New wave music


New wave is a broad music genre that encompasses numerous pop-oriented styles from the late 1970s and the 1980s. The term derived from the unrelated "French New Wave" cinema movement and was originally used as a catch-all for the music that emerged after punk rock, including punk itself, but may be viewed retrospectively as a more accessible counterpart of post-punk. Although new wave shared punk's DIY philosophy, the artists were more influenced by the lighter strains of 1960s pop while opposed to mainstream "corporate" rock, which they considered creatively stagnant, and the generally abrasive and political bents of punk rock.
Common characteristics of new wave music include a humorous or quirky pop approach, the use of electronic sounds, and a distinctive visual style featured in music videos and fashion. In the early 1980s, virtually every new pop/rock act – and particularly those that featured synthesizers in their sound – was tagged as "new wave". By the 2000s, critical consensus favored "new wave" to be an umbrella term that encompassed power pop, synth-pop, ska revival, and the softer strains of punk rock.
New wave peaked commercially in the late 1970s and the early 1980s with numerous major artists and an abundance of one-hit wonders. After MTV was launched in 1981, the network promoted new wave acts heavily on the channel, which gave the genre a boost in popularity. In the mid-1980s, new wave declined with the emergence of several "new" labels: New Romantic, New Pop, and New Music. Since the 1990s, new wave has enjoyed some resurgences after a rising nostalgia for several new wave-influenced artists.

Characteristics

New wave encompasses numerous pop-oriented styles from the late 1970s and the 1980s. It originally represented a break from the blues and rock & roll sounds of late 1960s to mid-1970s music. Common characteristics of new wave music include a humorous or quirky pop approach, the use of electronic sounds, and a distinctive visual style featured in music videos and fashion. According to Simon Reynolds, the music had a twitchy, agitated feel. New wave musicians often played choppy rhythm guitars with fast tempos, and keyboards were common, as were stop-start song structures and melodies. Reynolds noted that new wave vocalists sounded high-pitched, geeky and suburban.
Although new wave shared punk's DIY philosophy, the artists were more influenced by the lighter strains of 1960s pop while opposed to mainstream "corporate" rock, which they considered creatively stagnant, and the generally abrasive and political bents of punk rock. In the early 1980s, new wave acts embraced a crossover of rock music with African and African-American styles. Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow, both acts with ties to former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, used Burundi-style drumming. The Talking Heads album Remain in Light was marketed and positively reviewed as a breakthrough melding of new wave and African styles, although drummer Chris Frantz said that he found out about this supposed African influence after the fact. Second British Invasion acts were influenced by funk and disco.
The majority of American male new wave acts of the late 1970s were from Caucasian middle-class backgrounds. Scholar Theo Cateforis theorized that these acts intentionally presented these exaggerated nerdy tendencies associated with their "whiteness" to criticize it and/or to reflect their identity. A nervous, nerdy persona was a common characteristic of new wave fans as well as acts such as Talking Heads, Devo and Elvis Costello. This took the forms of robotic dancing, jittery high-pitched vocals and clothing fashions such as suits and big glasses that hid the body. This seemed radical to audiences accustomed to post-counterculture forms such as disco dancing and macho "cock rock" that had emphasized a "hang loose" philosophy, open sexuality and sexual bravado.

