posted 12-02-2002 02:22 PM            

Ok, forget everything you think you know and listen up for I am the font of all New Wave Knowledge. Punk Rock™ started in 1976, in England, with the Sex Pistols. I know there was the Velvet Underground, The Ramones, The Stooges, and a million other bands that I could list off but for our lecture today we will say that Punk Rock™ started in 1976 with the Sex Pistols.

When the Sex Pistols broke nationally and internationally they changed the face of popular music. They were considered “dangerous”, “subversive”, and “demonic creatures from the bowels of Hell”. They, along with other bands like The Clash, The Damned, Slaughter and the Dogs, The Raped etc were labeled “punk rock”. “Punk Rock” was a derogitory term and few of the original bands ever actually used that label to describe themselves or their music. The Industry (aka The Man, aka marketing executives) came up with the term “New Wave” to describe the new music being created. “New Wave” was much more palletable to the general public.

Soon, however, the Punk Rock™ factionalized, one side schisming to the left with bandwagon jumpers cloning the Pistols or the Ramones and dumbing punk down to the bare necessities. The other side schisming off to the right with people who took the ideas and ideals of Punk Rock™ and adding other influences. The schism to the right was generally referred to as New Wave, as the left side had no problem calling themselves “punks”.

You should already be familiar with the punk rock side of things as its been beaten to death by the media in the last 5 years. We’re gonna go down the right-hand path and see what became of the New Wave.

The first thing you should know is that the label “New Wave” meant 2 completely different things in England and the States. In England New Wave referred to the first wave punk bands and their more intelligent offshoots (Elvis Costello, The Jam, Ultravox!, Bauhaus etc). In America New Wave meant bands that dressed funny and played synthesizers. But there was some commonality. Since I live in the States and that is where my viewpoint is taken from I’ll let a limey historian tell you about the Brit angle.

New Wave™ as a genre pretty much started with Gary Numan. You can trace him back starting with Kraftwerk through suicide and arrive at early Human League and The Normal. But Numan was the first person to become a pop star with a predominantly synth-based sound. What made this possible was the availability of cheap keyboards. Until Moog came out with their “personal” synthesizers, electronic instruments were the realm of the Keith Emmersons, the Rick Wakemans, the Pink Floyds… boring old rockers who were rich enough to shell out the thousands of dollars necessary for a synthesizer the siaze of a refridgerator. Moog (and a few other companies like ARP and Roland) brought the cost down to about a grand, thus putting the technology in the hands of the kid on the street (theoretically). What this “new” technology did was to give the kid who wanted to play music but didn’t want to spend years learning an instrument a way to get the ideas out of her head and onto a stage.

Like punk, this happened simultaneously all around the world, as a cheap synth in the US was also cheap in Spain, Norway, and Australia. For early synth-based New Wave bands check out DEVO, Eurythmics, The Human League, Visage, Ultravox (without the “!”), Kissing The Pink, Yaz, Depesche Mode and The Units.

Now, there was another offshoot from Punk Rock™ that was also lumped under the New Wave™ umbrella. Bands that didn’t embrace the synthesizer, or who used them sparringly, like The Psychedelic Furs, Blondie, Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division, REM, The B-52’s, Bow Wow Wow and U2 were all making different music in the very late 70’s and very early 80’s. For lack of a better term they were also labeled New Wave™ and you could find records by those artists alongside the synth-based bands in the hipper record stores, even though Kim Wilde sounded nothing like Pylon, who sounded nothing like A Certain Ratio.

In 1979 there was yet another offshoot that came to symbolize the image that most people conjur up when they hear the term New Wave™, that being of the skinny white guy wearing a white button-up shirt and a skinny necktie. This was the realm of Power Pop™, being high-energy bar rock based on 60’s R&B. The Plimsouls, The Beat, The Nerves, The Romantics and a million other Power Pop bands sprung up world-wide, but mostly in the US. These bands took the energy of punk rock and combined it with the vocal harmonies and subject matter (mostly singing songs about girls) of 60’s pop bands like the Raspberrys, The Kinks, and the like.

Then you had the cross-pollenation effect with bands like Blondie and The Cars. Were they Power Pop? Were they Punk Rock? Were they fucked up art damaged psychos? Whatever, they were still called New Wave™ and the kids ate it up.

The Thompson Twins, Duran Duran, A Flock Of Seagulls, while still firmly entrenched in the underground in the US, were bona fide pop stars in England, and if you went to the UK back then looking for those records the shopkeepers would have thought that you were buying the records for your 11 year old neice.
Granted, later on Duran Duran became the biggest band since the Beatles, but even after Rio had been out for 6 months Duran was still pretty unknown in America. The same thing happened with a bleached-out bimbo named Madonna. Her first record was out for a year, getting heavy play at nightclubs and on dance-oriented college rock radio stations, before becoming “the next big thing”.

