1981: The Year Everything Changed

The Jam ring in the new year with a bulletproof classic

You may not realize it, but 2021 is the 40th anniversary of the Year Everything Changed. Well, musically-speaking, I mean.

The true importance of 1981 may not be realized for some time to come, given the intractable and reactionary nature of popular music today. But 1981 was a pivotal year in that many of the important innovations made in Rock music flowered in this brilliant, amazing year. 

For those such as myself who were conditioned to expect non-stop excitement in popular culture, many of the years since have been bitter disappointments. 

In fact, 1981 was so great, it actually started in late 1980. Many of the records released in late ‘80 were to dominate the Rock community’s consciousness (when such a thing actually existed) in the first half of 1981. 

Within weeks of each other, The Jam's Sound Affects, David Bowie’s Scary Monsters, U2’s Boy, Blondie’s AutoAmerican, Talking Heads’ Remain in Light, the B-52’s Wild Planet, Motorhead's Ace of Spades, The Clash’s Sandinista, Bow Wow Wow's Your Cassette Pet and Adam and the Ants' Kings of the Wild Frontier were all released. 

This was an astonishing barrage of immeasurably influential music. 

These records all set the tone for ‘81, in many ways raising the goalpost for their rivals and admirers. It’s hard to believe now, but once upon a time musicians believed that they were obliged to do something new and innovative, rather than just rehash ideas found in their older siblings’ record collections. And once the gauntlet was thrown, the floodgates roared open. 

The vocal track is an unknown English exorcist and a woman named Elizabeth, recorded sometime in September 1980 in New York City.

Remain in Light and Sandinista! essentially created the World Music movement by refocusing New Wave’s outlook to the Third World in general, the Caribbean and Africa in particular. 

Essentially a David Byrne-Brian Eno album with the Heads and other musicians as session players, Remain in Light is an Afro-Funk-inflected behemoth that still sounds futuristic. Byrne and Eno released a companion piece in February -- My Life in the Bush of Ghosts -- in which recorded found voices where used in place of vocals. The album would become hugely influential with the rise of sampling.

Bowie’s Scary Monsters is thought by many to be his greatest record, and the musicians of 1983’s ‘New British Invasion’ owe a mammoth debt to it. Around the same time, Blondie brought rap (such as it was) to mainstream America with ‘Rapture.' 

Robert Fripp would take scads of inspiration from The Talking Heads and The Police when he relaunched King Crimson with former Talking Heads/David Bowie/Frank Zappa guitar ace Adrian Belew as frontman. Prog stalwarts like Genesis and Rush would similarly move towards more radio-friendly material.

1981 was also the year Post-Punk truly flowered, broke off from Punk and New Wave and became its own genre.

Propelled by John McGeoch's non-Euclidean guitar lines, Siouxsie and the Banshee’s ‘Israel’ single-handedly created the template for an entire subset of British Post-Punk, namely the Gothic movement. And all of this was taking place while the eye of the British Establishment was still focused on the dreary, ephemeral New Romantic movement.

The Psychedelic Furs entered the fray with their all-time classic, Talk Talk Talk, produced by the very busy Steve Lillywhite. Although the Furs were to go on to considerable success as an arty pop band, this album was pure, pounding Post-Punk, clattering and clanging with effects-drenched guitars and sax. The Furs were a six-man band at the time, and each player seemed determined to make more of a racket than the other. 

Scottish Roxy Music admirers Simple Minds celebrated their farewell to Post-Punk with not one but two records of clangy art-rock, Sons and Fascination and Sister Feelings Call. Both were produced by Steve Hillage, delineating the multiple strands of continuity between Prog and Post-Punk.

Gang of Four released their second LP in the Spring, the dark and intense Solid Gold. On it, the Gang dropped the last Punk Rock vestiges in their sound and created a violent, disjointed post-Funk assault. You can practically feel sweaty, bloodied hands striking their instruments with blunt force on songs like ‘Outside the Trains Don’t Run on Time.’ 

