With Maggie becoming our leader in May 1979. British Music could be compared to the social scene at the time. We saw a dramatic switch in musical/political differences. The late seventies saw a lot of musical genres from Punk rock to New Wave and the introduction of 2 tone records to which the youth of Britain could relate to. However, the 80's was directly shaped by 3 major developments.
Firstly, the technological leap to sampler and sequencers and programmed drums, effectively a whole band could be replaced by a button.
Secondly, the advent of MTV which saw the success of video promos and bands with big film type budgets to produce a 3 minute epic.
Lastly, the crossover of different types of music where many would merge the likes of soul, rock, pop and disco.
The biggest success of all three would be Michael Jackson who became the self proclaimed King of Pop.
So how did the music scene fair in 1980. New wave and 2 tone were having sucess with the Pretenders and the specials respectively having there first number one hits. The Police had the biggest selling UK hit with Dont stand so close to me which was a fuse of Reggae/pop. Also other bands had their maiden number one hits such as The Jam and Dexys Midnight runners. Also 1980 saw a variant mix of music that hit number one diverse genres such as Country Music with Kenny Rogers Coward of the County, Motown giants Detroit Spiners with Working my way back to you, the american influence was still strong with Blondie, The Theme for MASH TV programme and Barbra Streisand all hitting the top. The European giants ABBA also made the coveted spot.
The last 2 number ones of 1980 were in stark contrast, firstly John Lennon hit the top with Just Like Starting Over following his untimely death weeks previous and then he was replaced by St Winnifreds Choir with the Grandma Song Starting the long trend of novelty records in the 1980s.
1980 also saw the deaths of some of music biggest icons. John Lennon was murdered in New york, Ian Curtis the Lead singer of Cult band Joy Division committed suicide just days before the start of there USA tour. Bon Scott lead singer of ACDC died after one too many binges and Led Zeppelin Drummer John Bonham was found dead by his band mate.
In terms of albums there were some notable achievements with ACDC hitting the mainstream with the release of the infamous Back in Black, the pretenders with there self titled album to match the singles success and ABBA started and ended the year with 2 number one albums with the later being the biggest selling album of the year.
Also in 1980 soon to be rock giants U2 released there first album named Boy and Joy Division relased there final posthumous Album Closer which had all the hallmarks of being the most definitive album ever.
Did you know? The first monsters of rock took place in 1980 and still evergreen now.
Recommendations of albums to listen to from 1980
Closer - Joy Division
Back in black - ACDC
Pretenders - Pretenders
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