John Peel Festive Fifty 1980

The 1980 Festive 50 was actually a Festive 65, although only the top 50 were broadcast on the Peel programmes. The chart matched the previous years in having 23 new entries in the main 50, with a further 13 included in numbers 51 to 65 and were included presumably to reinforce Peel’s preference for new music over the “old guard”. 1980 was the year when Joy Division first hit the Festive 50 and there were few surprises in this chart, apart from the inclusion of “Kings Of The Wild Frontier” by Adam and The Ants (which possibly was aided by it’s current chart position at the time of voting... or at least we hope so..!).

Interestingly, there must be a few original Peel-typed and signed copies of the 1980 chart knocking around these days, as apparently they could be obtained from the BBC by sending an SAE marked, somewhat cryptically, “Sheena Easton”. There could be one on eBay, going for a song…

The "FM" column in the list below shows the format the tracks can be collected in. Our preference is always to display the 7" if that version is available, with a 12" single as a second choice. "LP" will appear if the track is LP only. Click any band name to see our full stock list by that artist, or the "In Stock" button to view that specific item.