 The Gang of Four drew on antecedents like Captain Beefheart and Pere Ubu, but were utterly unique. They'd would replace bassist Dave Allen with Parliament/Funkadelic maestro Busta Jones for a US tour in '81 and essentially create The Red Hot Chili Peppers when they rolled into Los Angeles.

Even more unique was Public Image Ltd’s Flowers of Romance. Having fired their thug/genius bass player Jah Wobble for nicking Metal Box backing tapes for his solo LP, PiL decided not to replace him and instead opted to go a new extreme. 

His hands reportedly swollen from heroin abuse, Keith Levene could only manage to record two tracks worth of his landmark guitar playing. So PiL recorded track upon track of drum riffs and then overdubbed all sorts of bizarre sounds on top, from eerie synths to detuned pianos to clockwork toys.  Over this din, Johnny Rotten howled lyrics filled with bizarre nightmare imagery and occultic insinuation. A Warner Brothers executive said it was the most uncommercial record he'd ever heard but the title track was a UK hit for the band.

Incidentally, it was on Flowers that the hugely-reverbed drum sound that came to dominate 80s music was first developed.

Also working in a percussive nightmare vein were industrial-metal godfathers Killing Joke. Their ‘81 release, What’s This For?, basically created the template that bands like Ministry and NIN would later follow: Distorted vocals, flame-thrower guitar, thudding funk bass and bellicose synths. Every single sound on this album was percussive and assaultive, even the vocals.  

Not to miss out on all the gloomy fun, Siouxsie and the Banshees released their black magic masterpiece, Juju. Combining Siouxsie’s howling, much-imitated vocals with some of the most innovtive musicianship of the era, Juju created the sound that artists from the Cocteau Twins to Sinead O’Connor and nearly every Goth band would try to make their own. 

But no one could match Siouxsie’s twisted lyrical vision. Juju conjures visions of Hammer horror, black magic rituals and snuff films in both words and music, as the Banshees’ brilliant playing is as disturbing as the lyrics.  

Where Siouxsie turned her rage out at the world, Banshee’s sister band The Cure turned it inward and created some classic Mope-Rock. The Cure released one of their most beautiful records in ‘81, Faith. A final break with The Cure's noisy New Wave roots, Faith was inward, mournful and desolate. A pinnacle of sorts was reached with the classic ‘Drowning Man.' 

And just to complete this black-mascara'ed tableau, Bauhaus released their best album, Mask, which contained the classics ‘Passion of Lovers’ and ‘Kick in the Eye’ as well as the terrifying title track. 

In Los Angeles, two bands were merging punk aggression, rootsy idioms and menacing hoodoo iconography. One of these were Punkabilly legends X, who released Wild Gift in 1981, produced by Ray Manzarek. 

The other was The Gun Club. Led by Jeffrey Lee Pierce (who was president of the Blondie fan club at the time) they released Fire of Love, which plowed similar terrain to X, but added more of Tex-Mex aura.

In the midst of all this gloom and anger, U2 made a splash with Boy and later in ‘81, October (essentially an exact remake of Boy, only with weaker songs). Drawing upon many of the same musical ideas as their angrier contemporaries, U2 brightened the mix with their boyish optimism and Christian mysticism. I realize it’s hard to remember a time when U2 were not constantly admiring themselves and sniffing their own vapors, but in ‘81 they were a breath of fresh air and the band most-likely-to. 

Adam & the Ants and Bow Wow Wow -- the latter of which were the original Ants with a 14 year-old Anglo-Burmese girl taking Adam's place -- both served up the same exact formula in 1981, a formula handed over to them by former Sex Pistol manager Malcolm McLaren. 

This writer had a ridiculous crush on Bow Wow Wow singer Annabella LuWin at the time (we're the same age), and so was oblivious to McClaren's skeevy pedo-pandering at the core of the project. Plus, I didn't mind seeing Annabella naked. Not one bit.  

