Year:1980

Bands Formed

 * New Order
 * Stray Cats

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
 * 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
 * Clampdown The Clash
 * The Great Curve Talking Heads
 * Army Dreamers Kate Bush
 * Redemption Song Bob Marley
 * Atomic Blondie
 * The Same Old Scene Roxy Music
 * Ace of Spades Motörhead
 * Hate the Police Dicks
 * Crosseyed and Painless Talking Heads
 * Echo Beach Martha & The Muffins
 * Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) Talking Heads
 * Israel Siouxsie & the Banshees
 * Games Without Frontiers Peter Gabriel
 * Academy Fight Song Mission of Burma
 * Totally Wired The Fall
 * Babooshka Kate Bush
 * Treason (It's Just a Story) The Teardrop Explodes
 * I Got You Split Enz
 * Cities Talking Heads
 * Happy House Siouxsie & the Banshees
 * Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime The Korgis
 * Breathing Kate Bush
 * I Will Follow U2
 * I Travel Simple Minds
 * Requiem Killing Joke
 * Kill the Poor Dead Kennedys
 * Messages Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
 * Funkytown


 * Never Knew Love Like This Before Stephanie Mills
 * Lost in Love
 * Look What You've Done To Me
 * Every Woman In The World

Albums Released
Other Events
 * February 29: Mr. Partridge - Take Away/The Lure Of Salvage
 * September 12: XTC - Black Sea
 * October 8: Talking Heads - Remain in Light


 * 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.