J Mascis goes hell for leather under waves of pure noise but this is the sweetest shot of ‘friends4ever’ mayhem, an invitation to Lou Barlow to come back before he’d even left. Def Leppard On Through the Night (1980) As the cast of Grange Hill would prove later in the decade, it’s nigh-on impossible to sing an anti-drugs song without sounding like a bit of a berk. As a storyteller, Springsteen is unsurpassed and so it was with 1982’s ‘Atlantic City’, with this particular tale pairing a musical sparseness with lyrical complexity. Lipps, inc. - Designer music (81) Ottawan - any song of 80's album, for example D.I.S.C.O., You're OK; Ottawan - any song of 81's album, for example Hands up; Chilly - Play me a classic simphony (82) Patrick Cowley - both complete albums (81)(82) Arabesque - Keep the wolf from the door (81) Bizarrely, that “old man” was Lou Reed but that’s the only trace of the past on a supple and deceptively complex slice of synthpop. Sign In. As hip-hop and techno set the cultural pace at the close of the 80s there weren’t too many thrills going on in rock, a wasteland of post-MTV excess. Music Reviews: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) by David Bowie released in 1980 via RCA. Robert Smith’s beautiful slice of pounding acoustic-pop was a surging, multi-tracked work of wonder that continued the band’s run of brilliant singles, following ‘The Love Cats’ and preceding ‘Close To Me’. Obviously. This is Phil talking, and he believes what the old man said. The one that got the Mondays on Top Of The Pops is a far cry from the sequenced beats of ‘Pills ‘N’ Thrills And Bellyaches’ that established them as baggy chiefs. A shiny bauble of pure pop goodness from the fab four. Find the top 100 Country songs for the year of 1980 and listen to them all! During the 1980s the chart was based collectively on each single's weekly physical sales … If only every attempt to tackle strife in the Middle-East were as joyous as this. [sidebar id=”premium_inline_before_last_p”]. Soured by vast overexposure at weddings and school discos, Kevin Rowland’s raggle-taggle hymn to a sepia past – and unseemly plea to cop a feel – is still an extraordinary fiesta of celtic soul. He’s talking gibberish, surely: the slow-burn beginning is fantastic, true, but the whole ruddy song – with its balmy organ waltz and irrepressible feel-good factor – is the sound of Talking Heads at their most wonderfully accessible. Can you guess the number one Country song in 1980? Supposedly written by frontman Mike Scott on the back of an envelope to show-off to his girlfriend, ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ is undoubtedly The Waterboys’ definitive track – a moon-soaked ditty that’s full of dreamy, wide-eyed wonder. Supposedly inspired by real-life reports of Iranians being flogged for owning forbidden CDs, Joe Strummer knocked up a farcical fantasy of pilots ignoring orders to bomb the transgressors and crank up the volume on their cockpit radios instead. We will be introducing many polls, which all require you to choose the best song from a list of popular 1980s songs. It opened new vistas for the band, making them the stars they always knew they were. Though New Order’s dancefloor fillers were far removed from Joy Division’s bleak nihilism, there was a no nonsense approach to both that united Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris’ two ventures in direct and uncompromising brilliance. Whether you were donning your finest spandex and getting tiddly on Cinzano or putting on the leathers and devil-fingering to Guns’n’Roses, it’ll still go down as the most diverse, eclectic and extravagant decade in recent cultural history. All that “If the devil is six…” business was supposedly a jumbled reference to Hebrew numerology, a truly apocalyptic slant to the rest of ‘Monkey Gone To Heaven’ which has more immediate environmental concerns. Away from the titanic egos, though, John Deacon proffered one of pop music’s most iconic basslines (though there’s some controversy over whether he wrote it, or Bowie did). It was a musical tour de force too, combining ska, lovers rock and more into a cyclone of musical genre splicing – another example of The Clash mixing it all up to create something brilliant and new. Here the punk poet tackled Vietnam, immigration and gentrification. The song that John Peel played after announcing Ian Curtis’s death is unbearably close and brooding, but allows the occasional shaft of light. Thank sweet Jesus for preacherman Nick Cave, a man with fire in his belly, poetry in his soul and righteous ire fuelling this almost unbearable last-gasp from