New Order carried on where Joy Division left off in 1981, getting all the gloom and goth out of their system (in the form of leftover JD tracks) before changing track and shooting for commercial success in years to follow.

Two other bands drawn from the same murky depths as Joy Division shone in ‘81. 

Echo and the Bunnymen deepened, darkened and broadened their sound with Heaven Up Here, a very heavily Doors-influenced set of soulful Post-Punk. Echo were also to go on to considerable mainstream success, especially in the UK, but Heaven remains their definitive statement.

And the woefully under-appreciated Comsat Angels released the noisy, brooding, atmospheric classic, Sleep No More. BBC Radio personality and Comsats super-fan Mark Kermode would compare the album to something Joy Division would make if they could write actual songs and play their instruments.

It boggles the mind to think that this creative frenzy was almost completely ignored by mainstream America. Even though a growing number of new bands were scoring Top 40 hits, FM radio was still stuck dead in the mid-70’s, forcing one generic, poodle-haired cock-rock band after another down the throats of radio listeners. But the musical ferment broke through to America’s consciousness through another medium, the Six O’Clock news. 

In May, The Clash created a media feeding frenzy when their Bond’s residency was nearly scuttled. Denied touring funds by their record company, The Clash booked a week of gigs at a New York nightspot. The gigs were typically oversold, the Fire Dept. shut them all down, and a riot ensued in Times Square. Newly reinstalled manager Bernie Rhodes exploited the resulting publicity windfall to full advantage.

Porncore maestros The Plasmatics also garnered national news attention when singer Wendy O. Williams was put on trial in Milwaukee for obscenity and public lewdness. 

In the midst of this, The Plazzies made a hilarious appearance on ABC’s Fridays program. Performing their retard-rock classics 'Living Dead' (which showcased Williams' unique ability to sound like she was singing and vomiting at the same time) and ‘Butcher Baby’ (chorus:’Ooh yeah, now/ oh, no/ Ooh yeah, now/ oh, no’), Williams closed the set by chainsawing a guitar in half and then bringing the light scaffolding down with a shotgun. 

It was glorious.

Around the same time, Public Image Ltd. decided to join in the anarchic fun and caused a riot at New York’s Ritz where they ‘performed’ behind video screens and insulted the audience (Lydon:’You’re all a bunch of hippies!’). 

A far more serious Punk-related news story developed in England that summer with the so-called Southall Riots, which soon spread throughout the country. Perhaps seeking to provoke local residents, a skinhead ‘Oi!’ concert was put on in an Asian community in south London. The volatile mix of racist skins and a community tired of harassment erupted into riots that spread throughout London, then spread north. The violence thrust the embryonic Oi! scene into the nation's consciousness, and tied in with the media frenzy concerning the violent LA skinhead scene.

Hardcore, like Post-Punk, was in the process of breaking from the Punk mothership and became its own genre. A huge impetus for the spread of the movement was Penelope Spheeris' landmark documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, showcasing all of LAs big HC stars.

Black Flag would expand to a five-piece that year, with the addition of Henry Garfield AKA Henry Rollins. Sadly, the band's incendiary half-Anglo/half-Chicano/all-angry-nerd chemistry would be splintered, and the band would soon evolve into a bargain-basement Iggy and the Stooges, with a 'roided up Rollins spending an inordinate amount of his time onstage punching fans in the face.

The media coverage on the US hardcore scene lapsed into cartoonishness when dopey prime-time dramas like Quincy ME and CHiPs did ‘exposes’ on the Hardcore scene.  Ironically, this coverage was another big catalyst for the US Hardcore movement. By summer '81’s end, every major US city had an active Hardcore scene.

Following on the landmark Ace of Spades LP, Motorhead fully bridged the gap between Hardcore and Metal with their scorching live album No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith, which established the grubby trio as cult superstars.

