please empty your brain below
Absolutely nothing embarrassing about 1981. My year was 1984 - tops for cheesy music I think.

Emma | 18.01.06 - 8:10 a.m. | #

I think I must have been asleep that month... although I am aware of most (though not I am the Beat) I don't really recall any of them from their original time ('cept for XTC). How strange.

NiC | Homepage | 18.01.06 - 8:14 a.m. | #

I will join you in your admiration of The Look's I Am The Beat.

Essexgirl | 18.01.06 - 10:13 a.m. | #

At the time, it would have been Spandau's "The Freeze". Now, it would be Yarborough & Peoples "Don't Stop The Music" - such a great rolling groove (ahem).

Can't share your enthusiasm for "I Am The Beat", which sounded like a power-pop update of "I Am The Lord Of The Dance Said He". (*ducks for cover*)

mike | Homepage | 18.01.06 - 10:37 a.m. | #

mike - if I'd stretched to 4 favourite records from January 1981, Spandau would have been 4th.

But the tambourine-waving "I Am The Beat" would still have been first, hallelujah!

diamond geezer | Homepage | 18.01.06 - 12:32 p.m. | #

scary monsters for me.
i came to london in 1981 to see the evil dead at the cinema that is now the 'prince charles'. it was the only cinema in the uk showing it. i was terrified. after the film we went to watch the posers in camden as steve stranges 'camden palace' was opening that night. we joined the commmotion when we got there and actually got in! i was terrified. the next night we went to see julie walters in the play 'steaming'. 'olive' from on the buses was in it too and she was naked. i was terrified. actually i think it was 1982 now that i've written this.

dave | Homepage | 18.01.06 - 12:52 p.m. | #

Of those quite liked Gap Band, Susan Fassbender and Blondie at the time, and stand by that now!

Jeff Vagg | Homepage | 18.01.06 - 1:00 p.m. | #

dave
brings back memories, same year I went to a small cinema in Burnham on Crouch to see the evil dead. Couldn't afford a VC and they were showing the full (tree having it's wicked way) version. It was the scariest goriest film I had ever seen.
and definitely go for beat.....beat......beat....beat etc etc. There was also a record with 2 side Bs. It had 2 grooves so you took pot luck as to which one the needle landed on and played, genius..
the time of the picture record shaped like a fried egg and painted day glow yellow, rubbish songs but great looking records and we of course all had a pink cool for cats, you were no one without that it your collection.

Mr BW | 18.01.06 - 1:02 p.m. | #

Sgt Rock by XTC. No contest. And with the likes of Franz Ferdinand pinching the Swindon boys' musical chops now they've never been so influential.

PT | Homepage | 18.01.06 - 3:03 p.m. | #

Emma's right - 1984 was the best year in pop ever, ever, ever, so there!

You may have just shattered another illusion OR lots of those lyrics websites are wrong. I've always thought the woman in Fade To Grey was singing 'devenir en gris', but the lyrics websites do indeed suggest 'devenions gris' or 'devenir gris'. The latter is definitely wrong. I took a keen interest in this song and ELO's Hold On Tight, also from 1981, as I was doing my French 'O' Level then and they both have sections which are sung in French and in English.

Chig | Homepage | 18.01.06 - 3:09 p.m. | #

I wouldn't say 1981 was the best year ever, but I am roughly the same age as you DG and do remember "I am the Beat" very well - particularly at school discos

I really loved Adam Ant and "Young Parisians" was a classic with the imaginative lyrics "Your Parisians are so French, they're so French, they're so French" - they don't write them like that any more

But Rapture would stand out as my all time favourite of that year.

But Don't Stop the Music and Burn Rubber on Me - would also have me dancing like a mad fool even now

Annie Mole | Homepage | 18.01.06 - 6:50 p.m. | #

Fade to grey was on the first ever mixed tape I was given (the older brother of a school friend had made 2 copies 1 for each of us). It was the first song on the a side and it was the version where the spoken bit is in French (sens la pluie comme un ete anglais...). The tape died from being overplayed.

stroppycow | Homepage | 18.01.06 - 7:22 p.m. | #

Oh, you don't wanna trust those dodgy Lyrics sites - they make loads of mistakes, all the time. Put me down for another "devenir en gris" - I mean, it's yer actual French, innit?

Those of us who saw the hysterical rendition in Boy George's "Taboo" musical will never be able to hear this song in the same light ever again...

mike | Homepage | 18.01.06 - 7:51 p.m. | #

I always thought it was "devenir en gris", until I started researching this online yesterday and kept getting "devenions gris" everywhere.

Now I suspect that both may in fact be wrong.
• "devenions gris" means "became grey"
• "devenir en gris" means "to become in grey"

And much more likely is the slightly shorter "devenir gris", which means "to become grey".

I've listened to the whole song again, and that "en" may well be a figment of our collective imagination.

A French bloke agrees, here:
"Excusez moi mais la fille dit bien "Devenir Gris". J’ai la preuve matérielle!!! Sur mon disque vinyle 7" de Visage (Fade To Grey [A] The Steps [B]) on peut y lire: Fade To Grey (Devenir Gris)"

diamond geezer | Homepage | 18.01.06 - 8:37 p.m. | #

i was 16 and i'm with you. ISTR Einstein a go-go, I'm in love with a German film star and Vienna all from early 81 too... awesome

james | 18.01.06 - 9:55 p.m. | #

An excellent choice of songs.
I remember them all and loved them at the time.

Jon Allen | 18.01.06 - 10:04 p.m. | #

Ah, well you see, I was seventeen so obviously unable to appreciate the year fully. Bowie for me (obviously). But I had forgotten all about "I Am The Beat" and listening to that clip was terrifically nostalgic.

Alan | Homepage | 19.01.06 - 2:03 a.m. | #

I remember taping I am the Beat on a German radio-tape recorder of a Sunday evening...

I am the beat I am the
I am the beat, beat, beat, beat, beat.

As for Young Parisians I prefer the B side. I saw a Girl and she was nekkid

I saw a girl she had no clothes on
What she picking on me
What that footprints I see
What she picking on me
she was
nekkid

What a year for Adam and the Ants 1981 was, huh?

Max | Homepage | 19.01.06 - 12:36 p.m. | #

Over the last couple of days one of the new hippopotami living in the flat above me has suddenly developed a very loud taste for music from 1981.

Which means I'm currently torn between hating the racket pounding through my ceiling, and wanting to sing along with it

diamond geezer | Homepage | 19.01.06 - 8:11 p.m. | #

Absolutely agree with 1981, even though I was only 13.

I got I Am The Beat as a b'day pressie. I had absolutely no idea that anybody ooutside Manchester knew the Freshies song. Class!

I also agree about Phil Collins.

Are you going to keep this up all year because I might find my hysteria levels ratcheting up notch by notch until I find myself screaming in a 13-year-old-girl/80s Pop Tart way...

Gert | Homepage | 21.01.06 - 12:31 p.m. | #











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