1981 in Music

Continuing with the series, today we take a look at the year that was 1981. Here’s a playlist of some interesting tracks:

A lot of fantastic albums released in 1981, including Prince’s Controversy, Chaka Khan’s What Cha’ Gonna Do for Me, Kraftwerk’s Computer World, Nightclubbing (Grace Jones), an eponymous album from The Time (also Prince produced), Devo’s New Traditionalists, Kool & The Gang’s Something Special, Ghost in the Machine by The Police, For Those About to Rock We Salute You by AC/DC and the much sampled Tom Tom Club. A pretty fantastic year I think you’d agree!

The Roland TR-808

After the success of the LM-1 and Oberheim DMX in 1980, Japanese company Roland, more known for their synthesisers, entered the programmable drum machine market with the TR-808. An all analog 12-voice unit with up to 32 programmable sequencers, the 808 really changed the game of the dance music.

An 808 playlist including many hits from outside of 1981.

Now we know the 808 has a bass-line machine, synonymous with every trap, hip hop, pop, drill and jungle low-end going, but in 1982 it was a breath of fresh air in the drum machine world. The kick, claps and percussion elements are particularly unique and sought after. A real TR-808 will set you back £5-6k in good condition.

This is not the earliest but certainly one of, Roland TR-808 uses on a record, by the Japanese artist Ryuichi Sakamoto and his band Yellow Magic Orchestra with their track 千のナイフ, or 1000 Knives as it’s know in English.

Synthesisers, Electro and more Post-Disco

The 808 wasn’t the only thing causing ripples in the synthesiser world in 1981. Analog synthesisers had previously been know for being monophonic, heavy and unstable. By the time of the 1980s polyphony was becoming cheaper and 1981 saw some cracking poly synths released. Korg released two fantastic synths in the Mono/Poly and PolySix (both available as plugins from Korg here), the most famous blue synthesiser and wavetable beats the PPG Wave saw it’s second iteration, Oberheim released the OB-Xa and perhaps one of the most famous poly synths of all time, the Jupiter-8 by Roland.

1981 also saw the birthing of a new style of electronic music we would affectionately come to know as Electro. Fusing elements of hip hop with the affordability of drum machines, sequencers and synthesisers. Below is a playlist by the fantastic 20jazzfunkgreats, with some 1980-81 electro:

You can read more about the music that inspired the above playlist here.

Lastly, I have to mention one of my favourite covers of all time, a whose who of disco; Inner Life’s cover of Marvin Gaye’s Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. Inner Life was comprised of songwriting duo Leroy Burgess and Patrick Adams, responsible from a slew of amazing records with vocal talents from probably THE most sampled woman in music, Jocelyn Brown. As if it couldn’t get more star-studded, Mr Paradise Garage himself Larry Levan is on mix duties. Phew!