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New Wave music
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New Wave is a genre of rock music which originated from the late 1970s. It emerged from punk rock as a reaction against the popular music of the 1970s. New Wave was basically the reinvention of rock 'n' roll of the 1960s but it also incorporated various influences as well as aspects of mod subculture, electronic music, disco, and funk.
term New Wave itself is a source of much confusion. It was introduced in 1976 in Great Britain by Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren as an alternative label for what was also being called "punk".
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Encyclopedia
New Wave is a genre of rock music which originated from the late 1970s. It emerged from punk rock as a reaction against the popular music of the 1970s. New Wave was basically the reinvention of rock 'n' roll of the 1960s but it also incorporated various influences as well as aspects of mod subculture, electronic music, disco, and funk.
Overview
The term New Wave itself is a source of much confusion. It was introduced in 1976 in Great Britain by Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren as an alternative label for what was also being called "punk". The term referenced the avant-garde, stylish French New Wave film movement of the 1960s. The label was soon picked up by British punk fanzines such as Sniffin' Glue and then the professional music press. Thus, the term "New Wave" was initially interchangeable with "punk".
In the United States, Seymour Stein, the head of Sire Records, needed a term by which he could market his newly signed bands, who had frequently played the club CBGB. Because radio consultants in the U.S. had advised their clients that punk rock was a fad (and because many stations that had embraced disco had been hurt by the backlash), Stein settled on the term "New Wave". Like those film makers, his new artists, such as Ramones and Talking Heads, were anti-corporate, experimental, and from a generation that had grown up as critical consumers of the art they now practiced.
Soon, listeners began to differentiate some of these musicians from "true punks". The music journalist Charles Shaar Murray, in writing about the Boomtown Rats, has indicated that the term New Wave became an industry catch-all for musicians affiliated with the punk movement, but in some way different from it:
According to Tom Petty journalists had difficulties defining acts like his Heartbreakers that they felt were not Punk rock but had an association with acts such as The Sex Pistols and Elvis Costello.
Music that followed the anarchic garage band ethos of the Sex Pistols was distinguished as "punk", while music that tended toward experimentation, lyrical complexity, or more polished production, was categorized as "New Wave". This came to include musicians who had come to prominence in the British pub rock scene of the mid-1970s, such as Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Eddie and the Hot Rods and Dr Feelgood; acts associated with the New York club CBGBs, such as Television, Patti Smith, and Blondie; and singer-songwriters who were noted for their barbed lyrical wit, such as Elvis Costello, Tom Robinson and Joe Jackson. Furthermore, many artists who would have originally been classified as punk were also termed New Wave. A 1977 Phonogram compilation album of the same name (New Wave) features US artists including the Dead Boys, Ramones, Talking Heads and The Runaways.
Later still, "New Wave" came to imply a less noisy, more pop sound, and to include acts manufactured by record labels, while the term post-punk was coined to describe the darker, less pop-influenced groups, such as Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Cure, and The Psychedelic Furs. Although distinct, punk, New Wave, and post-punk all shared common ground: an energetic reaction to the supposedly overproduced, uninspired popular music of the 1970s.
Reception in The United States
During the late 1970's Arena Rock and Disco dominated the American charts. The indie spirit of British Punk Rock appealed to those American youth opposed to mainstream rock's excesses. Around 1979 acts associated with punk and acts that mixed punk with other genres began to make chart appearences. The Cars,The Talking Heads,Blondie The Pretenders,The Clash,The Police and The Knack were groups that fit this description. The release during this period of Gary Numan's album The Pleasure Principle would be the pop chart breakthrough for gender bending,synthpop acts with a cool detached stage presence. New Wave music scenes developed in Ohio and Athens, Georgia
The arrival of MTV in the early 1980's would usher in New Wave's most successful era and one of the most democratic periods in American Pop history. British artists unlike many of there American counterparts had learned how to use video early on. Several British acts signed to independent labels were able to outspend and out chart American artists that were signed with major labels. Journalists labeled this phenomenon a "Second British Invasion"
The music had strayed far from New Wave's punk roots. Stating in this period and continuing until around 1988, the term "New Wave" was used in America to describe nearly every new pop or pop rock artist that largely used synthesizers or whom did not have long hair. New Wave is still used today to describe these acts. Fans and artists would rebel against this catchall definition by inventing dozens of genre names. Synthpop became the broadest of these so called sub genres with Ultravox, Orchestral Manoevers in the Dark, Depeche Mode, Human League, Howard Jones,A-ha, New Order, Soft Cell, and The Pet Shop Boys seeing time in the spotlight. The period saw a number of one hit wonders. "New Wave" soundtracks were used in Brat Pack films such as Valley Girl, Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. Critics would describe the MTV acts as shallow or vapid but the musics danceability and the quirky fashion sense associated with New Wave appealed to audiences.
The use of synthesizers by New Wave acts influenced the development of the House music in Chicago and Techno in Detroit. New Wave’s indie spirit would be crucial to the development college rock and Grunge/Alternative Rock in the latter half of the 1980's and 1990's.
New Wave revivals
Since the 1980s several acts have been described as New Wave or New Wave influenced. Among these have been No Doubt, as well as Gwen Stefani in her solo career,, The Ting TingsSantogold and The Faint
New Wave styles
Parallel movements
See also
External links
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- Top 100 list and short reviews
- Rolling Stone Magazine's Rock and Roll Daily blog Favorite 1980s New Wave Lists ,
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