Mark Wyman

Oh interesting, I hadn't thought of that.

Why yes, I am cheating a bit with that clip: it's from the phenomenal December '83 sessions that became Jonathan Demme's film “Stop Making Sense”, but it was too good (just #toofunky, thanks to Tina Weymouth's bass) not to. The original studio version is more abrasive, with Byrne snarling the words.

YouTube video by Violet Addams Talking Heads - Cities (Live 1983 - HD)

Track 180 of 400: “CITIES” by Talking Heads
A few places above that bizarre take on “Psycho Killer” in my chart, here's the band themselves with a track from their third LP “Fear of Music”. I'm sure Scottish-born #DavidByrne (hey, he shares my birthday!) was teasing in calling London a small city.

In retrospect, it's one of my favourite songs by Birmingham's finest ska-fuelled band. I guess it was early 1981 when I bought the dub-heavy 12” #vinyl version (which I still own, natch), so I clearly rated it more highly than this placing. Three more 1980 #Beat songs in the wings in this countdown!

YouTube video by RHINO The English Beat - Too Nice to Talk To (Official Music Video)

Track 181 of 400: “TOO NICE TO TALK TO” by The Beat
This was the 4th single released by The “English” Beat in 1980, but too close to the year's end to have proper impact on my annual round-up. Which is to say: I'd have put it much higher in a chart for 1981, where it peaked at #7 the next January.

But as great as Skids sounded, with that guitar energy from #StuartAdamson … I was Today Years Old when I discovered most of the lyrics to this one, because that's how impenetrable Richard Jobson's songs were. Did I know it refers to Vietnam, the iron rod, Tragen and human flares? Absolutely not.

YouTube video by skidsvids The Skids ~ Working For The Yankee Dollar-video

Track 182 of 400: “WORKING FOR THE YANKEE DOLLAR” by Skids
In my teens, I loved the sound that #Skids made, so here's the first of *five* singles by the Scottish band on release in 1980 that fell within my chart. This song peaked at #20 in the UK in that mid-January but spent 8 weeks in the Top 30.

The Best Worst Lines In Doctor Who Doctor Who is a television show with hundreds of episodes and thousands of lines of dialogue. Some of those lines are brilliant, inspiring, profound, they can lift your day and/or understanding of …

The best worst lines in Doctor Who, the ones where you can take most delight in the sheer terribleness: lmmyles.com/2026/02/06/t...

Spookily, I was eating biscuits* when I stumbled upon your thread just now. I am, though, absolutely positive that I bought them for myself.

*well, chocolate rice cakes

In April 1976, in a café at Cambridge railway station, Douglas Adams bought some biscuits. We know this because he told the story so many times that it somehow opened up a wormhole in the space-time continuum, travelling both forwards and backwards and, intriguingly, sideways in time. (1/some...)

Even by the standards of scandalous svengali McLaren's career, his overseeing of a band fronted by the 14 year-old Annabella Lwin with lyrics that were as, on this song, more than suggestive caused a lot of controversy. All the same, #BowWowWow 's chart impact was minor during 1980.
#80sCassettes

YouTube video by The Jukebox Rebel Bow Wow Wow - Louis Quatorze

Track 183 of 400: “LOUIS QUATORZE” by Bow Wow Wow
Radical format alert! So far, my 1980 countdown has been all about the vinyl. But here's "Your Cassette Pet", a mini-album *in that form only* from a band created by Malcolm McLaren. This was the lead track in a set of 8 allowed in the singles chart.

In autumn 1982, almost two years after I compiled this year-end chart, "New Gold Dream" by #SimpleMinds would be the first album I bought on cassette after starting university in London. I bought an (ahem) ghetto blaster that was too powerful for my little room in halls. Happy times.
#80sCollegeRock

YouTube video by SIMPLE MINDS Latin America SIMPLE MINDS Changeling

Track 184 of 400: “CHANGELING” by Simple Minds
Here's the 2nd and final track from the more abrasive 1980 vintage of Jim Kerr's not-yet-superstar Glasgow band. “Overground, underground, pulsating through” goes its opening line, which makes them sound like a post-punk alternative to the #Wombles.

Oh, was it? I used to be such a Popmaster devotee on R2 but I'm afraid I didn't follow Ken over to the land of GreatestHits, so I've not heard a round of it in aaaages.

Granted, those 4 Buggles singles had diminishing returns, so “Clean, Clean” could only reach #38 in the UK. This fighting-talk song was first recorded in 1979 by Bruce Woolley & the Camera Club, featuring the genius of #ThomasDolby, who partly composed the track. Two more #Buggles singles up later.

