Jump to content

Best New Wave Band


Super Ry 71

Recommended Posts

I noticed we haven't had a poll in a while, so I figured I'd try to get the ball rolling again. Since I'm not as good at that stuff as Mike (at least not yet), I'll start with a quote from the AMG:

During the late '70s and early '80s, New Wave was a catch-all term for the music that directly followed punk rock...

I disagree with this completely. New Wave has nothing to do with punk at all. To me, it's more of a mix of pop values, funk tones & rythems and (of course) reggae. Throw in modern technology of the late 70s and now we're talkin'!

Anyway, from this list, who do you think was the best NW band? I feel that The Police were the best of them, somehow managing to become the best post-1976 band has seen. And the music is catchy!

So what about you? What do you think?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've chosen Blondie, because they're the first one I think of when I hear the label "New Wave"

I dunno if they are actually better than the others listed... :P

apropos list, where's Ideal? or Extrabreit? or anyone else from the German faction of New Wave?

:grin: :jester: :jester:

Edited by Guest
typo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll start with a quote from the AMG:

I disagree with this completely.

Why start with a quote with which you completely disagree?

New Wave has nothing to do with punk at all. To me, it's more of a mix of pop values, funk tones & rythems and (of course) reggae. Throw in modern technology of the late 70s and now we're talkin'!

I disagree with this completely.

I think your definition of "new wave" is banal, ill-informed and lacking in both accuracy and substance.

Furthermore, many of the bands cited in the poll don't even fit your own bogus definition, so why are they included? (I mean, I'd agree that they might all legitimately be described as "new-wave" artists, in the broadest sense of the term, but not within the terms you have chosen to define the genre.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why start with a quote with which you completely disagree?

I think that's quite legitimate, stating an "official" definition and then (trying to) refute it. I believe it's called an "indirect proof"? :)

I won't comment on his own definition of New Wave or the choice of his bands though, due to a certain lack of personal knowledge ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well pardon me for being banal, ill-informed and lacking in both accuracy and substance in general, but I don't like being talked to like that by anybody, even if they're people nearly thirty years older than myself. I don't mean disrespect, but this is why I don't take place in "Music Discussion" as much as everyone else; so that people can tell me how much my own beliefs deserved to be fed to Satan's next-of-kin. If you don't like my opinions or the fact that I can't bloat them up like everyone else can, just say "I disagree with your opinion," and don't use over-the-top policital talk to make me feel like a piece of ****.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that's quite legitimate, stating an "official" definition and then (trying to) refute it. I believe it's called an "indirect proof"? :)

Ok, Farin, fair point. But why not start by finding a better definition? There must be plenty around. Better than finding a bad definition then refuting it with an equally bad one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

New Wave music

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

New Wave was a rock music genre that existed during the late 1970s and the early-to-mid 1980s. It emerged from punk rock as a reaction against the popular music of the 1970s and it incorporated various influences such as: the rock 'n roll styles of the pre-hippie era, ska, reggae, power pop, the mod subculture, as well as electronic music, funk etc. Notable artists: The B-52's, Blondie, The Boomtown Rats, The Cars, Devo, Elvis Costello, The Police, Squeeze, Talking Heads, The Network, XTC and others.

OverviewThe term New Wave itself is a source of much confusion. Originally, 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". He felt that the music was the musical equivalent of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s.[citation needed] Like those film makers, his new artists (most notably Talking Heads) were anti-corporate, experimental, and a generation that had grown up as critical consumers of the art they now practiced. Thus, the term "new wave" was initially interchangeable with "punk".

Soon, however, listeners themselves began to differentiate 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:[1]

The Rats didn’t conform precisely to the notional orthodoxies of punk, but then neither did many other bands at the forefront of what those who were scared of the uncompromising term 'punk' later bowdlerised to New Wave. You weren’t allowed to have long hair! The Ramones did. Guitar solos verboten! The defence calls Television. Facial hair a capital offence! Two members of The Stranglers are in mortal danger. Age police on the prowl for wrinklies on the run! Cells await Ian Dury, Knox from The Vibrators and most of The Stranglers. Pedal steel guitars and country music too inextricably linked with Laurel Canyon coke-hippies and snooze-inducing Mellow Mafia singer/songwriterismo. Elvis Costello, you’re busted.

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 categorised 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; [2] 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 features US artists including the Dead Boys, the Ramones, Talking Heads and the Runaways.[3]

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, 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.

Definition of New Wave in the United States

New Wave in the United States is a popular catchall term used to describe music that emerged in the late 1970’s and crested during the 1982-1983 period in what was dubbed the second British Invasion when groups deemed “New Wave†scored high on the charts. The artists deemed “New Wave†in the late 1970’s such as Elvis Costello, The Police, Gary Numan, and Squeeze dovetails with the original definition of the genre. Starting the early 1980’s and continuing until around 1987 the term New Wave was used in America to describe nearly every new pop/rock artist especially those that used synthesizers. Examples of artists defined in the Unites States as New Wave during this period that would not fit the original definition include Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls, Eurythmics,Adam and the Ants, Human League, Naked Eyes and The Culture Club. The term continues to be used today to describe those groups[5],[6],[7] ,[8],[9].

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, maybe my opinion was worded too strongly. To be fair, you can be rather harsh in your condemnation of others when the mood suits you, if memory serves. I didn't say that you are "banal, ill-informed and lacking in both accuracy and substance in general": I was describing your attempt at defining "new wave", as I perceived it.

Of course, it's a tricky business defining such an amorphous "genre", but any definition that begins "New Wave has nothing to do with punk at all...." is profoundly inaccurate, as any remotely serious appraisal of popular music history will confirm.

As for the "over-the-top political talk" comment: I really have no idea what you're talking about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Half of those listed are fairly blah bands. If an outsider were to hear them, they'd think New Wave was boring crap. However, The Cars rocked :rockon: Woulda loved to see how Sparks, Suicide, Ultravox!, Japan, The Buzzcocks, Joy Division and NewOrder, The Durutti Column, Depeche Mode, The Cure, and others would fare.

Echo And The Bunnymen :rockon:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I love that Lightning Seeds song...

The Psychedelich Furs

The Lords of the New Church

The Stranglers

Devo

The Rubinoos

Blancmange

Tuxedo Moon

Graham Parker and The Rumour

Squeeze

XTC

Television

The Motels

and of course, all those mentioned by Bitter Almonds...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...