New Wave™ as a genre pretty much died in about 1986. Sigue Sigue Sputnik being one of the only practitioners of the time. We have Rap and the very beginnings of House and Techno to thank for the demise of New Wave™. From there synth-based music was either found in the gay discos or in the “industrial” scene.

However, starting in 2000 there has been a resurgence in 80’s sounding New Wave™. Slowly bands are trickling out of the woodwork proclaiming their love of the cheesy, bubbly synth stylings of Vince Clarke, Gary Numan, John Foxx and their ilk. New bands that actually get it right are Ladytron, Add N To (X), Fisherspooner, and The Epoxies. Who knows where this will lead, if anywhere?

1970’s
Kraftwerk
Can
Neu!
DEVO
The B-52’s
Human League
Tubeway Army
Nash The Slash

1980’s

New Wave™
Soft Cell
Human League
Visage
Classix Nouveaux
A Flock Of Seagulls
Gary Numan
Icehouse
Berlin
Missing Persons

1980’s
Power Pop™
Blondie
The Plimsouls
Paul Collins’ Beat
The Go-Gos
or any of the “Power Pearls” collections

1990’s
there wasn’t shit

2000’s
see the last paragraph of the lecture

for further study please see the following links:
http://www.nwoutpost.com/nwhist.html
http://www.scathe.demon.co.uk/newro.htm

http://www.lexiconmagazine.com/NWC/complex/intro.html

posted 12-02-2002 02:38 PM            

I don't wish to insult but Blondie/Cars/Devo=zzzzz to me.

posted 12-02-2002 03:03 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by stu:
I would love to read your Yank ideas on the limey version of New Wave.

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That will have to wait for a future revision. This is completely a work-in-progress, and something that took me about 20 minutes to whip up.

quote:

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I don't wish to insult but Blondie/Cars/Devo=zzzzz to me.
Give me the Jam!

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posted 12-02-2002 03:17 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ollie Stench:
Soon, however, the Punk Rock™ factionalized, one side schisming to the left with bandwagon jumpers cloning the Pistols or the Ramones and dumbing punk down to the bare necessities. The other side schisming off to the right with people who took the ideas and ideals of Punk Rock™ and adding other influences. The schism to the right was generally referred to as New Wave, as the left side had no problem calling themselves “punks”.

You should already be familiar with the punk rock side of things as its been beaten to death by the media in the last 5 years.

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posted 12-02-2002 04:13 PM         

Methinks Blondie should be in the 70's, tho. I also thought that the guy from Sire records who signed Blondie, etc., early on came up with the term "new wave." Seymour Stein? That's the name that's coming into my mind...

What about our old faves the Vapors? I think that you could also include early Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello and one of my faves Lene Lovich. Also, Iggy's New Values I consider a new wave record. I have a book at home called "The New Music" I shall consult...

And Adam and the Ants?

posted 12-02-2002 09:46 PM         

The New Music, Glenn A. Baker & Stuart Coupe
C1980

This is my list based on the book.

England:
Pretenders
Elvis Costello
The Boomtown Rats
Joe Jackson
Lene Lovich
UK Squeeze (later Squeeze)
The Tourists (pre Eurythmics)
The Police
Bram Tchaikovsky
Wreckless Eric
Interview
John Cooper Clarke

US:
The Motels
DEVO
B-52s
The Knack
Pearl Harbour and the Explosions
The Cretones
The Dickies
Blondie
The Shirts
Urban Verbs
The Fools
Sue Saad and the Next
The Feelies
The Go-Gos
Holly and the Italians

Powerpop, according to the book:
The Records (remember Starry Eyes?)
The Shoes
Pezband
20/20
Kirsty MacColl
Bettie Bright
The Jags
Ian Gomm
The Beat
The Romantics
The Rubinoos
Eric Carmen
Paley Bros.
Nick Lowe

Synthesiser/Electronic, according to book:
Talking Heads
The Flying Lizards
John Foxx
Gary Numan
M
The Human League
Throbbing Gristle (!)
Telex

posted 12-02-2002 11:33 PM            

by Liz Thompson, Philip Kamin [1982, reprint 10/92]

"The lives and careers of more than seventy women rock stars of the day, with photos. This book was released to compliment a video of a simliar content. The video however only came out in Germany at that time as 'Women in Rock', later released in the UK and US as 'Girls Bite Back'. This book was published by Omnibus Press in 1982. They're all in here: Siouxsie, Debbie Harry, Patti, Kate Bush, Chrissie Hynde, Joan Jett, Nina Hagen, Toyah, Annie Lennox."

