremony
20 1979 7.96 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures Joy Division - Transmission
21 1982 7.76 The Cure - Pornography / Kate Bush - The Dreaming The Associates - Party Fears Two
22 2014 7.69 FKA Twigs - LP1 FKA Twigs - Two Weeks
23 2010 7.66 Kanye West - MBDTF / Joanna Newsom - Have One One Me / Beach House - Teen Dream Robyn - Dancing On My Own
24 1970 7.61 Neil Young - After the Goldrush Curtis Mayfield - Move on Up
25 1972 7.53 Can - Ebe Gamyasi Stevie Wonder - Superstition
26 1976 7.47 David Bowie - Station to Station Bob Dylan - Hurricane
26 1990 7.47 Sonic Youth - Goo The Cure - Pictures of You
28 2015 7.44 Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell Sufjan Stevens - No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross
29 1986 7.42 Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle
30 2005 7.39 Sufjan Stevens - Illinois Amerie - 1 Thing
31 1965 7.38 The Beatles - Rubber Soul Frank Wilson - Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)
32 2017 7.36 Protomartyr - Relatives in Descent Kendrick Lamar - Humble
33 1987 7.32 Sonic Youth - Sister The Cure - Just Like Heaven
34 1999 7.3 Mogwai - Come On Die Young Björk - All Is Full Of Love
35 2006 7.28 J Dilla - Donuts TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me
36 1983 7.26 REM - Murmur Robert Wyatt - Shipbuilding
37 2016 7.13 Frank Ocean - Blonde Frank Ocean - Nikes
38 2009 7.1 Fever Ray - Fever Ray Animal Collective - My Girls
39 1974 6.95 Neil Young - On The Beach Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - The Bottle
40 2011 6.88 PJ Harvey - Let England Shake Low - Especially Me
41 1963 6.57 Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan The Ronettes -Be My Baby
42 1985 6.53 Tom Waits - Rain Dogs Prince and the Revolution - Raspberry Beret
43 1962 6 Howlin’ Wolf - Howlin’ Wolf Dick Dale - Misirlou
44 1961 5.16 John Coltrane - My Favourite Things Roy Orbison - Crying
45 1960 4**.93** John Coltrane - Giant Steps The Shirelles - Will You Love Me Tomorrow

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1980 was the year John Lennon was assassinated by Mark Chapman, the Rubik’s Cube was launched internationally, smallpox was declared eradicated by the World Health organisation, Pac-Man was released in arcades in Japan, a dingo took a baby from a campsite in Uluru, Australia, Bob Marley’s final concert took place in Pittsburgh, Margaret Thatcher gave her famous ‘The lady’s not for turning’ speech [she might be turningin her grave now - she is dead], Ronald Reagan was elected president of the USA and the world tuned in to see Who Shot J.R. in Dallas.

We said goodbye to John Lennon, Bon Scott, Ian Curtis, John Bonham, Colonel Sanders, Jesse Owens, Steve McQueen, Alfred Hitchcock, Peter Sellers, Mae West and Jean-Paul Sartre, and hello to Macauley Culkin, Kim Kardassian, Ryan Gosling, Christina Aguilera, Ronaldinho, Michelle Williams and Jake Gyllenhaal.

But how good was the music?

There will be a week or two to nominate one album and/or one song which will then go into polls along with a number rating poll for year overall out of 10, which will close a few days later. Please state when something you share is a nomination so I can catch it for the poll, but feel free to share as much as you wish during the thread!

Some lists for inspiration:

Best Albums of 1980 : Best Ever Albums

https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/1980/

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/6-highest-rated/1980/1

https://www.acclaimedmusic.net/year/1980a.htm

1980 Best Albums And Tracks Of The Year - NME

https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/single/1980/

https://www.acclaimedmusic.net/year/1980s.htm

Nominations will be tallied here as the week goes on:

Album Nominations

Song Nominations

7 Likes
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Yay! A proper year!

1 Like
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Very good. It was very good.

3 Likes
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Straight out of the gates.
Nominate song Stiff Little Fingers - The Edge
This TOTP appearance was when little 8 year old OtherwiseOutcomes discovered music.

And this was my first tape.
Nominate album David Bowie - Scary Monsters

I’ll leave others to nominate Group Sex, Crazy Rhythms, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, Colossal Youth.