YouTube video by TheBugglesVEVO The Buggles - Clean, Clean

Track 185 of 400: “CLEAN, CLEAN” by The Buggles
I'm sure some might assume that Buggles were one-hit wonders with the MTV-bookending “Video Killed the Radio Star”, but that would be a fallacy. There were in fact 4 hit singles from their album “The Plastic Age”, this being the third.
#Forgotten80s

Shalamar's 1980 hits were taken from "Big Fun”, their aptly titled LP of the previous year. Their record label was then SOLAR, ie Sound of Los Angeles Records—also home to the Whispers, who had song #347 in this countdown. That label's founder, Dick Griffey, also gave Shalamar their name.

#80sFunk

YouTube video by Solar Records Shalamar - "I Owe You One" (Official Video)

Track 186 of 400: “I OWE YOU ONE” by Shalamar
What a change of mood. Here's some sincerely bright, breezy and #funkypop from the trio previously listed at #292 with “Right in the Socket”. Their second hit single of 1980, “I Owe You One” was actually the first #Shalamar track to enter the UK Top 20.

Released in late 1980, Jackson's awkward third album “Beat Crazy” was finally credited to the band named for him. “Mad at You”, which digs too harshly at the battle of the sexes, was the first of four tracks from it released on 7” vinyl; none made the UK chart.
I don't like it now.
#Forgotten80s

YouTube video by MrHbsauce, Punk Rock & New Wave videos JOE JACKSON - Mad At You (Promo Video) 1980

Track 187 of 400: “MAD AT YOU” by Joe Jackson Band
Even for someone whose musical style became more chameleon-like soon after, it's startling how far this is in tone from the smooth keyboard-based crooning that gave Joe J his biggest success later in the '80s. In short: this is an ugly, angry rant.

Whereas the title song from “Xanadu” would become ELO's only UK #1, this earlier single could only peak at #18 in 1980. It thus broke a run of seven Top 10 singles for Jeff Lynne & co, beginning with #MrBlueSky. It did, however, reach the Top 10 in France and was certified gold in the USA.

#80sPop

YouTube video by Gunnerb52 Xanadu I'm Alive (Electric Light Orchestra)

Track 188 of 400: “I'M ALIVE” by Electric Light Orchestra
Bit of a surprise to be reminded that this was the first single released from the “Xanadu” soundtrack in 1980, and not the title track. No sign of Olivia Newton-John on this song but my 16 y/o self can't have thought it was ELO at their best.

Twisting “Psycho Killer” - a song on debut album Talking Heads:77 - into poultry-based lyrics and #DavidByrne 's “Fa-fa-fa-fa” into clucks, The Fools were a band from Massachusetts who became big enough to support The Knack and Van Halen on tour. I'd forgotten all about them and this track.
#80sRock

YouTube video by rrraaagggeeee The Fools - Psycho Chicken (1980)

Track 189 of 400: “PSYCHO CHICKEN” by The Fools
Falling somewhere between the demise of the UK's Barron Knights-style parody songs of the '70s and the rise of Weird Al Yankovic later in the '80s, here come the Fools with, yes. their take on #TalkingHeads' seminal track Psycho Killer.
#Forgotten80s

Share a photograph of mountains that you’ve taken.

As one of the founding/permanent members of Genesis, along with Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford was responsible for lyrics to some of the band's most successful songs, such as “Follow You, Follow Me” (which this solo song rather resembles in feeling) and “Turn It On Again” (which it rather doesn't).

YouTube video by Bohunk Music Time And Time Again - Mike Rutherford (HQ Audio)

Track 190 of 400: “TIME AND TIME AGAIN” by Mike Rutherford
The second single taken from “Smallcreep's Day”, the Top 20 album from the (bass and lead) guitarist of #Genesis, was—like the first, listed below at #338 —not a hit. Which is rather a shame, as it's a gorgeously gentle-yet-powerful song.

#TheJam would hardly be expected to appear at a “world music” festival, but in 1977-78 this was their third single in a row to have “world” in the title. I will get to the singles that were actually new releases for them in 1980 in time, but there's a long way to go in this countdown yet.

YouTube video by dicka101 The Jam - News Of The World - Top of the Pops 1978

Track 191 of 400: “NEWS OF THE WORLD” by The Jam
A real rarity among Jam singles, in that the vocals and songwriting were by Bruce Foxton, rather than #PaulWeller, but it worked just as well. This non-album track was another reissue in 1980; it first peaked at #27 two years earlier.

#NewWave80s