POST PUNK 198O When my interest in post-punk blossomed into a bit of an obsession, my mind fixed on two years: 1979, which seemed to have a disproportionate number of the period-defining all-time-great LPs; and 1981, which had its fair share of great albums by big names, but more significantly was seemingly endless in its supply of lesser-knowns of incredible quality and diversity. For this reason, I focused first on 1981 in the eponymous ‘1981’ box set I made between 2003 and 2004, that consisted of nine themed CD-length mixes and a whole additional mp3 “briefcase” disc, which in total featured hundreds of bands and artists. But I’d actually first made a 3-mix 1979 set for friends the year before, which finally blossomed into the (relatively) tight ‘1979: Post-Punk’ set from 2017. For whatever reason, I’d subconsciously always thought of 1980 as sort of the breather between these two different high-water-mark years. Finally, I’ve set out to delve more consciously into that elusive year of post-punk. The result of my reconsideration is this, the final box-set of a trilogy of explorations: ‘Post Punk 1980’. I could perhaps say a slightly lower proportion of my all-time favorite post- punk/new-wave/etc. albums were released in 1980, the kernel of truth in the way I’d thought of the year. But, unsurprisingly, the bigger realization as I assembled this collection was that 1980 was in no way, shape or form a down year. In fact, the explosion of quality-and-quantity nearly matches 1981. Certainly, I found it harder than ever before to cull and cut, and as such here you have eight themed mixes, and all of them are roughly a C-90 in length, so much greatness is there to explore. I have again defined post-punk in its broadest sense: as music drawing on long-simmering traditions of art-pop (the early years of which were explored in the ‘Post-Punk: 1968-1978’ mix). I’m not particularly interested in clarifying, and more so in blurring: even the core bands one thinks of as defining “Post-Punk” (say, Talking Heads, Joy Division, Gang of Four, Siouxsie & The Banshees, This Heat) show just diverse the music is, and perhaps how fundamentally loose-fitting a name- of-convenience “post-punk” really is. So here you’ll find New Wave, proto-Goth, Art-Rock, Power Pop, etc. etc. and a whole lot of music that doesn’t fit neatly under any genre label. Each of the eight logo-identified mixes focuses not on particular sub-scenes, per se, but on sounds that work together, moods, emotionality, production approaches, etc. I hope that the theme and sound of each mix will be self-apparent as you dive in. It’s entirely possible not every sound will be your bag, but don’t let that stop you trying another and another: post-punk is like the weather, always mutating. When I started listening to post-punk music, it was already a couple of decades old, but to my young ears it sounded “newer” than anything actually-new I was hearing from the time. Now the music in this set is approaching 40, and so am I (born as it happens in 1980), and yet it still sounds just as timeless and forward-reaching. To my ears, the post-punks of ‘78-’82 concocted a musical ethos of open-eared adventure that defied rules and instead fostered principles, depending less on youth and “nowness” than most pop music does. As evinced by the current-day post-punks heard on the ‘Post-Punk: 2007-2017’ set, that ethos and those principles continue to inspire creativity to this day, both by musicians who explicitly self-apply the name, but also far beyond. The fantastically woozy, adventurous, expansive sounds of current-day underground-ish hip-hop, R&B, arty electronics, etc. (as heard on the ‘Old Souls’ mixes and ‘The Fire’) draw from the post-punk spirit (and production techniques) in the same way as original post-punk drew on dub, funk, Motown, disco, Krautrock, musique concrete, and beyond. This far-reaching approach to post-punk might not please those who prefer it as something more strictly-defined, a “Post-Punk” proper. But I hope most people, from dyed-in-the-wool folks who were there in 1980, to their neophyte kids and grandkids (!), will prefer the eclectic approach that I take as part-and-parcel to post-punk. In the years after I made the ‘1981’ box set, I slightly regretted giving it such a simplified and definitive-sounding title, as there was so much other amazing music made in 1981 that even I couldn’t finagle labelling as post-punk (but that I think any fan of post-punk should hear, as heard in the ‘Le Monde du Funk’ series and elsewhere at Musicophilia). So I’ve tended to hedge my bets, ever since, and include “post-punk” in the titles. And yet, I don’t think it’s wholly unreasonable to name a post-punk box after simply the year in question: to me, no other umbrella-term genre name in use in 1978-1982 touched