The List: 1980s British Pop
Toyah is referred to a couple of times in this, comprehensive and interesting, new article by The List on how British pop music changed through the Eighties.
1980s British pop – The ideological and musical battles of the decade we can’t seem to recover from
As Tracey Thorn and Duran Duran’s John Taylor hit the Edinburgh Book Festival, Alan Bissett explores the music of the 80s
UK music kicked off terrifically in the 1980s, drawing inspiration from three key 70s co-ordinates: David Bowie, Kraftwerk and punk. The Sex Pistols, having scoured the landscape of rock dinosaurs, cleared the way for an energetic New Wave. Lyrical wit and edgy textures were crushed into pop gems by Joy Division, Elvis Costello, Gary Numan, The Police, Adam and the Ants, Bow Wow Wow and Toyah Willcox.
… Where Toyah Willcox, at the start of the decade, had wanted to ‘turn suburbia upside down’, the Hit Factory wanted everyone to move there. It spelled out British pop’s long-term doom.
• Continue reading at The List.
