New Wave is a genre of Rock music and a term that became popular in the late 1970s and the early 80s. It is a music genre that encompasses Pop-oriented styles with connections to Punk Rock, Disco, and Electronic music.
The term refers to the outgrowth of Punk combined with the cross-pollination happening in music in the late 70s, when non-mainstream musicians began incorporating a wide range of seemingly disparate sounds with a DIY rawness. Early Punk, Dub Reggae, Funk, Art Rock, Glam Pop, Kraut Rock, and Experimental Electronic music were all very influential on the New Wave of Rock musicians. It is considered a lighter and more melodic “broadening of punk culture”. Although New Wave shares Punk’s do-it-yourself philosophy, the musicians were more influenced by the styles of the 1950s, along with the lighter strains of 1960s Pop, and were opposed to the generally abrasive, political bent of Punk Rock, as well as what was considered to be creatively stagnant “corporate rock”.
New Wave music is characterized by agitated and busy guitar melodies, jerky rhythms, “stop-and-go” composition structures, often a heavy reliance on synthesizers, and typically intricate percussive sections (sometimes with the help of drum machines). Early on, beat-oriented music like Afrobeat and Disco also had a strong influence on the movement. Power Pop and Synth-pop are also closely associated with New Wave, and many artists played a combination of the three genres at various points in their careers.
It should be noted that the term New Wave was and still is sometimes used as a synonym for Synth-pop, especially in the United States, although this specific usage has largely fallen into disuse. The closer focus on Pop songwriting and electronics, as well as a mainstream aesthetic, helped separate the genre from its Punk Rock roots and its cousin in Post-Punk, a detachment that became clearer with synth-led acts represented by New Romantic.
Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, The Clash, and Blondie were some of the earliest and most popular acts in this genre; their fashion and aesthetics had a lasting impact on the flashy, eccentric, and distinctly middle-class style of the New Wave scene and subsequently had a major effect on 1980s Pop culture in general. Other significant bands are The Cars, New Order, Tears for Fears, and Devo, whose music ranged from guitar-focused rhythms to heavy reliance on synths and everything in between. During the New Wave’s peak, established artists such as Billy Joel, King Crimson, and David Bowie also dabbled in the genre, releasing popular and acclaimed albums during this period.
“New Wave” is simply a means of repackaging the “Old Wave”.
Malcolm McLaren
Originally, for a very short period in the 70s, the term was used as a catch-all for the various styles of music that emerged after Punk Rock, including Punk itself. Especially in the US, the term was interchangeable with Punk, where the industry was wary of the “punk fad” (Malcolm McLaren described New Wave as simply a means of repackaging the “Old Wave”). There were also different usages in the UK and the US mainstream media. Some music journalists consider New Wave to be a genre that takes the energy and ethos of Punk and combines it with more sonic and structural experimentation.
Later, critical consensus favored New Wave as an umbrella term involving many popular music styles of the era, including Power Pop, Synth-pop, Alternative Dance, and specific forms of Punk that were less abrasive. It may also be viewed as a more accessible counterpart of Post-Punk.
New Wave commercially peaked from the late 1970s into the early 1980s with numerous major musicians and an abundance of one-hit wonders. MTV, which was launched in 1981, heavily promoted New Wave acts, boosting the genre’s popularity in the United States. In the early 1980s, virtually every new Pop and Rock act – and particularly those that employed synthesizers – were tagged as New Wave in the United States and continued into the mid-1980s but declined with the popularity of the New Romantic, New Pop, and new music genres. Also and in the UK, the New Wave faded at the beginning of the 1980s with the emergence of the New Romantic movement.
By the mid-80s, the term was less frequently used by both the music industry and journalists, but in the late 1990s and into the 21st century, a resurgence and nostalgia for popular 80s music has brought the term back into popular usage.
sources: discogs, wikipedia, rateyourmusic
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