Spotlight on 1980 - A Rough Year for Rock Music Fans

I'm hoping that the five major rock music deaths that took place in 1980 is as unusually high a number as I assume it is. If not, then going back over the '80s year by year is going to be a far more somber experience than I bargained for. We'll see about that, I suppose, but 1980 certainly announced a changing of the guard in more ways than one. Gone (literally) was rock's quintessential supergroup, Led Zeppelin, and the world would lose its first Beatle - John Lennon - in an extraordinarily tragic and cruel fashion. Many other things happened musically during 1980, of course, some of which lighten the mood a bit, but it's hard to shake the sense of loss inevitably felt during a survey of the year as a whole. Check out my list of 1980's Most Memorable Moments in Music for a holiday mood lift (or something like that, anyway).