1981 in British music

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

Events

 * 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.

Year-end charts
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.

Best-selling singles
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. 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.

Best-selling albums
Notes:

Classical music: new works

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

Opera

 * Iain Hamilton – Anna Karenina

Musical theatre

 * 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.

Musical films

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

Births

 * 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
 * 19 December – Sam Bloom, singer (allSTARS*)

Deaths

 * 19 February
 * Olive Gilbert, actress and singer, 82
 * Frank Merrick, pianist, 95
 * 21 February – Ron Grainer, Australian-born electronic music pioneer and composer involved with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, 58 (spinal cancer)
 * 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)
 * 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)
 * 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