Year:1980

Bands Formed

 * New Order

Singles Released
Love Will Tear Us Apart Joy Division

Atmosphere Joy Division

Train in Vain (Stand by Me) The Clash

Ashes to Ashes David Bowie

A Forest The Cure

Shaddap You Face Joe Dolce Music Theatre

Holiday in Cambodia Dead Kennedys

Comfortably Numb Pink Floyd

Going Underground/The Dreams of Children The Jam

Enola Gay Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

Fade to Grey Visage

The Great Curve Talking Heads

Clampdown The Clash

Ace of Spades Motörhead

Redemption Song Bob Marley

Army Dreamers Kate Bush

Israel Siouxsie & the Banshees

The Same Old Scene Roxy Music

Hate the Police Dicks

Echo Beach Martha & The Muffins

Crosseyed and Painless Talking Heads

Atomic Blondie

Games Without Frontiers Peter Gabriel

Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) Talking Heads

Totally Wired The Fall

Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime The Korgis

Academy Fight Song Mission of Burma

Requiem Killing Joke

I Travel Simple Minds

Babooshka Kate Bush

Cities Talking Heads

Breathing Kate Bush

Treason (It's Just a Story) The Teardrop Explodes

I Got You Split Enz

Kill the Poor Dead Kennedys

Happy House Siouxsie & the Banshees

I Will Follow U2

Embarrassment Madness

Underpass John Foxx

Messages Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

Geno Dexys Midnight Runners

Rescue Echo & the Bunnymen

A Song From Under the Floorboards Magazine

I Wanna Be Sedated The Ramones

Could You Be Loved Bob Marley

Garbageman The Cramps

Christine Siouxsie & the Banshees

People Who Died Jim Carroll

Prowler Iron Maiden

The Breaks Kurtis Blow

Do Nothing/Maggie's Farm The Specials

Broken English Marianne Faithfull

Call Me Blondie

Romeo and Juliet Dire Straits

Private Idaho The B-52's

Falling and Laughing Orange Juice

Mirror in the Bathroom The Beat

Running Free Iron Maiden

How I Wrote 'Elastic Man' The Fall

More Bounce to the Ounce Zapp

We Got the Funk Positive Force

Is It All Over My Face Loose Joints

Love Sensation Loleatta Holloway

Riot in Lagos Ryuichi Sakamoto

Albums Released
Other Events
 * February 29: Mr. Partridge - Take Away/The Lure Of Salvage
 * September 12: XTC - Black Sea


 * Disco becomes a dirty word
 * By 1980, disco had become a dirty word. The term was banished from the language as an added security measure [because remember, the disco that Ron and Frankie played was called 'house' even before house was], but the music was exported to England, where it was de-gayed and re-exported to the States under a new name: "new wave dance music." The rock majority was satisfied by the replacement of explicitly gay Sylvester with flamboyantly closeted Boy George. As the playlist segued from "I'm Coming Out" into "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me," the pulverization of the liberal imagination became a political fact. Ronald Reagan was elected president, and the following June, a mysterious new "gay cancer" appeared. --Peter Braunstein
 * Adrian Sherwood
 * In 1980, Adrian Sherwood launches On-U Sound Records.
 * Grace Jones
 * With the dawn  of the '80s came a massive  anti-disco  movement across the U.S., leading to Grace Jones focusing on more new wave and experimental-based work produced by the noted reggae team of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare.