New Wave Music - Overview

Overview

The term "New Wave" itself has been a source of much confusion and controversy. It first circulated as a rock music genre in the early 1970s, used by critics like Nick Kent and Dave Marsh to classify such New York-based groups as the Velvet Underground and New York Dolls. It gained a much wider currency beginning in 1976 when it appeared in UK punk fanzines such as Sniffin' Glue, and also in newsstand music weeklies such as Melody Maker and New Musical Express. In a November 1976 article in Melody Maker, Caroline Coon used Malcolm McLaren's term "New Wave" to designate music by bands not exactly punk, but related to, and part of the same musical scene; the term was also used in that sense by music journalist Charles Shaar Murray in his comments about The Boomtown Rats. For a period of time in 1976 and 1977 the two terms were interchangeable. By the end of 1977, "New Wave" had replaced "Punk" as the definition for new underground music in the UK.

In the United States, Sire Records needed a term by which it could market its newly signed bands, who had frequently played the club CBGB. Because radio consultants in the United States had advised their clients that punk rock was a fad, they settled on the term "New Wave". Like the filmmakers of the French New Wave movement whom the genre was named after, its new artists, such as the Ramones and Talking Heads, were anti-corporate and experimental. At first most American writers exclusively used the term "New Wave" to describe British punk acts. Starting in December 1976, The New York Rocker, which was suspicious of the term "punk," became the first American journal to enthusiastically use the term starting with British acts, and later appropriating it to acts associated with the CBGB scene.

Music historian Vernon Joynson states that New Wave emerged in the UK in late 1976, when many bands began disassociating themselves from punk. 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, came to be categorized 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; and according to Allmusic "angry, intelligent" singer-songwriters who "approached pop music with the sardonic attitude and tense, aggressive energy of punk" such as Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, and Graham Parker. In the U.S., the first New Wavers were the not-so-punk acts associated with the New York club CBGB, such as Talking Heads, Mink DeVille and Blondie.

CBGB owner Hilly Kristal, referring to the first show of the band Television at his club in March 1974, said, "I think of that as the beginning of new wave." Furthermore, many artists who would have originally been classified as punk were also termed New Wave. A 1977 Phonogram Records compilation album of the same name (New Wave) features US artists including the Dead Boys, Ramones, Talking Heads and The Runaways.

The New Wave sound of this era represented a break from the smooth-oriented blues and rock & roll sounds of late 1960s to mid 1970s rock music. According to music journalist Simon Reynolds, the music had a twitchy, agitated feel to it. New Wave musicians often played choppy rhythm guitars with fast tempos. Keyboards were common as were stop-and-start song structures and melodies. Reynolds noted that New Wave vocalists sounded high-pitched, geeky and suburban.

Power pop, a genre that started before punk at the very beginning of the 1970s, became associated with New Wave at the end of the decade because their brief catchy songs fit into the mood of the era. The Romantics, The Records, The Motors, Cheap Trick, and 20/20 were groups that had success playing this style. Helped by the success of power pop groups such as The Knack, skinny ties became fashionable among New Wave musicians.

A revival of ska music led by The Specials, Madness and the The Beat/English Beat added humor and a strong dance beat to New Wave.

Later still, "New Wave" came to imply a less noisy, often synthesizer-based, pop sound. The term post-punk was coined to describe groups such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Gang of Four, and The Cure, which were initially considered part of the New Wave but were more ambitious, serious and challenging, darker, and less pop oriented. Some of these groups would later adopt synths. Although distinct, punk, New Wave, and post-punk all shared common ground: an energetic reaction to what they perceived as the overproduced, uninspired popular music of the 1970s.

"The New York Dolls arrived and galvanised the entire scene. Real glam trash. Beautiful. They proved it was possible to be trashy and good at the same time. Kicked everyone into action at a desperate moment. They saved us all. At that moment, I was drawing lines into New York and the Velvets, European avant garde and electronic music, previous generation's Brit Psychedelia plus a ragged sort of insulting glam. I guess this was the start of the New Wave. By the way, whoever coined that New Wave byline is my hero. Because a New Wave is precisely what it was – and precisely what was needed at that moment."

Allmusic explained that New Wave's stylistic diversity occurred because New Wave "retained the fresh vigor and irreverence of punk music, as well as a fascination with electronics, style, and art". This diversity extended to the numerous one hit wonders that came out of the genre.

The term fell out of favour in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s because its usage had become too general. Conventional wisdom holds that the genre "died" in the middle of the 1980s. Theo Cateforis, Assistant Professor of Music History and Cultures at Syracuse University, contends New Wave "receded" during this period when advances in synthesizer technology caused New Wave groups and mainstream pop and rock groups to sound more alike.

MTV brought an "image is everything" mantra to New Wave during the 1980s. New Wave men put eyeliner on and New Wave women wore pants. Pants were tucked inside boots. Lingerie was worn on the outside, and sequined gloves were popular. Hair was dyed red, gold and green.