I give every song on Popular a mark out of 10. This is your opportunity to pick any that YOU would have given 6 or more to from 1980 – and you can talk about the year in general in the comments box.
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Tom in FT /Popular • Pop/popular year poll • 1,057 views
All the UK number ones since 1952, reviewed in order and rated by whim. As featured on Radio 2, The Times, Metro, Paul Cornell's LiveJournal, etc etc.
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A 17-7 victory for the songs I like, though I seem to have accidentally not ticked The Specials’ box. Probably fewer exceptional songs than in 1979, though.
14-10 here – a lot of 5s and 6s though, and a couple of sticky patches.
I think this is the first year I’ve used the 10 and the 1.
16 cor – v generous to a couple but slightly harsh on one or two others
Only 8 from me, not the greatest year for number ones but a brilliant one for the rest of the charts.
Only 8 from me too (and almost all of them from the first half of the year); a real disappointment after 1979′s excellent set of #1s!
11 for me which is more than I expected – I fell out with Call Me and it missed the cut. There were some great songs that year – can anyone supply the NME poll charts as a reminder?
15-9 for me, after a late decision to allow Fern Kinney into the corral because I’m feeling mellow.
NME Critics’ poll for 1980;
1. Love will tear us apart – Joy Division
2. Going underground – The Jam
3. Mirror in the bathroom – The Beat
4. Atmosphere – Joy Division
5. Ashes to ashes – David Bowie
6. Your cassette pet – Bow Wow Wow
7. Private life – Grace Jones
8. Fashion – David Bowie
9. C30 C60 C90 go – Bow Wow Wow
10. Master blaster – Steve Wonder
11. Treason – Teardrop Explodes
12. Geno – Dexys Midnight Runners
13. Start! – The Jam
14. Food for thought/King – UB40
15. New Amsterdam EP – Elvis Costello
16. Shack up – A Certain Ratio
17. Rescue – Echo & The Bunnymen
18. My way of thinking – UB40
19. The breaks – Kurtis Blow
20. Stand down Margaret/Best friend – The Beat
21. I can’t stand up for falling down – Elvis Costello
22. Drug train – The Cramps
23. Fiery jack – The Fall
24. Dance stance – Dexys Midnight Runners
25. Johnny & Mary – Robert Palmer
26. Hands off .. she’s mine – The Beat
27. My flamingo – The Subterraneans
28. A song from under the floorboards – Magazine
29. Independence day – Comsat Angels
30. My perfect cousin – The Undertones
31. Runaway boys – The Stray Cats
32. At last I am free – Robert Wyatt
33. Looking for clues – Robert Palmer
34. There, there my dear – Dexys Midnight Runners
35. My girl – Madness
36. Another nail in my heart – Squeeze
37. Flight – A Certain Ratio
38. Diet/It’s obvious – The Au Pairs
39. Funkin’ for Jamaica – Tom Browne
40. Seconds to late – Cabaret Voltaire
41. I’m coming out – Diana Ross
42. Hi-Fidelity – Elvis Costello
43. Warrior charge – Aswad
44. Love comes in spurts – Richard Hell
45. Edward fox – Smack
46. Don’t stand so close to me – The Police
47. Hello I’m your heart – Bette Bright
48. Rise and shine – Linx
49. Happy house – Siouxsie & the Banshees
50. Dog eat dog – Adam & The Ants
Sounds’ critics poll for 1980 (Melody Maker had no time for singles of the year);
1. C30 C60 C90 Go! – Bow Wow Wow
2. Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division
3. Going Underground – The Jam
4. Biko – Peter Gabriel
5. Talk Of The Town – The Pretenders
6. Can’t Stand up For Falling Down – Elvis Costello
7. Holiday In Cambodia – Dead Kennedys
8. King/Food For Thought – UB40
9. You Better Scream – Wah! Heat
10. Staring At The Rude Boys – The Ruts
11. To Cut A Long Story Short – Spandau Ballet
12. Two Pints Of Lager – Splodgenessabounds
13. 747 (strangers In The Night) – Saxon
14. Circus Games – The Skids
15. West One (Shine On Me) – The Ruts
16. My Number – Girl
17. Seven Minutes To Midnight – Wah! Heat
18. A Forest – The Cure
19. Commercial Single – The Residents
20. Lights – Styx
21. Heyday – The Sound
22. Games Without Frontiers – Peter Gabriel
23. Give Me Back My Man – B52s
24. Mirror In The bathroom – The Beat
25. Dark Companion – Tuxedo Moon
26. Girls Talk – Dave Edmunds
27. Simply Thrilled Honey – Orange Juice
28. Totally Wired – The Fall
29. Dog Eat Dog – Adam And The Ants
30. I’m Coming Out – Diana Ross
notes on nme 1980 list (which is i think a pretty good list): the subterraneans = nme writer nick kent’s band, so presence on this list is PURE nepotism
however wtf = 45. Edward fox – Smack????
