Comments on: Top 5: Hard to Say

By: pd

pd — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 23:38:55 +0000

July of 1981 marked the beginning of my 4 years in hardcore BM (sorry, Beautiful Music). I didn’t notice a thing…..

By: JP

JP — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 23:45:48 +0000

“what’s oddest about the WLS survey dated September 26, 1981, is the almost complete absence of anything you could call R&B, apart from Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, the Pointer Sisters, Frankie Smith, and Kool and the Gang.”

You forgot Stacy Lattisaw, hanging in at #25 with her pointless remake of the Moments’”Love On A Two-Way Street.”

By: jb

jb — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 13:26:05 +0000

As I’ve noted before, those of us in the relatively rural Midwest (and Shark and I were at the same college in 1981) lived in a world where punk and new wave never happened. Apart from “Lunatic Fringe,” “Super Freak” and “Talk To Ya Later,” none of the songs Scraps mentions got on the radio in our world. Not even “I Will Follow.” (U2 was unknown in this particular world until “The Unforgettable Fire” in 1984.)

It might be more appropriate to say that 1981 was one of the worst years for mainstream music radio–and it certainly proves why the MTV earthquake of 1982 and 1983 had to happen.

By: Scraps

Scraps — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 21:39:21 +0000

“Lunatic Fringe” by Red Rider
“Pull Up to the Bumper” by Grace Jones
“Is That Love?” by Squeeze
“The Weakness in Me” by Joan Armatrading
“Only the Stones Remain” by the Soft Boys
“Work” by Blue Orchids
“Follow the Leaders” by Killing Joke
“Penthouse and Pavement” by Heaven 17
“Eisiger Wind” by Liliput
“It’s Going to Happen!” by the Undertones
“Watch Your Step” by Elvis Costello
“Not Happy” by Pere Ubu
“About the Weather” by Magazine
“Grass” by Robert Wyatt
“Sense of Purpose” by the Sound
“Johnnie Are You Queer?” by Josie Cotton
“Bob Hope Takes Risks” by Rip Rig & Panic
“You’re No Good” by ESG
“Inconvenience” by Au Pairs
“Politics” by Girls at Our Best
“Swords of a Thousand Men” by Tenpole Tudor
“Hungry So Angry” by Medium Medium
“Spasticus Autisticus” by Ian Dury
“Chihuahua” by Bow Wow Wow
“Ten Don’ts for Honeymooners” by the Monochrome Set
“Up All Night” by the Boomtown Rats
“Doors of Your Heart” by the English Beat
“Talk To Ya Later” by the Tubes
“Tonight” by the Mo-dettes

I’ll stop. Seriously, I think 1981 is one of the best years for singles ever. And while most of the stuff I’ve listed wasn’t getting played on top 40 radio, there was a brief boom of “new wave” radio in the U.S., and I heard most of these songs on the radio.

By: Scraps

Scraps — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 21:20:40 +0000

With no offense intended at all, that first paragraph to me convincingly hammers home the notion that 1981 was a terrible year, at least for top 40 radio. The first sentence alone… when 1981 albums by the Moody Blues and Jefferson Starship are in the first half dozen albums mentioned — which actually makes Journey look good by comparison — that’s an awful year. I like Foreigner quite a bit and J. Geils Band a little bit, but if that’s the best… you see what I mean.

Outside of American top 40 radio, though, 1981 was a great year. Just confining it to singles:

