Let Your New Year Rock
An old NYE broadcast, a new song, and some positive wishes for 2026
Just as it’s been widely suggested that “The Sixties” as we know them didn’t truly begin until The Beatles’ first Ed Sullivan appearance in February 1964, I’ve long felt that “The Eighties” didn’t truly kick into gear until 1982.
As exciting as it felt to begin a new decade, the 1980 I lived through just felt like a polished-up continuation of “The Seventies,” at least until the year ended on the soul-crushing one-two punch of Ronald Reagan’s election and John Lennon’s assassination. And 1981, at least for this 15-year-old music lover living in the Midwest, felt like a weird transitional year; FM rock radio was clinging to seventies vets like Styx, Foreigner and REO Speedwagon as if they were coke-encrusted life preservers, yet I still occasionally managed to get a whiff of interesting and important things — synth-pop, early rap, The New Wave of British Heavy Metal, etc. — that were happening below the surface of the mainstream.
MTV launched that August, of course, and it would become a massive influence on how “The Eighties” sounded and (perhaps even more so) looked. But as the majority of America’s basic cable providers were leery at first about adding something so radical as 24-hour music video programming to their packages, it took until 1982 for the channel’s influence to really be felt beyond its initially limited broadcast reach.
Which is why this full broadcast clip of ABC’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve ‘81 is such a fascinating time capsule. Unless you count Rick Springfield and his pink suit (and matching narrow pink tie), nothing on the show comes across as even the vaguest harbinger of the impending MTV explosion. With the exception of Alabama — a band whose videos MTV was never going to play — every single one of the featured acts (Springfield, Rick James, Barry Manilow, The Four Tops) has already peaked commercially; even the show’s hosts, Charlene Tilton of Dallas fame and Tom Wopat from The Dukes of Hazzard, hail from hit TV shows that had debuted in the late seventies and were already past their respective ratings peaks.
I’m not saying this to denigrate any of these performers — in fact, I can say from personal experience back in 2023 that watching this broadcast is an immensely entertaining way to ring in the New Year without ever having to leave your couch. (The vintage 1981 commercials don’t hurt, either.) But with the timeless exception of Dick Clark leading the countdown to the Times Square ball-drop, most of this particular New Year’s Rockin’ Eve would have seemed incredibly dated even just a year later.
And speaking of New Years…
2026 will be the year I turn 60, which is a helluva thing to write, seeing as I still feel about half that age. And while I’m not much on New Year’s resolutions, my overriding intention for this coming year is to spend more time creating than I consuming — unless of course I’m consuming things that genuinely inspire me and fill my soul, like music and books. Young as I feel, I am nonetheless quite cognizant of not having an endless supply of years at my disposal, and I don’t want to waste whatever time remains.
Among other things, I intend to write and record a lot more Corinthian Columns music in 2026. I meant to do just that in 2025, but deadlines and various unexpected crises unfortunately knocked me way off-course. I only managed to complete and record three new songs this year; the latest one, “One Sunny Day,” just got in under the wire.
A jangle-pop prayer stacked with several layers of electric 12-strings (and a little bit of squelchy synth), “One Sunny Day” — not to be confused with the Fleetwood Mac song of the same name — looks forward to a better time beyond the heavy darkness that's currently enveloping so many of us. I hope it'll make your own existence sunnier, if only for four minutes and 20 seconds. All proceeds from Bandcamp purchases of the track will benefit my pals at Ziggy’s Refuge Farm Sanctuary, who have continued to do incredible work on behalf of abused and neglected farm animals despite experiencing an exceptionally challenging year.
In truth, it’s been an exceptionally challenging year for most of us. But despite the fates throwing some major curveballs at me and those I love — and the general free-floating anxiety and disgust that comes with living in a country currently governed by petty, soulless, grievance-fueled fascists — I am incredibly grateful to have been able to do a lot of work that I’m really proud of this year, including my many contributions to FLOOD magazine’s Tenth Anniversary Issue and the forthcoming book on the history of Electro-Harmonix.
I am also incredibly grateful for a whole lot of other things, including the continued support of my Jagged Time Lapse readers. If you have subscribed to this Substack, if you have ever shared or commented on or even just “liked” a JTL post, please know that you have made a positive difference in my life. Thank you so much for that.
I with you all a wonderful, healthy and fulfilling 2026 — even though, by all indications, it’s going to be an incredibly rough ride. So if I have one big hope for the New Year, it’s that we’ll all do our best to spread kindness and helpfulness and positivity wherever we can, whenever we have the opportunity. Because we’re all in this together, right? Kojak knew the score…
See ya next year, baby!
You may also groove on the following:
Only Air Supply could have improved that lineup.
Happy new year, Dan. Great post. I was just thinking yesterday about what a tradition Dick Clark was on New Year’s Eve. Watched him every year as a kid and even years later in and after college, I can remember parties where everything stopped at about 11:50, and the TV came on to watch Uncle Dick announce the ball drop. Re 1981, I have this theory that decades don’t really “begin” until a few years in, as you point out here, 1981 was basically microwaved 70s, until he ice started cracking late in the year. Same with the 90s, I have always described the early, pre-Nirvana 90s as the highwater mark of the 80s, just one look at the crap that charted that year will confirm.
Anyway, great post - love your writing. Happy New Year to you and yours!