1981 in British music

This is a summary of 1981 in music in the United Kingdom, including the official charts from that year.

• 9 February – Phil Collins releases his first solo album, although he would not leave the band Genesis until 1995.
• 14 February – Billy Idol leaves Generation X to begin a solo career.
• 26 February – The Symphony No. 2 by Peter Maxwell Davies commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in celebration of its centenary, receives its world premiere at Symphony Hall, Boston, with Seiji Ozawa conducting.
• 4 April – Bucks Fizz win the Eurovision Song Contest with "Making Your Mind Up".
• 7 April – Former Who manager Kit Lambert dies after falling down a flight of stairs in his mother's home in London.
• 17 April – Eric Clapton is released from St. Paul's Hospital in Minnesota following a month-long treatment for bleeding ulcers.
• 18 April – Yes announce that they are breaking up. They would, however, reunite frequently in the future.
• 25 April – Paul McCartney's band, Wings, officially breaks up.
• 2 May – Working as a local wedding singer 12 months previously, Scottish vocalist Sheena Easton hits number one in the US with "Morning Train (9 to 5)"
• 11 May – The musical Cats begins its 8,949-performance run on London's West End.
• August – The success of Stars on 45 leads to a short-lived medley craze. The most successful imitator of the Stars on 45 format is, rather unexpectedly, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, whose "Hooked on Classics (Parts 1 & 2)" reaches number two in the charts.
• 17 June – Pink Floyd perform their last full concert with Roger Waters, as part of The Wall Tour, at Earls Court in London. Waters would not perform with the band again until a one-off performance for Live 8 in 2005.
• 14 September – Emma Kirkby and Gothic Voices record the album A Feather on the Breath of God in St Jude-on-the-Hill, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London.

The tables below include sales between 1 January and 31 December 1981: the year-end charts reproduced in the issue of Music Week dated 26 December 1981 and played on Radio 1 on 3 January 1982 only include sales figures up until 12 December 1981.

At the end of 1981, the official year-end charts provided by the UK's chart provider, the British Market Research Bureau, stated that the best-selling single of the year was "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell.^[1][2] However, in March 2021, the Official Charts Company announced that new research had shown that "Don't You Want Me" by the Human League, previously thought to be the year's 21st-biggest seller, was in fact the biggest-selling single of 1981 with over one million sales, and the year-end charts were adjusted accordingly.^[3]

^[4][5]

Notes:

• Peter Maxwell Davies – Piano Sonata
• George Lloyd – Symphony No 10, November Journeys (for brass)
• Adrian Williams – String Quartet No. 2

• Iain Hamilton – Anna Karenina^[6]

• 11 May – Cats, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, opens in London's West End.
• 16 December – Alan Ayckbourn's Making Tracks, with music by Paul Todd, opens at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough.

• Concert for Kampuchea
• Dance Craze
• Urgh! A Music War

• 11 January
  • Jamelia, singer
  • Tom Meighan, lead singer of Kasabian
• 22 January – Sarah Davies, bassist (Hepburn)
• 19 January – Thaila Zucchi, singer (allSTARS*) and actress
• 24 February – Gwilym Simcock, pianist and composer
• 11 March – Russell Lissack, guitarist with Bloc Party
• 13 March – Ivo Neame, jazz pianist and saxophonist
• 20 March – Declan Bennett, singer (Point Break)
• 26 March – Jay Sean, singer
• 1 April – Hannah Spearritt, actress and singer (S Club 7)
• 2 April – Linzi Martin, singer (Girl Thing)
• 10 April – Liz McClarnon, singer (Atomic Kitten)
• 21 April – Mike Christie, baritone (G4)
• 26 April – Ms Dynamite, singer
• 4 May – Ryan Elliott, singer (Ultimate Kaos)
• 5 May – Craig David, singer
• 20 May – Sean Conlon, musician (5ive)
• 22 May – Su-Elise Nash, singer (Mis-Teeq)
• 23 May – Gwenno Saunders, singer
• 5 June – Anika Bostelaar, Dutch-born singer (Girl Thing)
• 22 June – Chris Urbanowicz, guitarist (Editors)
• 23 June – Antony Costa, singer (Blue)
• 27 June – Colin and Joe O'Halloran, Irish singers (Reel)
• 6 July – Vicky Palmer, singer (Boom!)
• 12 July – Rebecca Hunter, singer (allSTARS*)
• 19 July – Didz Hammond, singer and bass player (Dirty Pretty Things and The Cooper Temple Clause)
• 24 July – Lisa Lister, guitarist (Hepburn)
• 8 August – Bradley McIntosh, singer (S Club 7)
• 11 August – Sandi Thom, singer-songwriter
• 21 August – Jenilca Giusti, Puerto Rican-born singer (Solid HarmoniE)
• 29 September – Suzanne Shaw, singer (Hear'Say) and actress
• 6 October – Sarah Keating, Irish singer (Six)
• 10 October – Una Healy, Irish singer (The Saturdays)
• 13 October – Kele Okereke, singer (Bloc Party)
• 31 October – Liam McKenna, Northern Irish singer (Six)
• 17 November – Sarah Harding, singer (Girls Aloud)
• 20 November – Kimberley Walsh, singer (Girls Aloud)
• 22 November – Ben Adams, singer (A1)
• 26 November – Natasha Bedingfield, singer^[7]
• 19 December – Sam Bloom, singer (allSTARS*)

• 19 February
  • Olive Gilbert, actress and singer, 82^[8]
  • Frank Merrick, pianist, 95^[9]
• 21 February – Ron Grainer, Australian-born electronic music pioneer and composer involved with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, 58 (spinal cancer)^[10]
• 10 March – Bill Hopkins, pianist, composer and critic, 37 (heart attack)
• 24 March – George Charles Gray, cathedral organist, 83
• 7 April – Kit Lambert, manager and producer, 45 (fall)
• 8 April – Eric Rogers, composer, 59
• 14 April – Christian Darnton, composer, 75
• 21 April – Ivor Newton, pianist and accompanist, 88
• 28 April – Steve Currie, bassist of T.Rex, 33 (car crash)^[11]
• 12 May – Frank Weir, orchestra leader and jazz musician, 70
• 17 May – Alan Gowen, keyboardist (Gilgamesh), 33 (leukaemia)
• 29 May – Sir John Dykes Bower, cathedral organist, 75
• 18 July – Janet Craxton, oboist, 52
• 5 August – Reginald Kell, clarinettist, 75
• 29 August – Guy Stevens, band manager, record producer and DJ, 38 (overdose)
• 23 September – Sam Costa, dance band singer and DJ, 71
• 29 September – Tommy Moore, former drummer of the Beatles, 50 (brain haemorrhage)
• 30 September – Boyd Neel, orchestral conductor, 76
• 15 October – Elsie Randolph, actress, dancer and singer, 77
• 9 November – Willis Grant, cathedral organist, 74
• 13 December – Cornelius Cardew, experimental music composer, 45 (hit-and-run car accident)^[12]
• 17 December – Sybil Gordon, operatic mezzo-soprano, 79
• date unknown – Albert Ernest Sims, composer, conductor and music director of The Central Band of H.M. Royal Air Force, 85^[13]

• 1981 in British radio
• 1981 in British television
• 1981 in the United Kingdom
• List of British films of 1981