Best New Wave/Post-Punk Albums

Other good NewWave/Postpunk bands not often mentioned or maybe even unknown or forgotten.


Fischer Z - Word Salad, Going Deaf For a Living
The Monochrome Set - Love Zombies, Strange Boutique
Ballet M.Ecanique - The Icecold Waters Of The Egocentric Calculation (Denmark)
The Tapes - You Just Can't Sleep (Netherlands)
Fehlfarben - Monarchie Und Alltag, 33 Tage In Ketten (Germany)
T.C. Matic - T.C. Matic (Belgium)
Scars - Author! Author! (Scotland)

 

New Wave is an umbrella term with many sub genres

Such as Synth pop,New romantics,Ska, etc

 

Wall of Voodoo’s Dark Continent and Call of the West are criminally underrated

 

And it sounds awesome! The new cd is a totally new master, much more dynamic than the 2009 cd. Very impressive!

 

I’ve been really into this one lately:

The Associates - The Affectionate Punch

 

The 2016 BMG reissue of that has a second disc of b-sides that are well worth owning, sound ain't bad either.

 

I suppose that's as good an assessment as any. As I recall, when bands like Talking Heads, the Cars and the Police started popping up in '77-'78, we didn't really have a way of classifying them. We were just very glad they were there...

 

Even though they were around during the mid 70's I have a hard time classifying The Cars as punk. If anybody fits the definition of new wave, it's them. Not sure where I'd go with the Police, as they're more towards the pop end of things, although they came up in the punk scene. I'll leave it to our British members to figure that one out.
As far as Talking Heads goes, they were doing gigs in 1975 and they were definitely a punk band at the time.

 

The Cars were a direct extension of the No Wave stuff coming out of New York. Fundamentally, they were a poppier, less confrontational version of Suicide. I always feel like I am in danger of disappearing up my own ass when I try to classify these things though. It's all Rock & Roll ultimately,

 

Super early Police seems punk to me. Not everything on the first album (though lots of it). But ESPECIALLY those first two pre-Andy Summers tunes -- "Fall Out" -- and its b-side "Nothing Achieving" especially.

 

I can hear the Suicide influence, especially on Panorama, and certainly Ocasek was a fan, but they were not very close to No Wave, if by No Wave you mean Teenage Jesus, DNA, Mars, Contortions etc..
Suicide predates punk and no wave as they were part of the Mercer Arts scene in the early 70's along with the Dolls.
On the classifying thing, yeah I hear you.

 

Elvis Costello - Armed Forces
Talking Heads - Fear of Music

 

Autobahn are criminally underrated.

 

That looks like a rather calculated Kraftwerk rip-off including the band-name.

 

Note there is also two digital singles out, Songs In The Key of Death parts 1 & 2
Each has two live tracks not on the White Lies 'To Lose My Life" deluxe.

Also they put out two new songs you can buy digitally separately or as part of Five v2

Hurt My Heart

 

I love the Ring Wear. It's those little touches....

Now I want to see the inevitable Karl Hungus solo album!