Origins, etymology, and scope

The catch-all nature of new wave music has been a source of much confusion and controversy. It was originally used as a catch-all for the music that emerged after punk rock, including punk itself. The 1985 discography Who's New Wave in Music listed artists in over 130 separate categories. The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock calls the term "virtually meaningless". Decades after the fact, in the US, late 1970s new wave acts such as the Pretenders were more likely to be found on classic rock playlists than on new wave playlists there. Reflecting its British origins, the 2004 study Popular Music Genres: An Introduction had one paragraph dedicated to 1970s new wave artists in its punk chapter in contrast to a 20-page chapter on early 1980s synth-pop. AllMusic offers that the term may be viewed retrospectively as a more accessible counterpart of post-punk.
performing in Toronto in 1978.
As early as 1973, critics including Nick Kent and Dave Marsh were using the "new wave" tag to classify such New York-based groups as the Velvet Underground and New York Dolls. In the US, many of the first new wave groups were the not-so-punk acts associated with CBGB, as well as the proto-punk scene in Ohio, which included Devo, the electric eels, Rocket from the Tombs and Pere Ubu. Some important bands, such as Suicide and the Modern Lovers, debuted even earlier. CBGB owner Hilly Kristal, referring to the first show of the band Television at his club in March 1974, said, "I think of that as the beginning of new wave." Furthermore, many artists who would have originally been classified as punk were also termed new wave. A 1977 Phonogram Records compilation album of the same name features American artists including the Dead Boys, Ramones, Talking Heads and the Runaways.
Between 1976 and 1977, the terms "new wave" and "punk" were somewhat interchangeable. Music historian Vernon Joynson claimed that new wave emerged in the UK in late 1976, when many bands began disassociating themselves from punk. That year, the term gained currency when it appeared in UK punk fanzines such as Sniffin' Glue and newsagent music weeklies such as Melody Maker and New Musical Express. In November 1976, Caroline Coon used Malcolm McLaren's term "new wave" to designate music by bands not exactly punk, but related to the same musical scene. The mid-1970s British pub rock scene was ultimately the source of many of the most commercially successful new wave acts, such as Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Eddie and the Hot Rods and Dr. Feelgood.
In the US, Sire Records chairman Seymour Stein, believing that the term "punk" would mean poor sales for Sire's acts who had frequently played the New York club CBGB, launched a "Don't Call It Punk" campaign designed to replace the term with "new wave". As radio consultants in the US had advised their clients that punk rock was a fad, they settled on the new term. Like the filmmakers of the French new wave movement, new wave artists were anti-corporate and experimental. At first, most American writers used the term "new wave" exclusively in reference to British punk acts. Starting in December 1976, The New York Rocker, which was suspicious of the term "punk", became the first American journal to enthusiastically use the term, starting with British acts and later appropriating it to acts associated with the CBGB scene. Part of what attracted Stein and others to new wave was the music's stripped-back style and upbeat tempos, which they viewed as a much-needed return to the energetic rush of rock and roll and 1960s rock that had dwindled in the 1970s with the ascendance of overblown progressive rock and stadium spectacles.
"Post-punk" was coined to describe groups who were initially considered part of new wave but were more ambitious, serious and challenging, as well as being darker and less pop-oriented. Some of these groups would later adopt synths. While punk rock wielded a major influence on the popular music scene in the UK, in the US it remained a fixture of the underground. In the UK, some post-punk music developments became mainstream.
By the end of 1977, "new wave" had replaced "punk" as the definition for new underground music in the UK. In early 1978, XTC released the single "This Is Pop" as a direct response to tags such as "new wave". Songwriter Andy Partridge later stated of bands such as themselves who were given those labels, "Let's be honest about this. This is pop, what we're playing.... don't try to give it any fancy new names, or any words that you've made up, because it's blatantly just pop music. We were a new pop group. That's all."
In the early 1980s, new wave gradually lost its associations to punk in popular perception. Writing in 1989, music critic Bill Flanagan said, "Bit by bit the last traces of Punk were drained from New Wave, as New Wave went from meaning Talking Heads to meaning the Cars to Squeeze to Duran Duran to, finally, Wham!" Virtually every new pop/rock act – and particularly those that featured synthesizers in their sound – was tagged as "new wave" during this time. Starting around 1983, the US music industry preferred the more generic term "New Music", used to categorize "new" movements like New Pop and New Romanticism. In Britain, journalists and music critics largely abandoned "new wave" and "new music" in favor of subgenre terms such as "synth-pop".
New wave was much more closely tied to punk, and came and went more quickly in the UK than in the US. At the time punk began, it was a major phenomenon in the UK and a minor one in the US. Thus when new wave acts started getting noticed in the US, punk meant little to the mainstream audience and it was common for rock clubs and discos to play British dance mixes and videos between live sets by American guitar acts. By the 2000s, critical consensus favored "new wave" to be an umbrella term that encompassed power pop, synth-pop, ska revival, and the softer strains of punk rock.

Popularity in the United States (1970s–1980s)