a doomed man waiting to fry in that “mercy seat“. It’s become a tin-whistling, string-soaked standard that lost out on the festive No.1 to the mighty Pet Shop Boys but comes back for another crack year after year. Category page. Starship - 'We Built This City' This could be the biggest blow-out victory in the history of the Rolling … Both of which allowed Frank Black to emote over the top, going batshit in the vocal department. January 1980 Album Releases. Faith No More’s blend of shuddering riffs and funk/pop tunefulness mixed playful absurdity with a knowing sense of drama. AC/DC’s first album after the death of original singer Bon Scott proved none of that fire had gone out, and the title track was the purest example. 1-50 of 3,340 titles. John Hughes’ classic teen flick gave ‘Pretty In Pink’ a new lease of life five years after its initial release – and also spurred the Furs into re-recording a fluffier, more radio-friendly version of the track, too – but it’s the jagged original that still sounds best, with Steve Lilywhite’s visceral production lending a dark edge to the strop-pop guitars. Propelled by war-hammer drums and the bomb-like stomp of him thwacking his guitar, it also has some of the Modfather’s finest lyrics to boot as its righteous damnation of the Government’s nukes-over-society policy cemented his place as one of the UK’s greatest social commentators. With Bobby Gillespie gone, they’d switched to crisp drum machine beats and ‘April Skies’ was almost conventional in structure. This category has only the following subcategory. Listen Now with Amazon Music : Used Songs (1973-1980) "Please retry" Amazon Music Unlimited: Price New from Used from MP3 Music, October 23, 2001 These are the top 100 songs from the 1980s according to Dave’s Music Database. One could only imagine who the “human trampoline” was though. ‘Buffalo Stance’ came along at a time when dance, hip-hop and pop were creating thrilling hybrids (see also ‘Salt N Pepa’s ‘Push It’ and Tone Loc’s ‘Funky Cold Medina’). A worthy first UK Number One for Messr Weller, ‘Going Underground’ will forever be one of The Jam’s finest cuts. Listen on Apple Music. Released as the lead single from his seminal Purple Rain album and film, the bass-free ‘When Doves Cry’ was a thing of graceful beauty. Still groovy as a hepcat, ‘Sign ‘O’ The Times’ is stripped back like Sly Stone’s ‘Family Affair’; all the better to focus on a lyric that bemoans drug addiction, HIV and the damned space race. We could talk about Axl’s screeching vocal, of course, but there’s only one real reason why ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ is beloved of so many air-guitar aficionados, and that’s Slash – both with the lurching arpeggios of his intro and the subsequent face-melting, wah-wah-wanking solo that’s amongst the best fretwork of all time. Hooky’s bass was delicate and pounding and Bernard Sumner’s vocal line was deceptively boyish. U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. One of the finest examples of Mark E Smith’s musical mantra of “Repetition, repetition, repetition”, as The Fall’s curmudgeonly ringmaster incessantly shrieks the chorus over the off-kilter hook of a honking horn. Dec. Feb. January. Feature Film, Released between 1980-01-01 and 1980-12-31 (Sorted by Popularity Ascending) View Mode: Compact | Detailed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3W6yf6c-FA. Written by Tim Booth during a period of feeling isolated, the anthemic qualities of the track were picked up by students everywhere, as James became part of the Madchester scene and the legend of ‘Sit Down’ grew and grew. The song was never released as single, but it did appear on her 1987 album of remixes, You Can Dance. What’s a Deadhead sticker doing on the back of some posh Cadillac? “No you can’t have it back, silly rabbit!” Flavor tells a journalist robbed of his Dictaphone. More than a pop song, this was a brilliant piece of art-as-social-comment. Pioneered in New York City in the early 1970s, it was not until 1979 that the first second Hip Hop song (even though still heavily influenced by disco sounds) was recorded and released – “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang. In the same vein as their 40 Years of Hip Hop video, the duo has released a musical tribute to 1979, combining 50 songs released that year into a tight 3-minute mix. The purists may grumble it lacks the blackened romanticism of The Cure at their most cutting edge, but it’s nice to hear old Bob sounding so utterly besotted – even if his paramour does, admittedly, go AWOL by the time he’s done. Add to that synthesized horns that