Top of the bill – Elvis Costello. Braunov, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
I recently published the playlist (mix tape) of contemporary popular music I recorded just before I set off for Keele:
Now (around its 40th anniversary) I am publishing the mix tape I made over the Christmas holidays to take back to Keele with me after my first term.
There were some gems but also some dogs on my pre-Keele list. Let’s see what one term at Keele had done to my charts-scraping mix-tape-making taste. It is mostly stuff I was hearing a lot during that Autumn 1980 term at Keele, plus one or two late in the year releases. Here is the list and below a link to each track.
- Clubland, Elvis Costello
- Hungry Heart, Bruce Springsteen
- If You’re Looking For a Way Out, Odyssey
- Same Old Scene, Roxy Music
- Enola Gay, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
- I’m Coming Out, Diana Ross
- Just Like Starting Over, John Lennon
- Banana Republic, Boomtown Rats
- Embarrassment, Madness
- To Cut a Long Story Short, Spandau Ballet
- Do You Feel My Love, Eddie Grant
- The Tide is High, Blondie
- December Will Be Magic Again, Kate Bush
- Do Nothing, The Specials
- Too Nice To Talk To, The Beat
- Runaway Boys, The Stray Cats
- Ant Music, Adam and the Ants
- De Do Do Do De Da Da Da, The Police
- Stop the Cavalry, Jona Lewie
I think this December 1980 playlist/mix tape is a higher quality list than the October one – fewer out and out embarrassments anyway. Except for Embarrassment, obviously, which is itself not an embarrassment in my view. Simon Jacobs will certainly approve the first one on the list.
Back in 1980 I would not have been seeing the videos. I doubt if I even got to see Top Of The Pops by that time. So I must say I am quite surprised by some of the garments – especially in the jumper and tank top department – in the above vids. I especially commend to you Andy McCluskey’s tank top in Enola Gay, Terry Hall’s jumper (indeed all of The Special’s jumpers) in Do Nothing and of course Tony Hadley’s bizarre upper garment – a tunic of sorts – in To Cut A Long Story Short. If only I’d had dress sense back then.