New wave music

• 1. The Marketing Pivot

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  Seymour Stein launched a campaign in October 1977 to replace the word punk with new wave. He was the founder of Sire Records and believed that calling bands punk would result in poor sales for his artists. The American media portrayed punk rock as dangerous and violent during the emergence of the Sex Pistols. This stigma made music virtually unmarketable to mainstream audiences. Groups stemming from the American punk scene began to adopt new wave as a form of marketing. They wanted to distance themselves from the punk label while keeping their energy. The New York Rocker had been using the term new wave since December 1976. It was the first American journal to enthusiastically use the term for British acts. Later it applied the label to acts associated with the CBGB scene.

• 2. Twitchy Rhythms And Geeky Voices

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  Music historian Simon Reynolds described new wave music as having a twitchy, agitated feel. Musicians often played choppy rhythm guitars with angular riffs and fast tempos. Keyboards and stop-start song structures were common features of the genre. Synthesizers added jerky rhythms to many tracks. Vocalists sounded high-pitched, geeky, and suburban according to Reynolds. A nervous, nerdy persona became a common characteristic of fans and performers alike. Acts like Talking Heads and Devo utilized robotic dancing and jittery vocals. Clothing fashions hid the body through suits and big glasses. This style seemed radical to audiences accustomed to disco dancing or macho rock. The movement reconciled the rebellious attitude of punk with traditional pop songwriting forms.

• 3. The Video Revolution

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  MTV launched in 1981 and heavily promoted new-wave acts in the United States. British musicians had learned how to use the music video early on compared to their American counterparts. Steve Greenberg noted that British videos were easy to come by since they were staples of UK pop TV programs. The Buggles released Video Killed the Radio Star which became the first music video played on MTV. This rise in technology made the visual style of new wave musicians important for success. In December 1982, a Gallup poll showed 14% of teenagers rated new wave as their favorite type of music. It was the third-most-popular genre at that time. Urban contemporary radio stations began playing dance-oriented bands like Culture Club and Duran Duran. John Hughes placed songs from acts such as Simple Minds and Echo and the Bunnymen in his films. These soundtracks kept new wave in the mainstream during the early 1980s.

• 4. Global Scenes And Local Divergence

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  Regional new wave scenes developed across Europe including the Netherlands and Germany. Neue Deutsche Welle emerged in Germany while La Movida Madrileña centered in Madrid after Franco's death. Poland and Belgium contributed coldwave movements alongside Yugoslav new wave. Soviet post-punk and new wave influenced acts gained prominence primarily in Moscow and Leningrad. Bands like Kino and Alyans formed an underground scene during the 1970s and 1980s. Spain's movement drew influences from post-punk and synth-pop to create a countercultural shift. The Soviet new wave later influenced the modern Sovietwave movement during the 2000s and 2010s. In the UK, some post-punk music developments became mainstream after the turn of the decade. Journalists described the Smiths as a reaction against the opulence of New Pop. They adopted jangling guitar work that had typified New Wave music.

• 5. The Fade Into Synth-Pop

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  By the mid- to late 1980s, new wave was overtaken in the UK by the new pop and New Romantic movement. The Second British Invasion caused the style to decline in popularity in the US. Music industry consultants began banning disc jockeys from using the term new wave around 1983. Most people who called music new wave were looking for a way not to play it. By 1983, punk and new wave was largely dead and buried as a commercial force. The first Now That's What I Call Music! compilation marked this shift. Critics like Robert Christgau defined new wave as a polite term devised to reassure people scared by punk. It enjoyed only a two or three-year run before falling out of favor. Some acts maintained an indie label orientation through most of the 1980s while others embraced more lucrative careers.

• 6. Echoes And Revivals

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  New wave experienced brief revivals in the 1990s and 2000s labeled the new wave of new wave. Scottish band Franz Ferdinand revived both Britpop and the music of the late 1970s with their sound. AllMusic noted that these acts led journalists to talk about a post-punk revival. In England, the resurgence of indie rock led to a proliferation of formulaic acts collectively labelled landfill indie. New wave revivalism influenced later internet microgenres such as bloghouse and vaporwave. An online meme led to the coining of a microgenre originally known as devo-core. This style was pioneered by Indiana band the Coneheads and characterized by zany aspects of Devo. In 2021, Olivia V launched the Instagram account @indiesleaze to document the visual style of that period. The movement drew inspiration from new wave music to create a distinct aesthetic for modern audiences.