interesting how sludgy the MM LP list looks to me, even though it features largely the same artists as the NME singles list: it was an era of singles, really — industry protocols required LPs be made but i wish more folks had taken the bow wow wow/PiL route and looked at and thought about other formats
nicked off wiki:
The post-punk band Smack released the single “Edward Fox” in the early 1980s. The song set a newspaper biography concerning Edward Fox to a musical score. The biography was published in New Manchester Review, and the single was produced by Rowland Jones at Drone Studios in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, owned by the late Paul Roberts.
Those Beat singles were/are fantastic – as was Private Life by Grace Jones (and the flipside She’s lost control) – - heard her new single: ‘Williams blood’ today and it sounds absolutely wonderful
except for the ub40 stuff — i always found his voice superwhiney and avoided them — i have everything on that list, not least because i consciously collected stuff, ticking it off (it was HOMEWORK: i wanted to write for nme and by 1983 did so), so why has it taken me 28 years to spot that i didn’t spot one entry on the list, or know anything about them
it’s like when buffy came down to breakfast one day and had a teenage sister who’d always been there that no one had noticed before
I saw “Food for Thought” on TOTP2, and remembered UB40 were good once. Just the once though.
Plenty of opportunity for that case study in, ooh, 2½ years’ time.
Here are the same charts seen upside down – ie the records that peaked at number 40 (“the anchor position” Dale Winton) in 1980
26 Jan Wonderland – The Commodores – 1 week
9 Feb Dance Stance – Dexy’s Midnight Runners – 1
16 Feb Maybe Tomorrow – The Chords – 1
26 Apr All For Lenya – Billy Joel – 1
31 May Body Language – The Detroit Spinners – 1
25 Oct Don’t Say I Told You So – The Tourists – 1
29 Nov Girls Can Get It – Dr. Hook – 1
6 Dec The Call Up – The Clash – 1
Dance Stance and The Call Up both considerably better than almost every number one of this year.
I voted for 17 out of the 24. I doubt that number will be as high again.
In terms of pop, 1980 is probably my favourite year. It was certainly the year that what was previously a mere interest blossomed into the full blown obsession. By November I had bought myself a transistor radio and began what became a night time ritual of listening to what was on offer (John Peel, Luxembourg, Capital Radio etc) until my lids felt heavy and I dropped off to sleep.
According to Record Mirror which I read at the time the Police were voted the naff act of the year,followed closely by Bad Manners, it was the era of Tiswas.
I think it was a pretty good year for music in general in 1980 stuff by Spandau Ballet, Roxy Music, Visage, Adam and the Ants,Madness,Kate Bush,Steely Dan, Joy Division ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’,Oddyssey ‘If You’re Looking For a Way Out’,Azymuth ‘Jazz Carnival’, Mystic Merlin ‘Just Can’t Give You Up’, Change ‘Lover’s Holiday’ Mass Production ‘Shante’etc etc but I’m struggling to find any besides Abba ‘Winner Takes It All’ and ‘Geno’ to give 6 to out of this lot here – I’d say easily my worst year for No1′s so far by far
Re: #8 I only very very vaguely remember that Subterraneans single but I’m sure I thought it was rather good at the time.
The NME list is amazing, out of 50 records there’s only about 3 I can say I don’t care for. So I’m sticking to my guns that 1980 was better than 1979 overall.
lee it is pretty good but it’s not really top 50 good
It occurred to me that I was 18 in 1980 so do I have a warped sense of how good pop music should be? Being that age in a year like that?
there seems to have been a big fan of wah!heat at sounds
it’s good to be reminded of Robert Palmer’s work with Gary Numan – I thought it was a dumb move at the time but it now seems quite far sighted
There was a lot of great music coming out of Compass Point studios that year what with Grace Jones, Talking Heads -and (apparantly) AC/DCs Back in Black
that nme list, while it contains some great songs, is typically too cool for school, the same problem that blights all rock press lists – journalists chosing tracks/albums that they think they should be championing (or showing appreciation of)*
I mean, A Certain Ratio. Really, this kind of non-rhythmic take on funk was only ever viable in the minds of a select coterie of writers.