so many sounds, and linked up with as many other genres, times, places. That eclecticism is what I hope is ultimately the legacy of early post-punk: it was the solvent that dissolved boundaries, paving the way for the musical and artistic freedom the best artists of succeeding decades have taken as a birthright. And my tiny contribution to how a few people out there think about post-punk, I hope, is that listeners know for all of post-punk’s oft-cited gloom and angularity and intellectualism: it’s truly a joy. It’s certainly been my pleasure, all these years, and I hope it is yours, too. POST PUNK 198O | HEART 01 [00:00] Josef K - “It’s Kinda Funny” (‘It’s Kinda Funny’ Single) 02 [03:40] Comsat Angels - “Total War” (‘Waiting For A Miracle’ LP) 03 [07:10] Lizard - “Celebration” (‘Gymnopedia’ LP) 04 [13:25] The Cure - “Secrets” (‘Seventeen Seconds’ LP) 05 [16:40] Talking Heads - “The Overload” (‘Remain in Light’ LP) 06 [22:20] New Musik - “A Map of You” (‘From A to B’ LP) 07 [26:00] The Sound - “Desire” (‘Jeopardy’ LP) 08 [29:15] Flowers - “Icehouse” (‘Icehouse’ LP) 09 [33:30] Japan - “Nightporter” (‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’ LP) 10 [40:25] Wipers - “Alien Boy” (‘Alien Boy’ EP) 11 [43:45] The Human League - “Dreams of Leaving” (‘Travelogue’ LP) 12 [49:30] The Durutti Column - “Sketch for Summer” (‘The Return Of’ LP) 13 [52:15] Magazine - “A Song From Under the Floorboards” (‘The Correct Use of Soap’ LP) 14 [56:25] Iggy Pop - “Mr. Dynamite” (‘Soldier’ LP) 15 [60:45] Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - “The Misunderstanding” (‘Organisation’ LP) 16 [65:00] Ultravox - “Vienna” (‘Vienna’ LP) 17 [69:35] Gary Numan - “Photograph” (‘This Wreckage’ Single) 18 [71:55] Joy Division - “Twenty-Four Hours” (‘Closer’ LP) 19 [76:25] The Associates - “Paper House” (‘The Affectionate Punch’ LP) 20 [81:10] XTC - “The Somnambulist” (‘Generals & Majors’ EP) 21 [85:40] Young Marble Giants - “Salad Days” (‘Colossal Youth’ LP) [Total Time: 1:27:45] POST PUNK 198O | FIRE 01 [00:00] Simple Minds - “Changeling” (‘Changeling’ Single) 02 [04:10] The Slits - “In the Beginning, There Was Rhythm” (‘Man Next Door’ EP) 03 [09:55] Material - “Discourse” (‘Discourse’ Single) 04 [14:00] The Beat - “Mirror In the Bathroom” (‘I Just Can’t Stop It’ LP) 05 [17:00] Au Pairs - “It’s Obvious” (‘Diet’ Single) 06 [22:40] Krisma - “White Knife” (‘Cathode Mamma’ LP) 07 [27:35] Colored Music - “Colored Music (Instrumental)” (Unreleased) 08 [31:45] Roxy Music - “Same Old Scene” (‘Flesh + Blood’ LP) 09 [35:35] Yello - “Downtown Samba” (“Solid Pleasure’ LP) 10 [38:05] Talking Heads - “Crosseyed & Painless” (‘Remain in Light’ LP) 11 [42:45] The Blackouts - “Probabilities” (“Men in Motion’ EP) 12 [47:35] Gang of Four - “Outside the Trains Don’t Run On Time” (‘Gang of Four’ EP) 13 [50:45] Blondie - “Rapture” (‘AutoAmerican’ LP) 14 [57:05] Kid Creole & The Coconuts - “Darrio” (‘Off The Coast of Me’ LP) 15 [61:00] The Pop Group - “Where There’s A Will” (‘Where There’s A Will’ Single) 16 [66:10] Killing Joke - “Bloodsport” (‘Killing Joke’ LP) 17 [70:50] This Heat - “Health & Efficiency” (‘Health & Efficiency’ )EP 18 [78:05] Japan - “Gentlemen Take Polaroids” (‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’ LP) [Total Time: 1:25:15] POST PUNK 198O | CONVERTIBLE 01 [00:00] The Feelies - “Original Love” (‘Crazy Rhythms’ LP) 02 [02:50] The Jam - “Start!” (‘Sound Affects’ LP) 03 [05:20] Joy Division - “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ EP) 04 [08:40] Go-Go’s - “We Got The Beat” (‘We Got The Beat’ Single) 05 [11:10] Martha & The Muffins - “Echo Beach” (‘Metro Music’) 06 [14:40] Pauline Murray & The Invisible Girls - “Drummer Boy” (‘Pauline Murray & The Invisible Girls’ LP) 07 [17:35] The Beat - “Twist & Crawl” (‘I Just Can’t Stop It’ LP) 08 [20:15] The Cars - “You Wear Those Eyes” (‘Panorama’) 09 [25:00] Squeeze - “Pulling Mussels” (‘Argybargy’ LP) 10 [28:55] The Mo-Dettes - “Bitta Truth” (‘Paint It Black’ EP) 11 [32:05] Pink Military - “Did You See Her?” (‘Do Animals Believe In God?’ LP) 12 [35:00] Alan Vega - “Ice Drummer” (‘Alan Vega’ LP) 13 [39:30] Poly Styrene - “Dreaming” (‘Translucence’ LP) 14 [43:15] INXS - “Roller Skating” (‘INXS’ LP) 15 [46:00] The Stranglers - “Bear Cage” (‘Bear Cage’ Single) 16 [48:45] XTC - “Generals & Majors” (‘Black Sea’ LP) 17 [52:45] The Selecter - “On My Radio” (‘Too Much Pressure’ LP) 18 [55:50] Elvis Costello - “Black & White” (‘Get Happy!’ LP) 19 [57:40] The Vapors - “Letter From Hiro” (‘New Clear Days’ LP) 20 [64:00] Prince - “When You Were Mine” (‘Dirty Mind’ LP) 21 [67:35] Alex Chilton - “Hey! Little Child” (‘Hey! Little Child’ Singl) 22 [71:15] The Only Ones - “Trouble In the World” (‘Baby’s Got a Gun’ LP) 18 [74:15] Teardrop Explodes - “Poppies In the Field” (‘Kilimanjaro’ LP) 19 [79:15] The Specials