New Wave music

A few more I didn't see mentioned in my super quick skim of the thread...
The Police (early Police fell into this category back in the day)
The Fixx
Thompson Twins
The Church
Nina
Human League
Heaven 17

And because I'm in Canada, a few popular Canadian new wave bands:
Men Without Hats
Blue Peter
Images in Vogue (keyboardist went on to form Skinny Puppy)
The Spoons (the new wave sway n play dancing at the end of the video below says it all)

 

Exactly who considered them part of that? Were the new wave of British Heavy metal bands considered part of the new wave too?

 

I guess it all boils down to definitions and how you want to label things. Not all progressive bands are similar though. Genesis and Yes sound nothing like Magma, Gong, the Residents, Tangerine Dream, etc. It's a big umbrella just like alternative and indie are and there is a lot of diversity in all of them. Obviously you disagree and that's ok.

 

I listened to Stray Cats a bunch at the time side by side with Duran Duran, Billy Idol, Psychedelic Furs (and many others) and considered them Rockabilly, which was having it's own resurgence back then parallel to whatever else was going on.
I mean the Clash were still making music then too, but I certainly wouldn't lump them in with New Wave.

 

Who?

Record labels (for marketing and promotional purposes),
Record stores (for the same, advertising and store displays too),
Radio stations (to include hot bands in playlists),
Music magazines (to include and group together artists for cover articles and other stories)
Music fans (easy to distinguish between “older established artists” vs “newer artists”)

 

Thanks for all the recommendations and suggestions though. It will take me a while to get through everything. I'll have one long list for sure. Some I am familiar with(such as the Fixx) but might need to rediscover which is always fun.

 

I only discovered their music about 10 years ago, but it's great! Have both albums on vinyl and the remastered CDs they put out themselves.

 

Kim Wilde, especially her first four albums would fit the bill...and she is still going strong today.

Water on Glass (1981)



Kandy Krush (2018) YouTube

 

A lot of great stuff there. But this really proves the point that someone said up thread that new wave is not really a "genre", because those are some wildly different types of music. At least in the US, new wave came to be known over time (through the early to mid-80s) as a catch-all for anything that was a bit off the beaten path.

 

Dirty Looks- S/T (1980) This album is really good and is sort of a Power Pop/New Wave/Rock mix. Their 2nd album isn't as good.
"Let Go"

 

"New Wave" was a marketing term propagated by Warner Brothers/Sire in the wake of the Sid Vicious scandal. "Don't Call It Punk, Call It New Wave". They had an ad with Bugs Bunny wearing a leather jacket. The point was to decouple then new-ish rock bands from anything associated with "punk rock".

It is not, and has never been, a genre. It's a generic umbrella term used to describe a number of disparate acts playing different styles of music.

You could have a band essentially playing the art school version of funk music with staccato guitar riffs and a completely different band playing synthpop, but both would be termed "new wave" by marketers and music journalists because that's what the record companies wanted at the time.

 

5’o’Clock in the Morning

 

Jumping on the bandwagon.

Alice Cooper - Clones (1980)

 

This is where The Police fell in the early days, a pumped up reggae influenced rock band becomes part of the "new wave" by default with a huge radio friendly hit that sounded different than what was out there at the time. I will say though that in my opinion this did actually become a genre as bands adjusted their sound to match what was popular and attempt to get a piece of the pie (pushed onto bands by labels in many cases I'm sure). There is a sort of weepy style of singing which became commonplace and that sway dance (in the Nova Heart video i posted above), the hair cuts, double breasted shirts, the use of Steinbergers etc... it all became part of the look and the sound of what absolutely started as a marketing term. I worked in large Toronto record stores in the 80's and we never had a new wave section, that's for sure, it was all just filed under "rock" lol

 

With any type of trend there will always be latecomer, second/third string type bands that try to cash in. Sounds like you are predominately talking about synthpop-ish "new wave" bands here.

Same thing happened with hair metal/cock rock. When people saw bands "making it big" you had a bunch of groups on the tail end that missed their 15 minutes of fame in the late 80s or early 90s and one prominent DJ personality still whining ad nauseam about how "grunge" killed hard rock.

 

The Embarrassment

 

Robin Lane and The Chartbusters "Don't Wait 'Till Tomorrow"

 

Well, I’m listening to Drums and Wires by XTC right now. I’d recommend this wholeheartedly!

 

The Fred Banana Combo

 

I don't hear much rock at all in the Thompon Twins(based on the radio songs by them I have heard). Same thing with other bands like Spandau Ballet. I'm looking for stuff with guitars in particular not just synths.

 

From wikipedia: New wave is a broad music genre that encompasses numerous pop-oriented styles from the late 1970s and the 1980s.[2]

Also, it's listed as a subgenre under pop/rock on the allmusic website. Those two sources are good enough for me.

 

I mean it's been years since I've listened to them but they totally had guitar in the band, Tom Bailey originally played bass and moved to guitar if memory serves... their albums varied quite a bit from release to release, generally getting more poppy as they progressed into the "Hold Me Now" era of top 40 play etc. A guitar band they certainly were not... but dig around a bit more maybe?

 

Makes me wonder why people still try to fit music into these utterly subjective sub-genres, except as a reason to argue about something. I think it's new wave, no it's punk, no it's rock, no it's post-punk, it's new romantic, pop, synth pop, alternative, indie. It's whatever colour you like, just don't fall into the trap of thinking there might be some actual boundaries between any of these terms, at least not today.

 

Guys! What about Japan?



They’re one of my favorite bands