FEATURE:
Dust Those Walkmans Off!
IMAGE CREDIT: National Album Day
National Album Day 2020: Celebrating the '80s
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THIS year has not brought too much cheer…
IMAGE CREDIT: National Album Day
so it is a good thing that artists, despite being restricted, have released some truly incredible songs and albums! Despite the fact there has been a lot of terrific new music around, people are, more than ever, looking back. We have not been able to enjoy gigs recently, and big events like Record Store Day have faced rescheduling and movement. One day that I always look forward to each year is National Album Day. Like Record Store Day, it is a chance to think about music in a very deep and physical way. Record shops have reopened, and I am glad we can get out there and experience album-buying in a way we were unable to a few months back. National Album Day takes place on 10th October, and it is a great opportunity and excuse for people to load up on vinyl and revisit some top albums! As Music Week report, this year’s theme is one people of all ages can get behind: the magic of the 1980s!
“National Album Day is adopting a 1980s theme for its third edition, set for Saturday, October 10.
This year's event will honour the artists and music genres of the influential decade in the first in a series of campaign themes that will be rolled out annually. Billy Ocean, Blossoms, La Roux, The Psychedelic Furs and Toyah Willcox have been announced as official ambassadors, with further names to be announced in due course.
The initiative is organised jointly by record labels body the BPI and the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), and is supported across the BBC, along with AIM and other music trade associations, retailers and digital platforms.
ERA CEO Kim Bayley said: “The '80s really had it all – glamour, fun and great music. After a horrible year of lockdown and bad news, National Album Day will be celebrated by digital services and retailers alike to give everyone a real lift.”
ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: Sam Cooke
For many artists the album remains the ultimate expression of their creativity and the story they want to share
Geoff Taylor, BPI
Geoff Taylor, CEO of the BPI & BRIT Awards, added: “For many artists the album remains the ultimate expression of their creativity and the story they want to share. The '80s were a hugely creative time – musically and across other aspects of our pop culture, and it will be fascinating to engage in this year’s National Album Day through the lens of arguably the most influential decade in pop history.”
Special releases will include new albums, boxsets and classic reissues such as Duran Duran's Duran Duran, Paul Simon Graceland, The Stone Roses' eponymous debut LP and Smash Hits 80s.
Based on Official Charts data, 154 million albums or their equivalent were purchased, downloaded or streamed in 2019 – up 7.7% on the previous year, and even during the first six months of 2020, album equivalent sales have risen by 6.8%.
Iain McNay, chairman of Cherry Red Records, and a founding voice of National Album Day, said: “National Album Day exists to remind everyone of just how brilliant albums can be. The creativity and thought and often pure genius which is poured out by artists when making an album can easily be forgotten in our current world where the attention span is increasingly getting shorter and less focused. So National Album Day invites you to sit down, pour a glass of wine or make a cup of tea, and just listen without distraction to a favourite album... and time and time again you will hear things that you never knew were there.”
Over the past two years, National Album Day has been supported by the likes of Lewis Capaldi, Jess Glynne, Mark Ronson, Elbow, Paloma Faith, Alice Cooper, Novelist, Tom Odell, Mahalia and Orbital, and has hosted a variety of events and activations including Classic Album Sunday and Tape Notes events, in-store artist appearances, record store promotions, and a Network Rail exhibition in major cities across the UK”.
The 1980s was such a great time for music and development. The Sony Walkman was introduced in 1979, and it became a lot more prevalent in the 1980s; the first CD player, the Philips CD100, was released in August 1982. I think we take for granted technology and how easy it is to listen to music, but think about the 1980s and how exciting it would have been to have a Walkman and CD player!
IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 1986
I was born in 1983, but I grew up listening to a lot of music from the 1980s. Of course, big Pop icons like Madonna and Michael Jackson were key; I was also listening to a lot of chart music from that period, and even when the excitement of the 1990s arrived, the 1980s still was still in my ears! I look back fondly on the decade, and I embrace it all – from the always-divisive fashion through to the wonderful music. If you need a bit of a guide to the 1980s, then Gary Davies’ BBC Radio 2 show is worth a listen. No matter how old you are, you can appreciate a decade that gave us genius albums from the Pixies, The Smiths, Talking Heads, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Paul Simon, Prince, Public Enemy, and De La Soul. I think we all need some positivity right now, so this year’s National Album Day will definitely provide that. Not only will it compel people of a certain age to rediscover and replay albums they loved in the 1980s; younger listeners are going to discover albums that might be new to them. No matter who you are and what your music tastes are, we can agree that the theme for this year’s National Album Day is…
IMAGE CREDIT: National Album Day
ONE of the very best.