A History of Pop Music – Albums 1980

26th February 2021 Philthetestmanager 20th Century, Arts, History, Music 0

Featured Album:

This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever year we end up in.

I will select a featured album for each year and the link for the whole album, Plus list the songs on it.

As before, it is not just about the songs and tunes, it is very much about memories, and good ones, I hope.

Not everyone will like my choices of course, and you may remember some from each particular year that you feel should have been included, so do please post a link to the song.

In 1980, yet another tour in NI came up. The good news was that I was to be in charge of the rear party, so stayed in the barracks, basically looking after the new starters, starting cars people had left in the compound one a week, but mainly looking after all the needs of the wives now on their own. (No, not in that way). I would organise transport for their trips to hospitals and all kinds of stuff working with the padre and family’s officer. Unfortunately, the chief clerk had to be returned home halfway through that tour, so I had to go out and do his job, only 3 months though. Not much in the news, strikes were starting to end, Maggie halved the striker’s bennies, quite right too.

If you look at the top 10 sellers for 1980 below, none of them I rate much, just Roxy Music and The Pretenders really.

Flesh and Blood I loved, mainly due to his Wilson Picket cove, but all good tunes.

Track listing

All songs written by Bryan Ferry except as noted.

No.	Title	Length
1.	“In the Midnight Hour” (Wilson Pickett, Steve Cropper)	3:09
2.	“Oh Yeah“	4:51
3.	“Same Old Scene“	3:57
4.	“Flesh and Blood”	3:08
5.	“My Only Love”	5:18

Side two
No.	Title	Length
1.	“Over You” (Ferry, Phil Manzanera)	3:27
2.	“Eight Miles High” (Gene Clark, David Crosby, Roger McGuinn)	4:55
3.	“Rain Rain Rain”	3:20
4.	“No Strange Delight” (Ferry, Manzanera)	4:44
5.	“Running Wild” (Ferry, Manzanera)	5:03

Personnel

Roxy Music

Bryan Ferry– vocals, keyboards, piano, synthesiser (on track 4), guitar (on track 4), and strings (on track 5)
Andy Mackay– saxophones, oboe
Phil Manzanera– guitar, bass (on track 6)

Additional personnel

Paul Carrack– strings (on track 2), organ, piano (on track 10)
Neil Hubbard– guitar (on tracks 1, 2, 5, and 7–10)
Neil Jason– bass (on tracks 2, 7, and 9)
Andy Newmark– drums (on tracks 4 and 5)
Simon Phillips– percussion (on track 5)
Allan Schwartzberg– drums (on tracks 1-3 and 6–10), percussion (on tracks 4 and 5)
Alan Spenner– bass (on tracks 3–5, 8, and 10)
Gary Tibbs– bass (on track 1)

More writings on this album here: Flesh and Blood

So, on we go with 1980:

The Top 10 Albums with a You Tube hyperlink on the title:

Top Tip: Right-click and open in new tab

Top Albums of 1980
1	Abba	Super Trouper
2	The Police	Zenyatta Mondatta
3	Rose Royce	Greatest Hits
4	The Pretenders	Pretenders
5	The Police	Regatta De Blanc
6	Roxy Music	Flesh And Blood
7	Michael Jackson	Off The Wall
8	Genesis	Duke
9	Barbra Streisand	Guilty
10	Sky	Sky 2

Overall, this top 10 from 1980 is pretty dire.

I was struggling to find some albums for this year, so I looked through the list and these are the ones I bought. Most much better than the so called top 10 sellers apart from the Flesh and Blood from Roxy Music.

Paul Simon – Graceland

Don Williams – I Believe in You – Bit of Don this week, rather than more Willy.

The Human League – Dare! – new romantic and electro music, the beginning

Squeeze – Argybargy – Most bigly good band

Squeeze – East Side Story – more here.

Enya – Watermark – Strange choice for me, but I did like this a lot.

Aztec Camera – High Land, Hard Rain – Love this band.

Bruce Springsteen – Born in the U.S.A. – I think his finest.

David Bowie – Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) – Such talent.

Overall, I think one of the worst years to date, with just these few exceptions.

Scoring:

As you know I like to review your “tunes” that you post.