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Today we are more likely listen to our favourite band via a digital medium, such as compact disc or MP3 files, but in the 1980’s vinyl records still ruled the roost. Cassette Tapes may have been another popular and more portable media format (thanks to the invention of the Walkman) but for home use records were definitely the most popular option.
The humble record was originally invented in 1887 by Emile Berliner, taken the work done on recording sound by Thomas Edison ten years earlier and making it more accessible to the general public. Edison’s solution involved recording sound onto a cylindrical medium, which was cumbersome and hard to manufacture. The record invented by Berliner was basically a flat disc, which was much easier to mass produce, and so the music industry was born.
The first records were made of a material called shellac, which was a resin obtained from the secretions of the lac insect. Sounds disgusting if you ask me. Shellac is a natural plastic that when heated is soft and fluid, but sets hard, so was perfect for creating records. By the 1930’s the use of shellac was phased out in favour of synthetic resins.
Records were initially made to be played at 78 revolutions per minute (RPM), but this speed of rotation could lead to breakages, and it also limited the playing time of a single record, at just 5 minutes for a 12 inch disc. In 1948 technology had progressed to allow the slower 33 RPM record to be produced, allowing around 25 minutes per side. A smaller sized disc followed that played at 45 RPM which allowed the old 78 RPM records to be phased out completely, as the new format could hold the same amount of audio.
Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Michael Jackson is one of the worlds most successful music stars, and his sixth solo album, Thriller, has a lot to do with that. Thriller was released in 1982 and to this day is the album that has sold the most copies worldwide, clocking in at 104 million copies!
Junior Senior are a Dutch band formed in 1998 comprising of Jesper Mortensen and Jeppe Laursen, who were both previously members of the band Ludo-X. So what are they doing being featured in a sight about the 1980’s, I hear you cry? Well, the reason is for the amazing pixellated video that accompanies one of their best known songs, Move Your Feet.
It may be looked back on with distaste now, but at the time Joe Dolce’s hit Shaddup You Face stormed the charts around the world. The song was first released in Australia in 1980, where it went to number one and was the most successful Australian produced single in Australian music history for 26 years, selling over 350,000 copies. Total sales worldwide of the song including the 35 different foreign language versions (including the aboriginal dialect Indjubundji) are set at 4 million copies!
Duran Duran were one of the biggest bands of the 1980’s, but have never disbanded and are still recording today. The band had a string of hits including Girls on Film, Rio, Hungry Like The Wolf and the James Bond theme A View To A Kill, and were initially part of the New Romantic scene, dressing flamboyantly and with crazy big hair styles. They also have the honour of being named Princess Diana’s favourite band!
Arriving in the late 1970’s, the Sony Walkman revolutionised the way people listened to music, and as a side effect must have also boosted the sales of cassette tapes both prerecorded and blank. The idea was simple, a tape player small enough to hold in your hand or clip on your belt which then allowed you to wander around doing whatever you wanted to do, listening to whatever music you wanted to, inside or outside the house.
Chas and Dave were one of those fun musical acts that you would struggle to find in the pop charts these days. You really don’t seem to get many comedy songs being popular any more, which I feel is a great shame.
I always felt that Shakin’ Stevens was kind of a British equivalent of a young Elvis Presley. With his greased quiff hair style, denim jeans and jacket and those crazy dance steps, Shaky, as he was nicknamed, had that kind of an air about him. The style of songs he sang also had an element of The King about them too, being good old fashioned Rock ‘n’ Roll, with a real emphasis on the Roll.