actually work and a melody that’s bottled melancholy, and it’s another regal single from Tennant and Lowe. They create the fluid slink here that allows Jones to prowl around, generally intimidating everyone with dirty car-pun come-ons. In the United Kingdom it made its chart début on 22 November at number 27, and the following week rose to 14. All the more kudos to hip-hop pioneer Melle Mel, then, who used the catchiest of R&B grooves and street-smart rhymes to make the whole Just Say No message sound a lot more exciting than it had any right to be. Imagine a world where everyone rushed out to buy a brainstorm like this. and Aerosmith broke down that wall in the ‘Walk This Way’ video, busting taboos and blurring the line between rap and rock. It was well received, and a year later she announced a new Christmas song, " Santa Tell Me ." Their plan is to release a new video each week in October that will cover the subsequent four years, 1980-1983. The Bunnymen’s lasting classic has a Hollywood ending – an appearance in 2001’s Donnie Darko that introduced them to a legion of new fans. Everyone saw sense soon enough and this pumping, hollering groove topped charts all over the globe. A slice of Freudian autography, the deceptively simple music was played by the man himself. A pretty nifty way of trying to impress your other half, that. Step past Don Henley and cohorts’ opulent 80s AOR production and there’s a song with a message here. List of #1 Country Singles for 1980. The ’80s were a time of prosperity, yes, but also disruption. Released one month before Ian Curtis’ death, NME‘s original review called the song a “tombstone”. 57. Dead Kennedys’ ode to liquor-induced floppiness may be crude, lewd and gloriously dumb, but it’s not just puerile gags about brewer’s droop. A 4AD supergroup put together by head honcho Ivo Watts-Russell and featuring Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie and Liz Fraser, This Mortal Coil took up residence in the indie charts for most of the decade with this spectral cover of Tim Buckley’s earthy ballad. January 1980 album & single releases. Hair metal’s unimpeachable high point. Their latest album to date, Rock or Bust, was released in 2013, selling 2.8 million copies in 2014. But look at that Jesus Christ pose on the sleeve, listen to the talk of “sacrifice” – there was more going on here, and a killer middle eight to boot. A list of all music releases for October 1980. "Angel" View this video on YouTube. Who were the rock’n’roll rebels now? Curtis’ lyrics read like a suicide note (“There’s a taste in my mouth as desperation takes hold,”) but there’s something weirdly uplifting about the way the song hurtles towards that final chorus. ‘Love Action’ boasts at least three warring synth riffs – from Ian Burden, Philip Adrian Wright and Jo Callis feeding his guitar through a Roland 700 – each of which could fuel a Top 3 hit by itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLBx3g8cowY. Who left the kettle on? Although Tennant was not openly gay at this stage, hindsight reveals what that perpetual “sin” was. Splutters into life with the wheezing strains of a dusty harmonica before exploding into a full-blown yarn of a dwindling country economy in which times are hard and work is scarce to find. Best Albums. It’s Spinderella’s record, scratching and diving between the proto-rave synths, while Salt-n-Pepa limit themselves to the occasional quickfire verse. If only all debut singles were as self-assured as The Sundays’ inaugural bow. "Blue Christmas," by Seymour Swine and the Squeelers (1980) "Blue Christmas," by Shakin' Stevens (1982) "Careless Santa," by Mono Puff. ‘Blue Monday’ – the best selling 12″ of all time – was New Order’s peak; a stunning explosion of drum machine beats, infectious hooks and Sumner’s deadpan vocals. Today marks five years since School of Rock opened on Broadway! Now that they’re the punchline to a million stadium-rock sized jokes, it’s easy to forget what made everyone first fall in love with U2 many moons ago – namely, big ol’ emotional rock ballads like this. PRODUCER:… Touching upon the breakdown of the relationship with her boyfriend/manager, ‘Time After Time’ was a change in tack for Lauper, whose musical persona had previously been unstoppably light and frothy. Following the release of their single "Another Day" in 1980, U2 signed a recording contract with Island Records, and released their first album, Boy, later that year.The band has since released 14 studio albums, the most recent being Songs of Experience in 2017. The Clash didn’t always need anger to pen a canny political song. But combining it