The Specials, “Ghost Town”
R.E.M., “Radio Free Europe”
The Jam, “That’s Entertainment”
Kraftwerk, “The Model”
The Gun Club, “Sex Beat”
Laurie Anderson, “O Superman”
Gang of Four, “To Hell with Poverty”
Dead Kennedys, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” and “Too Drunk to Fuck”
The Swingers, “Counting the Beat”
The Tom Tom Club, “Genius of Love”
Kate Bush, “Sat in Your Lap”
U2, “I Will Follow”
Adam & the Ants, “Stand and Deliver”
Rick James, “Super Freak”
The Plimsouls, “A Million Miles Away”
Depeche Mode, “Just Can’t Get Enough”
Siouxsie & the Banshees, “Spellbound”
Madness, “Grey Day” and “It Must Be Love”
Flipper, “Sexbomb”
The Birthday Party, “Release the Bats” and “Nick the Stripper”
Pigbag, “Papa’s Got a Brand New Pigbag”
Psychedelic Furs, “Pretty in Pink” (the original, not the awful re-recording for the movie)
The Cure, “Primary”
Wire, “Our Swimmer”
Altered Images, “I Could Be Happy”
Zounds, “Demystification”
Heaven 17, “We Don’t Need This Fascist Groove Thang”
Pylon, “Crazy”
Soft Cell, “Sex Dwarf”
Echo & the Bunnymen, “A Promise”
Split Enz, “History Never Repeats”
Ultravox, “All Stood Still”
Pete Shelley, “Homosapien”
XTC, “Respectable Street”
Lene Lovich, “New Toy”
Thomas Dolby, “Europa and the Pirate Twins” and “Radio Silence”
The Teardrop Explodes, “Passionate Friend”
Grace Jones, “Walking in the Rain”
Television Personalities, “I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives”
UB40, “One in Ten”
The dB’s, “Judy”

I could go on.

By: Shark

Shark — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:19:07 +0000

While some observers look at 1981 as a terrible year for music, I consider a very good year. We had albums released by the Rolling Stones (“Tattoo You”), The Moody Blues (“Long Distance Voyager”),the J Geils Band (“Freeze Frame”), Foreigner (“4″), Journey (“Escape”), and Jefferson Starship (“Modern Times”) and all of those albums had bit hits, plus Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band released a live album, “Nine Tonight” with the hit “Tryin’ to Live My Life Without You.”. We also had hits by the Greg Kihn Band, Loverboy, Phil Collins, Frankie & the Knockouts, .38 Special, Triumph, Rick Springfield, and Rush. Also don’t forget Kim Carnes with a Number One hit, “Bette Davis Eyes.” You also had hits from John Lennon early in 1981 from the 1980 album “Double Fantasy” and from AC/DC’s “Back in Black.”

It was a wierd year in music when you factor in the wimpy hits by Dan Fogelberg,Christopher Cross, Joey Scarbury, and Diana Roos & Lionel Ritchie as mentioned by JB. Add to that, the carryover hits from 1980 which included some of the worst music ever produced by Styx (“Paradise Theatre”), and REO Speedwagon (“HIgh Infidelity”). Bruce Springsteen released “The River” in late 1980 which produced the hit “Hungry Heart” but the rest of the album failed to deliver a big hit 1981. The Cars also released “Panorama” with the single “Touch and Go” and it tanked after a few weeks.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 11:39:15 +0000

You hit the nail right on the head when you compare Point Blank to “sounds like an outtake from an Atlanta Rhythm Section album”! I used to play ARS relentlessly and never could get over the comparison to other bands at the time.

I smell an idea brewing for my site.

By: Barely Awake In Frog Pajamas,

Barely Awake In Frog Pajamas, — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 23:06:47 +0000

Well, there’s no way I’m defending any of those selections except for the Greg Kihn. Although he didn’t have a lot of hits, he was enormously popular with several of my friends. I believe that he’s a DJ in California now.

By: John

John — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:32:43 +0000

What’s with parentheses in song titles, anyway? It seems like an inability to commit. Either it’s part of the title or it isn’t. Where did this strange convention in titling come from?

By: whiteray

whiteray — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:16:01 +0000

I’d pretty well checked out of Top 40 by the time this chart came out, having fled to some jazz and then whatever Adult Pop mix KS95 in the Twin Cities was playing. But that was a pretty bad chart, indeed, and much of it oozed over into public currency, sad to say.