6 Likes
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Nominate song: Magazine - A Song From Under The Floorboards

Nominate album: Talking Heads - Remain In Light

10 Likes
6

Insanely good year

Post-punk/art pop/ new wave at its apex, some massive pop bangers, disco morphing into electro and proto-rap, Italo Disco in full swing, early synth-pop, mod & two-tone

And even some yacht rock

1980 playlist is gonna be ridiculous

6 Likes
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Killing Joke’s self-titled debut

Iron maiden - Remember Tomorrow

6 Likes
8

Nominate album.

Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden

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100% world changing album. Someone else can nominate Joy Division.

6 Likes
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Nominate song: Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart

5 Likes
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Nominate album

XTC - Black Sea

5 Likes
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1980 !!! This was the year my musical taste solidified its foundation . A weekend job at Waitrose, a sack full of hormones, an NME stuffed in my sports bag and a town full of record shops. What could go wrong?

For now, I can only list my favourite albums for 1980, that still get regular play. Original vinyl superseded by CDs, by box sets and then again by new vinyl pressings. How do I choose only one? Hopefully, the community will lift some up to help me out. Not sure there are any other years with such enduring classics.

Joy Division - Closer

Magazine - The Correct Use of Soap

Echo & The Bunnymen - crocodiles

Elvis Costello - Get Happy!!

Simple Minds - Empires And Dance

Comsat Angels - Waiting For A Miracle

The Cure - Seventeen Seconds

Kate Bush - Never For Ever

B-52s - Wild Planet

Durutti Column - The Return Of …

Associates - The Affectionate Punch

The Passage - Pindrop

I may have to play them all again in the next week to make my choice. 46 years?? Fuck me.

10 Likes
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Top year. Going to see what others nominate, to add to what I have seen mentioned…

10 Likes
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Nominate album: The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
It’s the best Cure album, with others close behind, and tops my 1980 list along with Talking Heads’ Remain in Light in a very stacked year.

I recently took part in a 10-round 1980 music league (and another for 81) so was able to revisit a lot of stuff, and re-discover some cool tracks from lesser-known (to me) artists I’ll be glad to share when I have more time.

9 Likes
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Wrong Joy Division!

Never liked this song. Never saw what people see in it.

1 Like
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YES!

2 Likes
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Going to have a glass of red wine and listen to some of the excellent music that was released in 1980. :slight_smile:

4 Likes
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Nominate Album. Joy Division - Closer. Not only the best album of 1980, but the greatest album of all-time in my humble opinion.

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Copy and Paste from my 100 Greatest Albums Thread…

I first heard Blue Monday by New Order as it released in 1983. A fantastic electronic disco single that seemed to hang around the charts for ages. I loved it to pieces. It propelled my love for music forward. I found out from word of mouth that there was a band that preceded New Order. Joy Division.

A band with only 2 studio albums. Both albums perfect. One of them, the greatest album of all-time.

When I heard Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division) I realised I’d already heard it, but was unsure how, when or where. Like it had always been there. This single, of course, doesn’t feature on Closer, an album with no singles released from it. Closer was released less than two months after the passing of lead singer Ian Curtis. It has always been a posthumous release.

I borrowed the album, on vinyl, in early 1984. I taped it onto one side of a C90 cassette, it fits perfectly. I recorded it the wrong way round though, as there is no Side 1 or Side 2 written anywhere. I loaned the album for about a week before returning it to its owner. That week, where it hadn’t fully clicked for me - remains the only week it hasn’t been my all-time favourite album.

Closer is a powerful record. Due to circumstances around it - it has always felt like something from the other side, guess these are natural thoughts.

By the time of my very late teenage years and early twenties I began to be able to only listen to it about once a year, such is the impact of it. Claustrophobic. The finality of it. Expansive. Quiet. Loud. Dark Gothic images painted in blinding white. Spacious at times. Devastating depth. I’ve always considered Joy Division and New Order can’t play music(al instruments) in a classical sense. Closer, however, hits like Classical Music. Better.

Atrocity Exhibition. Closer starts with rhythmic drum patters and angular scraping guitars. The vocal lures “This is the way, step inside”. Naturally. You follow. Icy cold in here isn’t it.

Electronic hints emerge with Isolation. Vocals are distant but dominant. There’s almost a Pop song in there trying to get out. Images / sounds of gassing play towards the end of the track which then abruptly phases out and back in again. Sharp.