In the summer of 1977 both Time and Newsweek wrote favorable lead stories on the "punk/new wave" movement. Acts associated with the movement received little or no radio airplay or music industry support. Small scenes developed in major cities. Continuing into the next year, public support remained limited to select elements of the artistic, bohemian and intellectual population, as arena rock and disco dominated the charts.
Starting in late 1978 and continuing into 1979, acts associated with punk and acts that mixed punk with other genres began to make chart appearances and receive airplay on rock stations and rock discos. Blondie, Talking Heads, the Police and The Cars charted during this period. "My Sharona", a single from the Knack, was Billboard magazine's number one single of 1979. The success of "My Sharona", combined with the fact that new wave albums were much cheaper to produce during a time when the music industry was in its worst slump in decades, prompted record companies to sign new wave groups. New wave music scenes developed in Ohio and the college town of Athens, Georgia, with legendary bands such as the B-52s and R.E.M.. 1980 saw brief forays into new wave-styled music by non-new wave artists Billy Joel, Donna Summer and Linda Ronstadt.
An African-American "new wave" of sorts also arose in the US in the late 1970s and early 1980s, driven, as AllMusic points out, by "drum machines, synthesizers and programming common studio tools." Following the musically stripped-down approach of Stevie Wonder and Parliament-Funkadelic, post-disco explored a more electronic and experimental side of African-American music by incorporating an eclectic range of styles, e.g. Jamaican music, electronic art music, jazz, blues and, in the latter years, European and Japanese synthesizer music. Stretching the boundaries of disco music, post-disco took many forms, some entirely R&B-based, some post-punk–based, underground club culture-centered and futurism–leaning. Embracing new wave music proper was proven to be influential, as Afrika Bambaataa and Arthur Baker point out, on both underground and mainstream black dance music.
Early in 1980, influential radio consultant Lee Abrams wrote a memo saying that, with a few exceptions, "we're not going to be seeing many of the new wave circuit acts happening very big over here. As a movement, we don't expect it to have much influence." Lee Ferguson, a consultant to KWST, said in an interview that Los Angeles radio stations were banning disc jockeys from using the term and noted, "Most of the people who call music new wave are the ones looking for a way not to play it." Despite the success of Devo's socially critical but widely misperceived song "Whip It", second albums by artists who had successful debut albums, along with newly signed artists, failed to sell, and radio pulled most new wave programming.
The arrival of MTV in 1981 would usher in new wave's most successful era in the US. British artists, unlike many of their American counterparts, had learned how to use the music video early on. Several British acts on independent labels were able to outmarket and outsell American artists on major labels. Journalists labeled this phenomenon a "Second British Invasion". MTV continued its heavy rotation of videos by new wave-oriented acts until 1987, when it changed to a heavy metal and rock dominated format.
performs at Hollywood Park.
In a December 1982 Gallup poll, 14% of teenagers rated new wave as their favorite type of music, making it the third most popular. New wave had its greatest popularity on the West Coast. Unlike other genres, race was not a factor in the popularity of new wave music, according to the poll. Urban Contemporary radio stations were the first to play dance-oriented new wave artists such as the B-52's, Culture Club, Duran Duran and ABC.
New wave soundtracks were used in mainstream Brat Pack films such as Valley Girl, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club. John Hughes, the director of several of these films, was enthralled with British new wave music and placed songs from acts such as the Psychedelic Furs, Simple Minds, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Echo and the Bunnymen in his films, helping to keep new wave in the mainstream. Several of these songs remain standards of the era. Critics described the MTV acts of the period as shallow or vapid. The homophobic slurs "faggot" and "art fag" were openly used to describe new wave musicians. Despite the criticism, the danceable quality of the music and the quirky fashion sense associated with new wave artists appealed to audiences.
In September 1988, Billboard launched its Modern Rock chart. While the acts on the chart reflected a wide variety of stylistic influences, new wave's legacy remained in the large influx of acts from Great Britain and acts that were popular in rock discos, as well as the chart's name, which reflected how new wave had been marketed as "modern". New wave's indie spirit would be crucial to the development of college rock and grunge/alternative rock in the latter half of the 1980s and beyond.

Post-1980s revivals and influence

Indie and alternative rock

New wave died out after the mid-1980s, knocked out by guitar-driven rock reacting against new wave. In the aftermath of grunge, the British music press launched a campaign to promote the new wave of new wave. This campaign involved overtly punk and new wave-influenced acts such as Elastica, but it was eclipsed by Britpop. During that decade, the synthesizer-heavy dance sounds of British and European new wave acts influenced various incarnations of Euro disco and trance.
During the 2000s, a number of acts emerged that mined a diversity of new wave and post-punk influences. These acts were sometimes labeled "New New Wave". While some journalists and fans regarded this as a revival, others argued that the phenomenon was a continuation of the original movements.

Electronic music

New wave had a seminal role in the development and popularity of contemporary electronic music.
During the mid 2000s, new rave combined new wave with elements from several other genres, such as indie rock and electro house, and added aesthetic elements archetypal of a rave, such as light shows and glow sticks.