with a gigantic gospel-tinged chorus the world could sing along to? Nirvana became one of the biggest bands on the planet in the 90s, but Kurt Cobain was already proving himself as a master craftsmen before that. Let’s just forget that it was unforgivably plundered by Vanilla Ice at the turn of the 90s. "Chistmas Time," by Chris Stamey Group. Be first to get the top news & best streams. http://players.brightcove.net/19012535001/default_default/index.html?videoId=1414932997001. From the squall of 1977’s ‘White Riot’ to this 1982 parting shot. A slinky, sexy R&B number that pissed a load of people off when they bought Soul II Soul’s debut LP ‘Club Classics Vol. A Kind Of Magic - Queen. The Challenger Space Shuttle exploded on live TV while we all watched in school, Prince Charles married Diana — a non-royal, and Apple Computer released the Macintosh. Released as a standalone single following their gargantuan 1989 debut, ‘Fool’s Gold’ saw Ian Brown serve up some mystic baloney while the rest of the band did the heavy lifting – Mani leading the tune, John Squire going all Sly and the Family Stone with his wah-wah licks, and Reni giving a ‘Funky Drummer’ masterclass that rendered all other baggy redundant. ‘Velocity Girl’ was a great slice of vintage eighties jangle pop – a style and sound that the band would distance themselves from with ‘Screamadelica’ , but from the teen-misfit of the title to the energized bolt of the music, this was a perfect moment of 80s indie Britpop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1wg1DNHbNU. For most bands, this song would be amongst the weirdest in their arsenal; it’s testament to The Fall’s bizarre brilliance that it’s one of their most straightforward. Penned from the perspective of ship workers in Britain at the time of the 1982 war, it was a bold message of non-compliance. The Jam were so unstoppable by early 1981 that this scraped the top 20 of the singles chart on import sales alone. Angel Witch (1980) 9: 9. It didn’t harm the song’s prospects that it was a belting pop tune, a welcome return to form after the sub-par tosh of her Who’s That Girl soundtrack efforts. Whatever happened to the hippie dream? Where it all got going. Discover. Al Shipley Al … The Triple X-rated nature of this track should not overshadow how absolutely vital it was to the nascent commercial dance scene. None of that quiet-loud stuff here – ‘Debaser’ is full throttle throughout, celebrating Black Francis’s new favourite thing, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali’s surrealist, eyeball-slicing movie Un Chien Andalou. These polls will change over time, and we will eventually have enough data to rank the top songs, based on thousands of votes from hundreds of polls. Now that’s what we call a comeback. Heavens, is that Morrissey being romantic? Originally penned as an attempt to re-create the disco thrust of ‘Heart Of Glass’, with ‘Atomic’ Debbie Harry and keyboardist Jimmy Destri actually created something that was stranger still. Thereafter it fell to positions 25 and 46, proving that the curious collection of songs of nostalgia, domestic contentment and disco wasn’t to everyone’s taste. Always a brilliant lyric writer, Joe Strummer’s narrative thrust on ‘Straight To Hell’ was multi-dimensional. And so it was with ‘Pacific State’, a mixture of sexy saxaphone skronking and brain-burrowing bass so relentless it could worm its way into your noggin and stay there forever more. It’s not just furious thrashing, though – the lengthy instrumental breakdown, which kicks in halfway through, is evidence of four dudes at the top of their game. If you didn't know better you'd think only about 15 to 20 songs were released throughout the entire decade of the '80's, watching The X Factor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YrXY4isgLs. A Day Without Me - U2. For better or worse, ‘The One I Love’ was REM’s big push through the commercial barriers, a US top 10 hit transforming them in one fell swoop from floppy-haired college radio darlings to bald-bonced plane-trashing heroes of the glossy monthlies. 6. It builds and builds until you can take no more. “Modern Love” by David Bowie. The guitarist rescued the tool from mid-70s Peter Frampton ignominy, to give us the “ooh-wa ooh-wah” sound that ate the world. The world's defining voice in music and pop culture since 1952. Van Halen Women and Children First (1980) 12: 12. 