* plenty of genuine choices too no doubt.
well, it is a critic’s poll! that’s kind of the point of them — to point out stuff that isn’t (yet) popular, or being paid proper attention, not just replicate the reader’s poll
I see that, I just think there’s a tendency for writers to be a bit disingenuous in the compilation of such lists.
A bit? To be fair to the readers, I’m pretty sure they spread the disingenuity around too.
Re 25: I’m not sure about that at all. I’ve known plenty of critics in my time, and I think a lot of them were people who would listen to ACR for fun (or settle down for a thrilling weekend of films set in Turkish villages without the slightest sense of duty). For one thing, those are the kind of people (men) who tend to become critics in the first place, and secondly, you’ve moved into circles where people will say “The Pop Group are Pop!” and mean it. The more time you spend with them, the more your baseline can shift – until and unless you flip back the other way and cry “Let me listen to some number one singles!” As totally inexplicable as I find that idea that anyone could have ever enjoyed the music of Tortoise, for instance, my assumption is that if they say they do, they do.
Here are the phantom number ones of 1980 that got to the top of the NME chart, but not the Guinness one; My Girl, Dance Yourself Dizzy, No Doubt About It, Funktown, Upside Down, One Day I’ll Fly Away, Stop The Cavalry.
acr were fun! of the dourest kind!
Mark M – you’re right about this. I do believe there is a lot of genuine passion in the writing. I guess a lot of critics start out as passionate fans.
I do think that the NME missed a trick or two in the early 80s until Morley and New Pop and ABC came along in the autumn of 81, when they were suddenly right OTM
I know a couple of music journalists and I guess my opinion is clouded by them – they are nowhere near in the same category as A&R men though, whose opinion is 5% based on what they like, and 95% based on whether Tim from squirrel records likes it.
I remember an A&R man once telling me, in all earnestness, that Gomez were the most important thing to happen in 20 years.
I’m sorry I ve had some wine at work. This isn’t the most coherent of posts.
NME Readers Poll 1980;
1. The Jam – Going Underground
2. Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart
3. David Bowie – Ashes To Ashes
4. Joy Division – Atmosphere
5. The Jam – Start!
6. David Bowie – Fashion
7. The Clash – Bankrobber
8. OMD – Enola Gay
9. Peter Gabriel – Games Without Frontiers
10. Adam & The Ants – Dog Eat Dog
11. The Dead Kennedys – Holiday In Cambodia
12. The Cure – A Forest
13. The Police – Don’t Stand So Close To Me
14. UB40 – Food For Thought
15. The Beat – Mirror In The Bathroom
16. The Stray Cats – Runaway Boys
17. The Stranglers – Who Wants The World?
18. Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Geno
19. Siouxsie & The Banshees – Christine
20. Madness – Baggy Trousers
Melody Maker readers’ poll 1980;
1. Pink Floyd – Another Brick In The Wall
2. Peter Gabriel – Games Without Frontiers
3. Genesis – Turn It On Again
4. The Jam – Going Underground
5. Rush – The Spirit Of Radio
6. Whitesnake – Fool For Your Loving
7. David Bowie – Ashes To Ashes
8. Saxon – 747 (Strangers In The Night)
9. Black Sabbath – Neon Knights
10. Rainbow – All Night Long
Oh noes the reboot of WordPress has fucked the polling up again :(
something’s not right. but you’d put in the poll tag wrong again, naughty tom. Use the ‘insert poll’ button and it should format it for you ok. i re-did it and now it’s showing the 1980 poll
HOWEVER. we seem to have had a guest-vote invasion (problys spam-bots submitting the form) on the last few ‘still open’ polls. i will see if i can correct this without prejudicing real votes. Perhaps consider not keeping polls open indefinitely
(there is actually an update of the poll plugin, but i don’t think it’s relevant yet, and i’d need to re-implement my ‘secret ballot’ hack)
UPDATE: fixed the total of votes back to normal. maybe it wasn’t spam-bots. could be something up in the polling code. i should look at getting that update done…