Once in a LifetimeTalking Heads
Once in a Lifetime
1980 · From Remain in Light
Byrne borrowed a preacher's cadence, Eno hummed the chorus melody, and the band looped its own jams like samplers.
★ 9.0
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1980
Showing 30 songs from 1980
Love Will Tear Us Apart
1980
The title flips Captain and Tennille into its opposite, and the single arrived a month after Curtis's death.
★ 8.9
Back in Black
1980 · From Back in Black
Johnson was told the Bon Scott tribute could not be morbid, so he wrote a celebration over Angus Young's riff.
★ 8.6
Redemption SongBob Marley and the Wailers
Redemption Song
1980 · From Uprising
A single voice and acoustic guitar close Uprising, with a line lifted from Marcus Garvey and Marley already ill.
★ 8.5
He Stopped Loving Her Today
1980
Jones thought nobody would play something so morbid; Sherrill spent eighteen months coaxing the vocal onto tape.
★ 8.3
You Shook Me All Night Long
1980 · From Back in Black
Recorded at Compass Point in Nassau with Mutt Lange, Johnson's first single, and a riff that swings rather than pounds.
★ 7.7
Another One Bites the Dust
1980 · From Greatest Hits
Deacon's bassline owes Chic, Michael Jackson talked them into releasing it, and Queen landed their biggest-selling single.
★ 7.7
9 to 5
1980 · From 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs
Parton played the typewriter part on her acrylic fingernails, credited on the album, then took it to number one.
★ 7.5
The Winner Takes All
1980 · From Gold: Greatest Hits
Ulvaeus wrote it in an hour over whisky; the video came ten days after his divorce from Fältskog was final.
★ 7.5
Hells Bells
1980 · From Back in Black
A one-ton bronze bell cast to order in Loughborough, recorded inside the foundry, and Johnson's opening words for AC/DC.
★ 7.0
On the Road Again
1980 · From Honeysuckle Rose
An airsickness bag, a film producer's request, and a single cut live at a club over two Austin nights.
★ 7.0
Call Me
1980
Moroder cut the backing track in Los Angeles, Harry wrote the words in hours, and it ruled 1980.
★ 6.9
The Breaks
1980
Eighty-four uses of one word, a live band instead of samples, and the first rap single certified gold.
★ 6.8
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
1980 · From Greatest Hits
Ten minutes after a Munich bath, a borrowed Fender not the Red Special, and Queen's first American number one.
★ 6.5
Don't Stand So Close to Me
1980 · From Zenyatta Mondatta
Sting drew on his years teaching and on Nabokov, then watched it become Britain's best-selling single of 1980.
★ 6.3
Celebration
1980
Recorded in a New Jersey studio with Deodato producing, and adopted everywhere from ballparks to the hostages' homecoming.
★ 6.3
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
1980
Schwartz took the title from a pillow-punching therapy session, and Benatar made it her first American top ten.
★ 6.2
That's Entertainment
1980
Almost all acoustic guitar, one electric part running backwards, and an import single that still reached number twenty-one in Britain.
★ 6.1
Hey Nineteen
1980 · From Gaucho
Nineteen weeks on the Hot 100, fittingly, and a middle-aged narrator undone by a girlfriend who doesn't know Aretha Franklin.
★ 5.8
Upside Down
1980
Rodgers and Edwards wrote the groove, Ross remixed the album to lift her vocal, and it topped the Hot 100.
★ 5.7
Tide is High (Blondie)
1980
A Paragons rocksteady tune from 1967, Jimmie Haskell's horns and strings on top, and Harry strolling to number one.
★ 5.5
Keep On Loving You
1980
Cronin wrote it after his wife confessed an affair; Richrath's Les Paul turned a piano ballad into a number one.
★ 5.1
Centerfold
1980
Justman, the band's keyboardist, wrote it, and his synth hook took a Worcester blues band to six weeks at number one.
★ 5.0
FunkytownLipps Inc.
Funkytown
1980
A ten-note synth riff cut at Sound 80 in Minneapolis, Cynthia Johnson vocoded then unleashed at full wail.
★ 4.9
It's Still Rock and Roll to Me
1980 · From Glass Houses
Richie Cannata's sax break, Joel needling critics and fashion alike, and his first American number one.
★ 4.8
Shining Star (The Manhattans)
1980
Cut in Chicago with Leo Graham producing, Gerald Alston's lead vocal won the group their only Grammy.
★ 4.3
The Rose
1980
A song its writer said had no bridge and no hook, written in 45 minutes and sung to number three.
★ 4.3
★ 4.0
Morning Train
1980
Florrie Palmer wrote it, Britain sent it to number three, and America renamed it to dodge Dolly Parton's hit.
★ 2.2