Disco was dead, and the music industry floundered in 1980 looking for something to fill the void. Sales had been declining for years and 1980 continued that trend, with 34 million fewer units sold than in the year before. Major record labels were hurting; they responded by laying off employees --as many as 2,500 people in the industry lost their jobs. If any kind of music dominated this year it was pop. The original rock'n'roll crowd that had been teenagers in the Sixties were all grown up now, and the record companies tried to appeal to them with a safe, homogenized product. Peter Frampton was sounding more and more like Barry Manilow these days, while it became less easy to distinguish Fleetwood Mac from The Captain & Tennille.
For those with vision, there was a new sound on the horizon, slowly making headway -- British New Wave, best represented by Talking Heads (Remain In Light) and The Pretenders (Pretenders). But the record labels were not believers just yet, and their conservative approach left many innovative New Wave bands languishing for lack of support. The most creative music was coming off the streets, and a handful of its purveyors -- The Police,The Clash, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers -- were pointing the way to the light at the end of the tunnel. Eventually the industry would see that light. But, in the meantime, "easy listening" pop briefly reigned. "The commercial cotton candy of the pop chart," lamented music critic Michael Gross, "was all too sweet for words." Just look at some of the hit singles of the year: "Magic," Olivia Newton-John; "Sailing," Christopher Cross; "Shining Star," The Manhattans; "All Out Of Love," Air Supply; "Lady," Kenny Rogers; "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," Hall and Oates; "I Can't Tell You Why," The Eagles; "Working My Way Back To You," The Spinners -- the list goes on and on. (Perhaps the syrupy pop-rock of Air Supply best exemplified the formula for chart success in 1980.) Some of this was quite good, and without it elevator music would not be what it is today. But the music fan could not live long on white bread alone. Fortunately, some red meat was available. New artists were in the wings, artists who would blend pop and reggae and metal and punk and R&B and lay it over a big beat borrowed from disco and funk and thereby create a new sound for the Eighties. Madonna, U2, Prince & The Revolution, Duran Duran, Culture Club, Peter Gabriel, John Cougar Mellencamp and The Eurythmics were in the on-deck circle. Blondie's "Call Me" and The Knack's "My Sharona" were already dance faves in the teen clubs -- a preview of the music that Eighties youth -- a group largely dismissed by music execs this year -- would take to heart. And "Brass In Pocket" by The Pretenders was the first legitimate New Wave Top 20 hit in the U.S. The signs were everywhere. Country music sales had been in decline, but were revived in 1980 thanks in no small measure to the popularity of the film Urban Cowboy. The so-called "Nashville Sound" -- pop-country tunes with lush arrangements that incorporated strings and synthesizers -- was in vogue. The leading purveyors of this sound included Kenny Rogers, a pop singer (formerly with First Edition) turned country crooner. This was a very good year for Rogers, whose 1979 album Kenny was certified platinum and the single "Coward Of The County" was a transatlantic chart-topper. Rogers scored again this year with "Lady," a ballad penned by Lionel Richie that would spend six weeks at US#1 while also topping the R&B, C&W and Adult Contemporary charts. Rogers walked away with an armload of Grammy and American Music Awards in 1980. Other top country artists: Eddie Rabbitt ("Drivin' My Life Away"), Johnny Lee ("Lookin' For Love") and Dolly Parton ("9 To 5"). Progressive country was expiring, and even "outlaws" Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson had been appropriated by the Nashville establishment. For several years to come the rhinestone crowd would dominate country sound, but soon there would be a move afoot to bring country music back to its roots. With the arrival of the video disc, industry prognosticators didn't need to be rocket scientists to predict that the video market was going to be one of the major developments of the Eighties. Gary Numan paved the way with the first rock video cassette in April 1980, beating out Blondie for that honor by only a matter of weeks. Digital recording became a viable alternative to analog recording with all its deficiencies inherent in recording sound on a tape coated with magnetic oxide. The digital recorder decoded magnetic pulses -- an electronic processing of information -- that solved the problem of imperfections in reproduced sound. In April, The Beat's "Mirror In The Bathroom" became the first British single to have been digitally recorded. |
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