New Wave
New Wave is often remembered more for skinny ties and silly
haircuts than for musical merits. The Police,
Elvis Costello, The
Cars and Blondie all lent some
respect to the genre, peaking in 1983 when The
Police's Synchronicity went Number One worldwide.
So what exactly was New Wave? Well, essentially it was all
post-punk era music (starting circa 1977)
that journalists, record label folk and disc jockeys didn't want
to call Punk rock.
Despite punk's grassroots success, to call a band 'Punk'
still spelled commercial doom because it was relegated outsider
status. Hence the term 'New Wave' was substituted to indicate
bands and artists were progressive and different but not
necessarily threatening, and certainly not devoid of commercial
potential.
As far as the mainstream music business was concerned, New Wave
began on July 22 1977 with the release of Phonogram's New Wave
compilation album. The term had been knocking around for a while -
Elvis Costello's debut 45 was
described as "new wave rock" in March 1977. Malcolm
McLaren had wanted to call Punk "new wave". In 1960,
new wave meant the new French Cinema. And former manager of The
Who, Pete Meaden, had called his production company New Wave
Music in the late 60s.
New Wave yielded many fine bands and great records, but there
were just as many posers and fakers who believed that reasonable
facsimiles would sell as well as the real thing. In some cases
they were right.
In America, New Wave was the closest thing to UK Punk. In the
Bowery, New York, at CBGB's, bands like The
Ramones and Richard Hell and the
Voidoids were 'punk', but Blondie
and Talking Heads were 'New Wave'.
In underground music scenes across the USA, New Wave could
describe bands as far afield as The Cars, The
Motels, The Go Go's, Jonathan
Richman, The B-52s, REM,
Devo, X, The
Residents and dozens more, good, bad and indifferent, who took
their musical cues from punk rock yet seemed less overtly
anti-social and more marketable. This explains why nearly all the
aforementioned bands landed contracts with major labels who saw
greater profit potential in New Wave than in Punk.
Primarily because in the disparate world of New Wave, there was no
formula for success.
Despite being lumped into the same category, there were
significant differences between the radio-friendly pop fodder
offered by The Motels and the art-punk of
Talking Heads. Also, some of the
performers dubbed 'New Wave' had in fact been around since before
the days of punk (eg Richman and
The Residents) or were just plain
weird fringe bands with zero commercial appeal.
What became clear was that New Wave tried to cover too much
ground; Powerpop bands were New Wave.
So were art-punks. So was the kitschy dance-rock of The
B-52s. Ultimately it was confusing, and music fans just wanted
good music, regardless of what genre it was assigned.
Across the pond in Britain, New Wave began by watering down
punk's aggression with the anti-pop star attitude of pub rock, and
produced some of music's best singer/songwriters. Elvis
Costello, Graham Parker and Nick
Lowe (although Nick had been around the block a time or two)
created music that bristled with venom and sarcasm, and was mostly
free from the self-indulgence of the American singer/songwriters
of the early 70s.
As in America, English New Wave seemed to encompass anything
and everything. There was the speedy trash-pop of The
Rezillos (a sort of Scottish B-52s),
the dread- filled gloom of Joy Division,
the calculated , melodic pop/punk of The
Police, the left wing rantings of Gang
Of Four, the feminist reggae-funk of The
Slits, the retro-psychedelia of The Cure
and later bands such as Happy Mondays,
Inspiral Carpets and the dour
but tuneful wonderfulness of The Smiths.
There were also mini-revivals associated with British New Wave,
such as the Mod Revival movement
which produced (most notably) The Jam, and
the Ska Revival which produced The
Specials, The Selecter and Madness.
Today, what was once New Wave is now 'Alternative Rock'; A term
that also suffers from diminished meaning as its use expands and
increases.
Ironically, the buzz-saw guitar sound from the early days of
punk rock has now fuelled the mega-platinum success of bands like
Green Day and The Offspring. Truth be told, no matter what the
time period, sweeping terms will be used by critics and the music
'biz' to grapple with the question "How can you lump a lot of
likeminded bands who don't play the same kind of music into one
category?".
The fact remains that great New Wave bands would have existed
no matter what they were called. And so much good music has been
associated with new wave that it is a very important part of
contemporary music history.
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