In the midst of all this excitement, many of the New Wave heroes of the late 70’s were beginning to either fall apart or show their true colors as frauds and bandwagon jumpers. Put Squeeze, Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson in the latter column. These aging Pub Rockers gave up the pretense of being cutting edge in ‘81, and showed what corny old Vaudevillians they really were. 

Squeeze squeezed out the insipid East Side Story, and had a hit with a blatant Doobie Brothers soundalike, ‘Tempted' complete with 70s pub rock leftover (and Michael McDonald-wannabe) Paul Carrack on vocals. Elvis produced that mess, then released his own mess, Trust, an album comprised of one-half great Rock 'n Roll and one-half Harry Chapin floor-sweepings like ‘Shot with His Own Gun’ and ‘Different Finger.’

Interesting show to appear on...

 Trust bridged the yawning gap between cool 70's Elvis and the tired old fart he soon became. To mark the transition, Elvis also released the dreadful Country covers album, Almost Blue, in '81. It seemed that when it came to alienating his original fan base, Elvis Costello would spare no expense. 

Former Costello clone Joe Jackson opted out altogether with the bouncy but totally irrelevant be-bop flop Jumping Jive. Former next-big-things The Boomtown Rats pinched out the pointless Mondo Bongo and began their rapid descent into un-stardom. Gary Numan faded from view and Devo hit the charts with a couple pop gems, but mostly ran out of ideas with New Traditionalists. 

Blondie marked their creative demise with a ‘Best-Of’ set. They'd croak out a stinker (The Hunter) the next year and pack it in for the next couple of decades.

In their eternal quest for public acceptance, The Ramones drifted away from their original concept with the radio-friendly Pleasant Dreams. Despite explicitly demanding airplay in the leadoff single, they still didn't get any. 

Ska hitmakers The Specials, The English Beat and The Selecter all released disappointing follow-up LPs, even though the Specials still had one more great single and The Beat one more great album left to go. 

 

Meanwhile, The Go-Go's became the first all-girl group to hit #1 with their debut Beauty and the Beat. Terry Hall of the Specials cowrote one of the big hits on the album, the leadoff track 'Our Lips are Sealed.' 

I had a huge crush on pre-makeover Belinda Carlisle, which probably goes without saying. And Jane Wiedlin, too. Sue me.

Billy Idol, lead singer of the tragically underrated Generation X, moved to New York after the failure of the Kiss Me Deadly LP, hooked up with Kiss svengali Bill Aucoin, and began his rise to superstardom with the Don't Stop EP.  

Billy also revived Tommy James' classic stomper, "Mony Mony," much to the delight of wedding parties everywhere.

 

In contrast to the doom and gore of the earlier part of the year, the second half of ‘81 gave birth to the Synth Pop and Dance Rock movements, two genres that would soon dominate 80’s Alternative Rock. 

Depeche Mode popped out from nowhere with ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ and ‘Dreaming of Me.’ The Human League released the classic synth-pop statement Dare, which would hit paydirt in the US Top 40 the following year. 

Soft Cell slithered out of their leathery holes and unleashed the scuzz-pop classic, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. They'd ooze out a hit the following year Non-Stop's "Tainted Love." Heaven 17, featuring most the original Human League lineup, burst onto the scene with their single  ‘Fascist Groove Thang’ and their debut LP Penthouse and Pavement. 

Not to be outdone, The Police heavily utilized both synths and dance rhythms for their late ‘81 release, Ghost in the Machine, their only filler-free record.  

As if 1981 were not momentous enough, MTV signed on at the end of the year. Soon the telegenic armies of the New British Invasion would burst into the public consciousness, and the early 80’s as most people remember them would begin. 

Here the legacy of ‘81 would end. Passion quickly became fashion, and the luminaries of the Post-Punk movement would all queue up for their share of the booty. 

You see, as great as so many ‘81 records were, most of them sold for shit. The public wanted happy sounds on the radio and the soon to emerge New British Invasion was all too keen to provide them. 

Video killed a lot more than the radio star.

 

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