That Was The Year... 1980 Strikes, Eruptions and Pyjamas

GIBSON introduces the Heritage Standard

80 guitar following accusations about the quality of Les Paul models not being up to past standards. The whole run of instruments had nicely figured tops but the Elite was endowed with curly maple. Some of the questionable features from the seventies are mercifully scrapped and the guitar is a real winner.

ROCK albums get heavier with

Wheels Of Steel - Saxon, Ace Of Spades - Motörhead,

Women And Children First - Van Halen, Back In Black -

AC/DC, Ready An’ Willin’ - Whitesnake, British Steel - Judas

Priest and Ozzy Osbourne’s solo debut,

The Blizzard Of Ozz. Mainstream albums include Duke - Genesis, Zenyatta Mondatta - The Police, The Game - Queen, Head Games - Foreigner, Gaucho - Steely Dan and U2’s debut album, Boy.

FENDER launches ‘The Strat’

with several new features including gold-plated hardware, a hotter lead pickup and new circuitry allowing pairs of pickups to work in series (humbucking). The guitar produces nine different basic tones using the twin mode rotary selector switch and the five-way pickup selector and reveals four new tones never available on a Fender Stratocaster (before or since). John Lennon describes his Lake Placid Blue Strat as “the cat’s pyjamas” and initially the only other available colour is Candy Apple Red.

ITV broadcasts TV-am, the first

ever breakfast programme; the first episode of Yes Minister is broadcast by the BBC; and millions of viewers watch Dallas to learn who shot JR Ewing. Formula 1 driver Jenson Button is born.

THE EAGLES, Gentle Giant and

Bachman-Turner Overdrive break up while The Sisters Of Mercy and Hüsker Dü form and Duran Duran signs with

EMI after finalising the lineup. Bon Scott, lead singer of AC/DC dies in London from “acute alcohol poisoning” and Led Zeppelin drummer

John Bonham is found dead at guitarist Jimmy

Page’s country estate in Windsor. Zep retire in

December as a result. John Lennon is shot dead outside his apartment building in New York City.

A NATIONAL stel strike is called and lasts

three months, Margaret Thatcher declares “U-turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning” during her speech at the Conservative Party conference; the SAS storm the Iranian Embassy in London and free all the hostages held by terrorists; Ford launches the Mark 3 Escort, British Leyland the Mini Metro and Mount St Helens erupts in Washington.

IBANEZ revives the Destroyer

as the Destroyer II Series that features the ‘goose beak’ headstock shape. Available as a bolt-on or a set-neck model it features a bound flamed maple top over a mahogany body and the guitar is soon championed by Phil Collen of Def Leppard.