1981

The AV club had a series of articles on the best year… and one writer took on the best year in music, choosing 1981. My memory of those days is somewhat hazy (it’s not just the short-term memory), but I was ready for all the good music of 1981.

The author mentioned Elvis Costello’s Trust as the best of the year, but many of the rest didn’t register as strongly for me (he had the Clash’ Sandanista as the 3rd best record of 1981, which I show as having been released in 1980), so putting together a podcast with the best of 1981 (35 years ago) wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

1981 was a transitional year – most of the major bands had taken the year off, and punk was sputtering out, not yet to have newer forms (new wave, etc.) take over, so although there were some strong records, overall it wasn’t as strong as other years.

Still, I think I have many good songs to make up the podcast. Let’s reach back all those years ago and groove to the Rolling Stones, Lyres, Mission of Burma, the dB’s, Elvis Costello, the English Beat, Squeeze, Rough Trade, Gang of Four, the Blasters, the Undertones, Visage, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Joan Armatrading, and Garland Jeffreys.

This podcast is available to stream or download at brennick.net. Thank you for taking the time to stream or download this podcast, or any of the other podcasts, all of which are still available at the site. Please leave comments and suggestions at the site (I do read the comments), and share this with other like-minded friends. Thank you.