That 80s politics blog!
The Beat recorded the song ‘Stand Down Margaret’, which caused quite a stir at the time – a spirited call on prime minister Maggie Thatcher to go. Below is vocalist Ranking Roger on the front cover of the long defunct Record Mirror. I interviewed him for the biography of Neville Staple – Original Rude Boy – published by Aurum Press. He was great fun to spend an afternoon with and some amazing stories from the late 70s and early 80s.
Record Mirror had some really amazing art work on the magazine front covers at the end of the 70s – I own some framed covers of Siouxsie Sioux and The Clash. Here’s another one in my collection promoting a feature inside the magazine on The Motors. Just superb.
I’ve just decorated my bedroom as a shrine to the coolest 80s pop stars and here’s a budget idea to do the same to yours. Basically, I got some of the best Record Mirror front covers off e-bay and then had them framed. Around 1978 to 1981, the magazine had some very stylised front covers with artistic images of stars instead of photos. I don’t know what the reason was – cost, whatever. But framed – they look amazing – here they are!
