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.
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]
^Scaping, Peter, ed. (1982). "The Top 200 Singles: January–December 1981". BPI Year Book 1982 (5th ed.). London, England: The British Phonographic Industry Ltd. pp. 46–49. ISBN0-906154-03-0.
^Jones, Alan; Lazell, Barry; Rees, Dafydd (1982). "The Top 200 Singles (UK)". Chart File 1982. London, England: Virgin Books. pp. 74–77. ISBN0-907080-49-9.
^Tilbury, John. Cornelius Cardew: A Life Unfinished Harlow: Copula, an imprint of Matchless Recordings and Publishing, 2008. ISBN978-0-9525492-3-9
^Bierley, Paul E; Rehrig, William H (1991). The heritage encyclopedia of band music : composers and their music. Westerville, Ohio: Integrity Press. ISBN0-918048-08-7.