Passover coaxes in. Languid. Bold. Yet lost. Aimless (not a criticism). Sheets of sound. Minimal. Engulfing. Colony follows with stronger guitar and sounding more like a track off Unknown Pleasures. It still feels perfectly at home on this album though. Curtis sounds tired vocally yet his delivery fits the album glove-like. "Your God in his wisdom took you by the hand, God in his wisdom made you understand… and Closer begins hitting hard. Militaristic cold war imagery flows in my mind to this. I’ve never been sure why.

The opening bars of Means To An End, not sure music gets more achingly beautiful than this. A riff, and damn it works. I can’t do it justice with written words.

Side 2 opens with Heart And Soul. A moody low keyboard emerges from a bass and drum introduction… and it sounds astonishing. Like entering a mist. Further. The vocal is even more removed now, like it is almost tippex-ed out, but you can still read it. You’d be forgiven for thinking those drums are a drum machine, which they aren’t. Like an outer body experience, they cannot take this any deeper can they?

… They can, and they do. Twenty Four Hours is arguably the best ever track by Joy Division. Rousing. Urgent. Driven. Forwards. Subtle. Suggestive. It eases back and surges forth like a sea during a storm. “Excessive black points beyond all reach”. Controlled power. Clattering devastation.

Eternal backs the fuck off, and after the previous track that is needed. Again gassing, (like Isolation) is suggested aurally initially. A soft white snow field, untouched by footprints. Pure. Vocals suggesting fury but so devastatingly resigned. Piano. It’s such an incredible sound. Moving. Cleansing. Lost.

The procession of Decades is the last track on the album. Sparse. Electronic hints. Then, them chords. Uplifting with an awful weight of sadness. “Where have they been?”. Again, written words cannot get near describing this. That ethereal mood of the keys. The drums sharp but respectful pad around the kit.

The most emotional album I have ever heard. It’s looking you in the face and you just don’t see it. It is communicating music on another level. The best album I have ever heard. Probably by some distance.

I’ll try not to get too deep, but allow me this. My grandmother passed some 10 years ago now. She had lived a very long life. I’d lived with her for 4 years from age 4 to 8, I was supposed to stay for the weekend. My parents were divorcing at the time, not that I understood at 4 years of age. I felt so secure and safe at my grandmothers (and grandfathers) that I just wanted to stay, and was allowed to do so. When she passed naturally I was upset, in ways it was a relief as she’d been ill and suffering for a long while. At the funeral I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. That evening, alone, I put on Closer. I knew, subconsciously what I was doing… and the album hit me like a sledgehammer, releasing the emotion I needed to exorcise.

It will never not be my all-time favourite album.

22 Likes
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Fantastic year for music! I did my own HGWTY on 1980 well over a decade ago and there are so many albums I never got around to. It’ll be interesting to see how much this changes, even if the top 5 feel locked-in right now:

  1. Joy Division - Closer
  2. David Bowie - Scary Monsters
  3. Talking Heads - Remain In Light
  4. The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
  5. Prince - Dirty Mind
  6. Devo - Freedom of Choice
  7. Japan - Gentlemen Take Polaroids
  8. The Clash - Sandinista!
  9. John Foxx - Metamatic
  10. Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
11-30
  1. Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables
  2. Kate Bush - Never For Ever
  3. The Fall - Grotesque (After The Gramme)
  4. Siouxsie & The Banshees - Kaleidoscope
  5. Harald Grosskopf - Synthesist
  6. The Human League - Travelogue
  7. Simple Minds - Empires And Dance
  8. XTC - Black Sea
  9. Suicide - Suicide (The Second Album)
  10. The Associates - The Affectionate Punch
  11. Polyrock - Polyrock
  12. Echo & The Bunnymen - Crocodiles
  13. The Sound - Jeopardy
  14. Killing Joke - Killing Joke
  15. The Durutti Column - The Return Of The Durutti Column
  16. Cabaret Voltaire - The Voice Of America
  17. X - Los Angeles
  18. Paul McCartney - McCartney II
  19. Harold Budd/Brian Eno - Ambient 2: The Plateaux Of Mirror
  20. The B-52’s - Wild Planet
  21. Pylon - Gyrate
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Tune!

8 Likes
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UB40 had tunes

4 Likes