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20 Favorite Songs of 1980 (pt.2)
A month or two ago I posted a list of 10 of my favorite albums from my birth year, 1979, that generated some good conversation. In that same vein, I decided to do a Top 20 of 1980. I did 10 last week and now here are the second 10! The list will be in no particular order and my only real rule is that I will not be choosing more than one song per artist. Feel free to tell me that I’m an idiot for choosing “Atmosphere” over “Transmission” or “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and to tell me why I’m a total bum for leaving _______ off the list.
Wipers – “Mystery”
David Bowie – “Ashes To Ashes”
The Jam – “The Eton Rifles”
X – “Los Angeles”
Stiff Little Fingers – “Alternative Ulster”
Buzzcocks – “Running Free”
XTC – “Living In Another Cuba”
Circle Jerks – “Operation”
Orchestral Maneuvers In the Dark – “Enola Gay”
Echo and the Bunnymen – “Rescue”
Okay, I basically set myself a near impossible task. On nearly any day any one of these songs (or at least a handful of them) could have easily have been replaced by one of the following: Dead Kennedys – “Holiday In Cambodia”, Elvis Costello – “New Amsterdam” (no decent videos on YouTube), The Damned – “History of the World (pt. 1)”, Killing Joke – “Requiem”, Magazine – “Shot By Both Sides”, The Vapors – “Turning Japanese”, Blondie – “Call Me”, Pretenders – “Brass In Pocket”, The Cramps – “Drug Train”, Au Pairs – “Diet/It’s Obvious”, Young Marble Giants – “Searching For Mr. Right”, Crass – “Bloody Revolution”, The Ruts – “In A Rut”, The Jim Carroll Band – “People Who Died”, Soft Boys – “I Wanna Destroy You”, Ramones – “I Wanna Be Sedated”, Prince – “When You Were Mine”, Bruce Springsteen – “The River”, LiLiPUT – “Die Matrosen”, Motorhead – “Ace of Spades”, Kurtis Blow – “The Breaks”, Crispy Ambulance – “From the Cradle To the Grave”, U2 – “I Will Follow”, Bad Brains – “Pay To Cum”, and etc., etc., etc. And even after all of that, I’ll bet I overlooked a bunch of worthy songs.
