New Wave music

No but they were concurrent with all the fresh blood that were the back end of the baby boom and beginning of GenX that were starting bands in late 70s in power pop, ska, reggae, hard rock/metal, electronics, rockabilly, punk, neo mod, soul, etc., combined with all the new musical effects/pedals/synths that were arriving. If one only listen to commercial am/fm radio in the US they missed a lot.

 

Any rock/pop that was not corporate rock. As someone who was there, that was my experience. There was no particular sound associated with new wave. Lots of different sounds fit under the "new wave" umbrella.

 

Off:

Name them.

 

YES!
All I knows is;
I never heard Bob Marley on any rock, pop, or (what little did listen to) soul station....but, I DID hear him on my local 'new-wave' station.

 

Where I live Bob Marley is sometimes played on the local rock station. It's kind of weird too because you'll hear all the usual rock stuff and then Bob.

 

A few pages back, a listed a number of acts of disparate styles all considered "new wave" at the time. There was no particular style associated with new wave, at least not in the late 70s or early 80s.

 

Any band called "New Wave" could probably also find a place within another, more descriptive genre of the time.

 

Labels are reductive and lazy. I always felt the New Wave label was used to market punk rock and what followed to a larger audience without the potentially negative connotations.

 

The Smiths, the Cure and New Order have already been mentioned.

The Chameleons and the Icicle Works haven't.

Big Country rounds out my top six bands of the '80s; whether they were New Wave is arguable but their predecessors the Skids were more aligned to the punk movement than to the mainstream music of the day.

 

No mention of Aussies Inxs or Midnight Oil though.

I don't think the Alarm or Simple Minds were mentioned either.

 

I'm amazed at some people's perception of this term here. Perhaps it had local interpretations. But as someone who was 16/17 when punk rock emerged in the UK it was a term that was a used as a less ferocious definition for the bands that were part of that scene. There was a Vertigo compilation that was called New Wave and featured a collection of both UK and American bands such as the Ramones, The Damned, Patti Smith, Boomtown Rats, Richard Hell, etc. That was perhaps the first attempt to define the term on vinyl. Even then it did not tell the whole story and was perhaps a bit too US orientated in many people's eyes.

New Wave would in my opinion have incorporated people like XTC, Elvis Costello and Television who appeared at the same time as punk but were slightly different but fitted in with the scene and its audience. However, an awful lot of the bands mentioned in this thread would not, in my book, be termed New Wave at all. It was a sort of wishy-washy term that most people thought of as a parent friendly definition of the bands that were considered a little threatening at the time. It did have a wider remit and I can see how it could be seen now as a very general term for new and slightly different artists, but it was not seen that way to me and my music friends of that period (pre 1980 really). It didn't really extend into the post-punk era as is implied here, not as far as I am concerned anyway.

Some of the terms that emerged such as DIY, Independent etc. really did get misused and generalised beyond their original intent and new wave certainly seems to now be seen as something far more wide ranging than it ever was to me.

As I say, perhaps this was far more regional in its interpretation than I believed at the time but frankly some of the bands termed New Wave above appear ridiculous in my mind.

 

I always put the cut off for new wave '82, '83, or 'the latest 84, it seems some go much later.

 

Japan was amazing band with a more arty approach. Mick Karn on fretless! And David Sylvian evolved into quite an interesting artist. Here's SWING from their Oil on Canvas movie.

 

More Japan with Masami Tsuchiya on guitar:

 

And one more with quieter vibe

 

If I have to believe this thread virtually every new band that released a record in the '80s is new wave, which just isn't true. Yes new wave is a real genre, but many artists mentioned here are post-punk or synthpop.
Typical new wave acts: Blondie, Elvis Costello, The Pretenders, Ian Dury, The Police, Boomtown Rats, Graham Parker, The Jam, Joe Jackson, The B-52's, Squeeze, Devo, The Cars, The Only Ones, Jonathan Richman, XTC.
Borderline cases: Talking Heads, The Specials, Stranglers, etc.

 

Female fronted bands were prominent:
Pearl Harbour and the Explosions
Holly and the Italians
RObin Lane and the Chartbusters
GoGos
Rachel Sweet
LeneLovich
The Shirts
Blondie
Romeo Void
Blue Angel
And even Pat Benatar

 

Throwing muses, belly, breeders, surfers, etc are from a later period other wise solid list.

 

Off:

There certainly is a musical style associated w/"New Wave"!
Otherwise it wouldn't be "New Wave".


Genre/Bands ~
Wiki:
New wave music - Wikipedia
AllMusic:
New Wave Music Genre Overview | AllMusic
last.fm:
New wave music | Last.fm
last.fm:
Top new wave artists | Last.fm

Albums ~
Rolling Stone:
Rolling Stone's Best New Wave Albums of All Time

Songs ~
DigitalDreamDoor:
100 Greatest New Wave Songs
Best Classic Bands:
10 Songs That Defined New Wave Music - Best Classic Bands

Books ~
Encyclopedia of New Wave:
https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-New-Wave-Daniel-Bukszpan/dp/1402784724
Lori Majewski and 2 more
Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980's:
https://www.amazon.com/Mad-World-Hi...2YPM7QAYNBD&psc=1&refRID=S9ZXAFJFB2YPM7QAYNBD
New Wave - Dare To Be Different:
https://www.amazon.com/New-Wave-Dar...QKGJZRETRBB&psc=1&refRID=A9ED78MJ4HQ6TGD6XRP4

Many, many, more references readily available; just google.

Cracks me up when just because someone doesn't think a fact is true, they don't "believe" it to be true.
Thanks for the laugh.


"Keep on Laughing - Rick Ocasek"
Previously w/a non-Mainstream Arena Rock Band.

 

An incredible group from Toronto

 

Bonnie Hayes and the Wild Combo

 

Things like "new wave" aren't musical genres, per se (except in the loosest definition possible), but they are umbrella terms to categorize concurrent trends in popular music that are somewhat identifiable.. and marketable.

I tend to think of new wave as the guitar-and-synth-based bands (pretty much all white) that emerged out of the wake of UK punk. They generally formed, as bands, from 1977 to 1980 or so. As with all these "genre" terms, if an artist in question was too commercially successful (U2, The Police), they tend to be thought of as having transcended the genre. So, most of the 'new wave' bands, though popular and maybe with a big single or two, weren't too popular. I also think of new wave as a 'modern' trend, meaning the artists had to be young and celebrating their own time period. If a band was kind of retro (The Jam) or had started recording before about 1978, they probably didn't seem new wave.

As for the time period of new wave songs and bands, I personally tend to think of it was from around 1978 at the earliest to around 1983-84 at the latest. I know the term stuck around for longer than that, but there came a point where MTV and "the 80s" became so omnipresent that it rendered new wave obsolete.

As for what new wave sounds like, well, as mentioned, it has guitars -- as all rock'n'roll typically does -- and/or synthesizers or keyboards, as dominant instruments. Generally, guitar music in that period around 1980 had a kind of uncluttered, 'spacey' guitar sound, and rock-cliches like blues riffs were avoided.

So, no, it's not a musical genre, but it is a genre of a sort. There is something identifiable there, even if the parameters are loose.

 

New Wave was finished before The Smiths or Bug Country started. By 82 it was done.

 

Punk / New Wave?
1976- 1979

 

Was going to mention Midnight Oil but I think everything after 10-1, where they were most popular, was just rock or alternative rock. Inxs still had some new wave sensibilities on Kick but not much after.