May I also mention Poly Styrene was included in the book. You can still find copies online. My mom also bought me "the book of looks" with some boring fashions, like preppy, but they had spreads on punk rock and new romantic. I still use the makeup tips.

I have an extra copy of "The Punk Rock / New Wave Explosion". Anyone interested?

posted 12-03-2002 01:58 AM            

2 books that are invaluable resources for New Wave info.

posted 12-06-2002 01:13 AM            

Since that time, I've collected a few stray and unconnected clues about the origins and semantics of this hairdo, I mean genre, which complicate my understanding somewhat:

-- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (!) were the first American band (Petty claims) to be called New Wave.

-- Many pre-hardcore L.A. bands like the Go-Go's considered themselves punk. But when punk bands started getting banned from clubs, the "new wave" tag caught on for bands hoping to actually play in public. (It's all explained in various books, and in a different way on CHIPS, the punk episode, which favored the more "positive" influence of new wave. Keep in mind, I have spent only 24 hours of my life in L.A..)

-- At some point, and I don't know when (see above), L.A. punk bands that weren't hardcore started being called "new wave" if they featured synthesizers or appeared on MTV. Those that didn't do either, but never sounded like hardcore (Fishbone?) never got labeled that way.

-- Then a lot of hardcore went in different directions, too, and it was simply called posthardcore, right. All the SST L.A. bands, for instance.

-- Backing up a bit, all the CBGB's bands, like Talking Heads and Blondie, called themselves "punk" so far as I know. (I'm not a New Yorker, either.) They were only new wave to tikes like me who consumed them on MTV.

-- The British-American paradox: Generation X's "Dancing With Myself" was punk; Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself" was New Wave. Discuss.

-- Then in the breath it took to say "1983," new wave took on a different life as fashion and fad among kids, especially girls, who liked some punk as music (along with Madonna and Eurythmics and Culture Club) but didn't look especially punk. Then again, a lot of punk girls liked those fashions, too. There were mohawks with fusia jelly shoes and aqua short dresses, so far as I remember. Let me dwell on that image for a second before moving on...

posted 12-06-2002 01:17 AM            

Also, house music was massive in '88, but still almost entirely underground, and that was pretty well after New Wave died. "It Takes Two" was the pop exception for both rap and house, but it was battling hair metal, not New Wave.

posted 12-06-2002 01:57 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Pete Scholtes:
-- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (!) were the first American band (Petty claims) to be called New Wave.

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I actualll have a bootleg comp lp called The Whitman Punk Sampler. On it among The Pistols, Damned, Iggy, and Patti Smith, is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers!

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-- Backing up a bit, all the CBGB's bands, like Talking Heads and Blondie, called themselves "punk" so far as I know.

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Blondie, as early as 1977, were claiming to be a power pop band. Then they covered "Hanging On The Telephone" by The Nerves.

quote:

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-- The British-American paradox: Generation X's "Dancing With Myself" was punk; Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself" was New Wave.

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the PERFECT example of the difference between UK and US New Wave.

quote:

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Let me dwell on that image for a second before moving on...

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Peter, my friend, you have given me somehting to dream about on this chilly December night. Thank you!

quote:

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One last quibble: Your statement blaming the demise of New Wave on rap and house loses me.

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What I meant was that rap and house is where electronic music went post-1986. House was still very underground, yes, but within a few years it would completely eclipse the New Wave influence on electro music.

quote:

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I just think most American music (punk included) lost momentum in '86. Rap and house came in to fill the void. If they killed New Wave, it was a Kavorkian gesture.

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I could not agree more. "Underground" music in the span from 86-93 really blew chunks. No one was inventive, creating new styles, it was just aping the previous musical generation (a musical generation, in Ollie's World, is about 3-4 years).

WHEW!!! Enough quoting for 1 post!

posted 12-06-2002 11:03 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Pete Scholtes:
-- Many pre-hardcore L.A. bands like the Go-Go's considered themselves punk. But when punk bands started getting banned from clubs, the "new wave" tag caught on for bands hoping to actually play in public. (It's all explained in various books, and in a different way on CHIPS, the punk episode, which favored the more "positive" influence of new wave. Keep in mind, I have spent only 24 hours of my life in L.A..)

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A possibly boring sidenote.

posted 12-06-2002 07:07 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ollie Stench:
I could not agree more. "Underground" music in the span from 86-93 really blew chunks. No one was inventive, creating new styles, it was just aping the previous musical generation.

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Hate to snatch more quibbles from the jaws of agreement, but for me the big exceptions in 1986 were Beat Happening and Sonic Youth (and in 1987, Fugazi). But they didn't really have a pervasive cultural impact until late in the decade.