Best Song: Tom Tom Club - Wordy Rappinghood
This was my record of the year for 1981. I'll never forget the first time I heard this in a school assembly and then find it on Fabriclive mix years later, it's a great tune.
Worst Song: Elaine Paige - Memory
As a kid I used to go to music school on a Saturday morning. What we'd all do at the start of the day before going to learn our instruments was sing in a choir. A lot of what we'd sing would be Andrew Lloyd Webber crap and this was one of them. I never did like that part of music school.
Top 40 Review
We have a Motown record at number one in "One Day In Your Life" by Michael Jackson. This was from 1975 before Michael Jackson left the label so it's basically Motown cashing in on Michael Jacksons success. It knocked another Motown record off the top in "Being With You" by Smokey Robinson which remains in this Top 40. Both decent records.
Staying with soul music, there's "You Might Need Somebody" by Randy Crawford which is good and a couple of average records in "Body Talk" by Imagination and "How 'Bout Us" by Champaign.
I'm liking the reggae music in this Top 40. We have "Dancing On The Floor (Hooked On Love)" by Third World, the double a-side "Don't Let It Pass You By/Don't Slow Down" by UB40 and a re-issue of "No Woman No Cry" by Bob Marley following his death.
Synth pop is still in it's infancy with the Depeche Mode debut "New Life" and "All Stood Still" by Ultravox the only 2 records from this genre in the charts, both good records.
Disco music no longer dominates the charts and the disco records we have aren't worth writing about, so I won't. In it's place is a bit more soul and a couple of medleys in "Stars On 45 (Volume 2)" by Starsound and "Ain't No Stopping" by Enigma, neither of which is any good.
The overall result though isn't good. It's quite a drop from the year before.
Score: 14
Table
1981 gets the same score as 1971, 1972 and 1973 and we're basically saying it's better than the mid-70s but not as good as the late 60s:
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