Side A
Artist	Song
The Ramones	Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio? (End of the Century)
The Pretenders	Stop Your Sobbing (Pretenders)
The Jim Carroll Band	People Who Died (Catholic Boy)
Talking Heads	Once in a Lifetime (Remain in Light)
OMD	Electricity (OMD)
Joy Division	A Means to an End (Closer)
Rush	Natural Science (Permanent Waves)
The Cure	A Forest (Seventeen Seconds)
The Psychedelic Furs	India (Psychedelic Furs)
Bruce Springsteen	The River (The River)
Jackson Browne	Of Missing Persons (Hold Out)
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band	Against the Wind (Against the Wind)
Pete Townshend	Let My Love Open the Door (Empty Glass)
Billy Joel	It's Still Rock and Roll to Me (Glass Houses)
ABBA	Happy New Year (Super Trouper)
Toronto	Even the Score (Lookin' for Trouble)
Loverboy	Turn Me Loose (Loverboy)
REO Speedwagon	Take it on the Run (Hi Infidelity)
AC/DC	You Shook Me All Night Long (Back in Black)
Journey	Anyway You Want it (Departure)
KISS	Tomorrow (Unmasked)
Side B
Artist	Song	Buy
The Damned	Wait for the Blackout (The Black Album)
The Jam	Set the House Ablaze (Sound Affects)
Dexy's Midnight Runners	There There My Dear (Searching for the Young Soul Rebels)
English Beat	Two Swords (I Just Can't Stop it)
Madness	Embarrassment (Absolutely)
The Specials	Enjoy Yourself (More Specials)
David Bowie	Teeange Wildlife (Ashes to Ashes)
X	Los Angeles (Los Angeles)
Dead Kennedys	California Uber Alles (Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables)
Wreckless Eric	A Pop Song (Big Smash)
Undertones	Hypnotised (Hypnotised)
Queen	Coming Soon (The Game)
Squeeze	Pulling Mussels from the Shell (Argybargy)
Rockpile	Teacher Teacher (Seconds of Pleasure)
Blondie	The Tide is High (Autoamerican)
The Beach Boys	Sunshine (Keepin' the Summer Alive)
Dire Straits	Tunnel of Love (Making Movies)
The B-52s	Private Idaho (Wild Planet)
The Vapors	Turning Japanese (New Clear Days)
Stiff Little Fingers	Gotta Getaway (Nobody's Heroes)
U2	I Will Follow (Boy)
Elvis Costello	New Amsterdam (Get Happy!!)
The Clash	Police on My Back (Sandinista!)

Comment:

Taking a page out of the AD6.9. book of creative mix ideas, I...just plain stole this one from him. But I couldn't resist, it seemed like such a fun exercise. This definitely won't be the last time I try it. Just took a penny out of my pocket, and used its year to make a mix of the best music from that time. Corny as it sounds, the best part was the learning experience - I didn't know a lot of these songs were from this year, and now, after researching quite a bit, I feel like I have a better understanding of that era - plus several new great songs for my library (I'll confess that I'd never heard a few of these - Teenage Wildlife, There There My Dear, Natural Science - until I tried 'em out for this purpose).

Some might say 1980 was a less than stellar year for music, but as with any year, there is more than enough excellence to go around. I mean, look at all these classic bands. I didn't even include The Police's famous "Zenyatta Mondatta" (because I can't stand their music, I must admit), nor other respected albums by The Feelings, Soft Boys, Young Marble Giants, Public Image Ltd., and more memorably, Prince's "Dirty Mind" or Lennon & Yoko's "Double Fantasy". There was also a Stones record, Van Morrison, Judas Priest, Cheap Trick, The Birthday Party, Circle Jerks, Lou Reed, Steely Dan, Black Sabbath, Eric Clapton, Adam and the Ants, Paul McCartney, The Cars, Joni Mitchell, Def Leppard, Van Halen, Human League, Kim Carnes, the debuts of INXS, Huey Lewis & the News, and the Romantics, the Devo one that begat both "Girl U Want" and "Whip it" (but I can't stand them either), and the soundtracks to "Xanadu", "Somewhere in Time", "Empire Strikes Back", and "Fame". For all these, either I didn't care for the music itself, or simply couldn't find it easily enough to determine its quality (I really wish I could've tracked down Cheap Trick and Van Morrison).

In other trivia news, some bands that formed in 1980: Adolescents, Bad Religion, The Church, R.E.M., Agnostic Front, Sisters of Mercy, Cocteau Twins, Dead or Alive, Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, Minor Threat, Violent Femmes, Mission of Burma, Bow Wow Wow, Flock of Seagulls, Soft Cell, Smithereens, Aztec Camera, the Vandals, and New Order.

Disbanding in 1980 were the Buggles, Seals & Crofts, The Eagles, Germs, Parliament Funkadelic, and of course Joy Division, which leads us to the famous deaths in music, including Ian Curtis, John Lennon, Bon Scott, and John Bonham. Bad times.

As for the selection on here, I couldn't decide whether to use well-known hits, choose my own preferences, or simply buck convention for the sake of originality, so I did all three. "Another Ones Bites the Dust" would be the obvious choice for Queen, but I've heard it so much I went with another (almost every song on "The Game" is worthy anyway), whereas with the Ramones, while that was an album full of goodies, the lead-off track is just too perfect as an opener for this mix, I thought, to go with something more obscure. I wish I could've repeated albums, esp. "Sandinista!", "More Specials", "Seconds of Pleasure", "End of the Century", and "Back in Black", but I tried to discipline myself. Hope I represented the year decently, considering I wasn't even alive to see what the whole scene was like (not until 1981). Regardless, it resulted in a couple of kickass mixes for me and a fascinating history lesson

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