It's another timeslip moment, dear reader...
As it is now forty years since my favourite musical year, the year I left school and discovered a whole like-minded scene of kids-who-love-dressing-up (known in the press as "New Romantics"), the year of Brideshead Revisited, the Royal Wedding, riots, Reagan and the Ripper, I shall no doubt be paying regular visits throughout 2021 to...
...1981!
In the news headlines in early March four decades ago? IRA hunger strikes at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland; the shady world of Freemasonry in Italy was exposed with the discovery of a covert right-wing lodge called "P2" with links to politicians, the military and the Vatican bank; the "M5 rapist" was convicted of twelve counts of rape; the first Homebase DIY store opened in Croydon; the Sinclair ZX81 home computer was launched; and we bade a sad farewell to the prolific songwriter Yip Harburg. In our cinemas: Neil Diamond in the remake of The Jazz Singer; Blood Beach; Inseminoid. On telly: The Life and Times of David Lloyd George, Open All Hours, and the ill-fated North-Sea-ferry-based soap Triangle.
And in our charts? For the fourth week in a row, the eternal Ultravox classic Vienna was robbed of its rightful place at the top by Joe-bloody-Dolce and Shaddup You Face. Meanwhile, Roxy Music's Jealous Guy was on the ascendant and about to leapfrog them both. Also present and correct were Rainbow, Motorhead and Girlschool, Adam and the Ants, Coast to Coast (Do The Hucklebuck), Freeez, Status Quo and Madness.
Biding her time further down the charts however, and about to crash into the Top 5, was the "Queen of Post-Punk" herself - Toyah!
Like so much from that year, I went mad for this song - and it still resides in my collection today...
I had a lot of studying to do in 1981. Bet I wouldn't pass the same exams today!
ReplyDeleteVienna - 40 years ago?! Wasn't it a fab video?
And Toyah!! What a wild thing she was! My first proper boyfriend had a huge crush on her.
Sx
It was my A-level year, so I was probably in the midst of studying at this time in that year, too.
DeleteThe Vienna video was indeed fab - did you know, they filmed it in Covent Garden piazza rather than actually in Vienna itself?
I went to see Toyah live at the Top Rank Suite in Cardiff in May 1981. I was right at the front, but was being crushed so was lifted over the barrier and got to see the rest of the concert from the side of the stage! Ah, happy memories of going to gigs...
Jx
Loved Toyah - The Four From Toyah EP kick started my love affair with music.
ReplyDeleteAwww, bless! She was quite the phenomenon in '81... Jx
DeleteUm. I was six. I don't remember any of that except for trying to stay awake until the fireworks at the end of The Royal Wedding.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do remember (a few years later, I should think) a piss-take of "It's A Mystery" in which someone (Kenny Everett, or some oik from Your Mother Wouldn't Like It, maybe?) dressed up as Toyah and sprayed the camera with spit as they lisped through it. Cruel, but I do recall being amused by it at the time, and then lisping "It's A Mystery" at my sister while she did the same to me until we were both covered in saliva!
Oh, those halcyon days when it was OK to take the piss out of a lithp without the world of "professional condemners" shrieking out of the woodwork demanding apologies... Jx
DeleteOMG 4 decades ago !
ReplyDeleteTerrifying, isn't it? Jx
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