4.7 out of 5 stars 92 ratings. Landing somewhere between Parliament, hip-hop and spaghetti western, ‘Word Up’ is a ridiculous stew of pop madness that just worked, all the way to No.3 in the hit parade. Naturally, the song that broke sampling into the UK mainstream was a collaboration between two obscure 4AD bands and a couple of DJs. Price: $31.50 + $12.58 Shipping See all 11 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions. Here, however, we whittle down a decade of societal decadence and political decay into the 100 tracks that defined it. Ah, the 80s. Alongside Moz, Johnny Marr invents the indie jangle and drops metal knives on his Telecaster. A Good Heart - Feargal Sharkey. The sparsity of the music was a new direction for the band as were the bare, sexual lyrics, but it would provide them with their breakthrough track and cast singer Michael Hutchence as a heartthrob. Extraordinarily, ‘Push It’ started out as a B-side to ‘Tramp’, relegated by a grind around an Otis Redding sample. The peak of AC/DC’s lithe, fat-free years. List of 100 Greatest Songs From 1980 plus 20 more songs worth mentioning and editors picks for an unheralded great record for the year 1980. It’s all drenched in strings, nostalgia and pathos as Moz starts filling up about greased tea and grey proms, spooning on the melodrama until we’re all remembering miserable holidays in the English rain. Songs released in 1980. Find out now! Hard to listen to now without getting something in your eye about Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in Lost In Translation, ‘Just Like Honey’ revealed there was more to the Reid brothers than devastating shards of noise battling against tinny drums and subterranean vocals. James Hetfield claimed this was about how taking shitloads of drugs makes it impossible to function as a normal human being – whodathunkit! The list on this page is for all #1 hit Country singles for 1980 using proprietary methods. The band formed in 1976 and released their debut EP Three in 1979 exclusively in Ireland. Vote on as many polls as you want, and come back often! The results in this chart are not affiliated with any mainstream or commercial chart and may not reflect charts seen elsewhere. Other songs are Joys Of Christmas (also released as a single in 1987), which sounds bluesy and recluse more than Christmas; Winter Song is quite nice, the fourth track is Footsteps In The Snow. Very British Christmas hit from 1980. Only Neil Tennant could wedge his tongue so far in his cheek to set a rousing defiance of his Catholic upbringing to hi-NRG opera. Official UK releases were given to the more brassy stuff but ‘That’s Entertainment’ closer represented the soul of The Jam, or at least the soul of Paul Weller. Criteria: These cover songs/remakes of the 1980s are ranked according to their initial and lasting popularity, influence and acclaim, as well as their cultural impact. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ChjLMbXVrU. Quincy Jones didn’t want the song on the album, which shows what he knows. The first taster from their ‘Reading, Writing And Arithmetic’ LP is a lovely breeze of jangling indie-pop reminiscent of Johnny Marr’s work with The Smiths, but singer Harriet Wheeler’s remarkable set of pipes – with her ethereal, wistful whisper – ensured they had a sound entirely of their own. ‘Two Tribes’ was the follow-up to the censor-baiting ‘Relax’, but it was a monster hit in its own right – even though it didn’t induce the same foaming-mouth fury as its predecessor, it still topped the UK charts for nine weeks. Songs of Pain. Edwyn Collins and co bagged their first, and last, Top 10 hit when ‘Rip It Up’ was released as a single – and it’s easy to see why. And that message is “Don’t look back/ You can never look back“. Quite a lot, but you get the idea. Written by Frank Black after he went scuba diving, the track landed in the middle of ‘Surfer Rosa’ in all its wild, wind swept glory, anchored by Kim Deal’s ‘Ooh-Woo’’s and a simple guitar riff. Cameo had been around for donkey’s years, even occasionally sidling into the UK charts with the ultra-smooth funk of ‘She’s Strange’ and ‘Single Life’, but it took an enormous red codpiece and silly twang to make Larry Blackmon a true star. And what a chorus. View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1980 Vinyl release of Love Songs on Discogs. “Money for Nothing” Dire Straits (1985) 61. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8kjbjx2EUw. You cheer him on all the more. New Releases. Their career would sidestep into darker territories subsequently, but this was their flushed, pop peak. Top 100 Songs of 1980 Year: All Time 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978 1977 1976 1975 1974 1973 1972 1971 1970 1969 1968 1967 1966 1965 1964 1963 1962 1961 1960 1959 1958 1957 1956 1955 1954 1953 1952 1951 1950