Burning Down

^^ Can't see the video, but it is a great song!!

VEGANGELICA

After reading this thread, I became confused, too, about what is considered New Wave music...especially since "New Wave" music that I heard in the '80s was my favorite, but some of the bands listed in this thread weren't what *I* thought "New Wave" meant.

So I looked on Wikipedia to find out how others define New Wave. I realized the definition has changed over time. In the U.S. in the late 1970s, "New Wave" meant British punk bands, but the definition shifted in the U.S. in the 1980s to mean bands that played energetic, fast-paced, but quirkier and prettier music, often with synthesizer...and then became even broader...

Back when I was in high school in the '80s, punk music had just made its way to my high school, so school dances began to get more exciting due to all my black-clad, spiky-haired classmates. But simultaneously, "New Wave" music was being played a lot...and at the time I felt New Wave music was quirky, fast-paced, a little subversive, and prettier than punk (more lyrical).

I would have said that "New Wave" music included XTC (whom I liked) and The Talking Heads (whose music I didn't like). I liked The Cars and loved Cheap Trick, but I didn't think of them as "New Wave" at the time, although apparently they got classified as such in the U.S. I also didn't think of REM as "New Wave"...somehow they didn't sound peculiar enough to me. REM's music didn't have a sense of humor or irony that I associate with New Wave. Like you, I just thought of them as "alternative."

Here are examples of songs I felt were New Wave back in the 80s:

XTC - Senses Working Overtime (1982)



The Vapors - Turning Japanese (1980)

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dankrsta

^^That's very interesting VEGANGELICA. It's always nice to hear this from a personal perspective. I was a little younger in the 80's, more specificaly, I was in elementary school. I used to listen to a more commercial music from that time like Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes to Holywood, and I liked electro pop (I can't remember what exactly). That's why I still have a soft spot for the 80's pop. Only later I learned about the term new wave and what was it all about and what other more interesting bands I was missing.

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VEGANGELICA

Oh, I also love a lot of the music from the 80s, dankstra. I remember Gary Numan's "Cars" (1979), which you posted earlier, though I didn't realize until today that is officially considered New Wave.

Duran Duran! Hee hee! Frankie Goes to Hollywood! They were very popular when I was in high school. I remember listening to them at parties with friends. And I remember when I was in Berlin in 1987 I went to a Duran Duran show. Somewhere around then I saw Frankie Goes to Hollywood, too. I don't think of them as New Wave but as pop.

But since we're on the topic of Duran Duran, I just looked up Duran Duran in Berlin and found the show I went to: "April 16 Duran Duran: Deutschlandhalle, Berlin, Germany (no opening act)." Duran Duran was a guilty pleasure: I hated the fact that they were so mainstream and popular and I hated the blatant sexuality of "Hungry like a wolf." I didn't want to succumb! But I really liked that "Rio" song and some others. And I thought the singers were cute. Gaa! I remember an Italian friend and I both bought the big, glossy show program...for the pictures.

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dankrsta

I don't think of them as New Wave either, but the influence was still felt in the early 80's even in these commercial pop bands. If this thread was in punk forum we would be seeing very different artists mentioned. And I never thought of New Wave as a specific genre, but a phenomenon in the second half of the 70's. As the term states, it's a wave of some new aesthetics and music compared to that often bombastic 70's rock, led by punk as a more genre oriented music.

Still, there's a very broad term, post-punk, which encompasses many styles from that time and beyond and which relates to the music that takes the punk aesthetics and attitude, but expands on it and takes it to more adventurous, sometimes even experimental directions. I've seen that that's what sometimes referred to as New Wave.

People usually have this need to use genres as some kind of little shelves where they can neatly arrange music, but that's not what it's like in the world of art. That's why there's a lot of confusion about this New Wave period. A lot of new things were happening at the same time like in a kind of creative explosion. That's why I (personally) like to refer to it as a New Wave time 'cause then it's less likely to make a mistake. As I understood the term was expanding as the time went by. I don't know, sometimes time helps to see things more clearly, especially when we deal with this kind of creative periods that were over shortly after they started, but managed to live further through a very strong influence.

The reason I posted Gary Numan's "Cars" here is because it's from New Wave time. It's a synth-pop or electro-pop, but with a very obvious punk or post-punk aesthetics. The other reason is that only a bit later I realized there was already a synth-pop thread in this forum , so I posted some more bands there.

Uh, this post was longer then I thought it would be EDIT: But what a hell.
I had a major crush on John Taylor when I was a little girl. He was adorable with that yellow lock of hair (Is that what you call it?)

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VEGANGELICA

Heh heh...no worries about me being scared off by post length, dankstra!

You express all your thoughts on genres and the "New Wave time" very clearly! I know very little about genres...although I think of their development as similar to the evolutionary tree of life: one type of music inspires other musicians, who take parts of it and combine them with aspects of other genres that they like, as well as their own new ideas, to create a new "sound." So, there is never a definite beginning or end to a genre.

And every once in a while there are new musical paradigms that rush in and become "selected" as popular because their freshness appeals to people, who seem to like novelty and challenging the status quo. So, New Wave seems like that.

John Taylor...yes, I think "a yellow lock of hair" is completely correct. I remember one thing I liked about Duran Duran when I was a teen was that they weren't afraid to be pretty. It made them seem more accessible and approachable!

Aren't they pretty? There he is on the right! :-)

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Screen13

While reading about Duran, I have to admit...I kind of liked the Arcadia spin-off album with Simon, Nick, and Roger. There's something about "Election Day" and "Goodbye is Forever" that seriously stand out from most of the Pop of the time, but the rest of the album is not bad. Quite surprising adventurousness. Not a classic, but I had to say it.

Screen13

If you're familiar with the classic "Being Boiled" that was pretty much a stand-alone track before it wound up on a Greatest Hits for it's album debut, and like it, you may find their early work a very good listen. They always had a good way of grabbing your ear in the early years.

The Dare follow-up Hysteria only has a few good tracks, usually found on any comprehensive Greatest Hits collection.

glimpse of magic

men without hats made some great catchy songs.

Liljagare

I think, in a way, the sound of Arcadia is a bit edgier than Duran Duran as a whole (which sounds silly to say since they are one in the same) and one that I preferred.

Quite honestly, I feel like bringing out my old Duran Duran and giving it a listen again. As a side bit of trivia, John Taylor is a nudist and I remember he stated that he did not enjoy wearing clothes in public or private, preferring nudism . Guess they could have raised the ticket prices if he had just ditched them during the shows

Another good band for this category would be Icicle Works.


Another one (and my edit again) would be Dragon (although I don't think they really made it outside of Australia/New Z I don't think. Great band though.).