Wave Hello

New Wave grew out of both post-punk and synthpop environments in the mid-70s, and was much ‘deeper’ than the perfect hairdos and pretentious images of many in the scene.

The base of most New Wave sounds were dance beats and synthesisers, but artists like Joe Jackson and David Bowie consistently tested its boundaries.
Guitar-focused power pop, jazz funk and some goth sounds were often indistinguishable in beat and structure to the most ‘New Romantic’ work around. Everyone was experimenting.

New Wave kept dance music alive when a backlash against disco built, and represented the last great European domination of the world. It was pop music, pure and simple, with vast amounts of energy and a far less aggressive attitude than punk.

Technology advances in synthesisers helped the genre appear futuristic, almost science-fiction like, with artists at the time often looking larger than life, using their alien, moody sound-scapes as pedestals.

Consensus of opinion suggests that New Wave invaded the decade from 1975 to 1985, with a peak around 1982-83, just as MTV started (see ‘Images by MTV’). When rock returned and rap started to build in the mid-80s, the genre died out as an ‘official’ movement, but the musical style continues as an influence to this day.


Artist, History, Genre

At the end of the 60s artists like the Beatles and Beach Boys started to use synthesisers, without changing their sound significantly. A German band called Kraftwerk released “a car drive accompanied by synthesizers and sound effects”, their international debut ‘Autobahn’, in 1974, and started the Synthpop movement.

In the late-70s many artists appeared, inspired by Kraftwerk, with the synthesiser as their main instrument. England was at the centre of this change, with the likes of Soft Cell, Human League and Gary Numan delivering the sound first and most noticeably.

Synthesisers were more and more ubiquitous at the beginning of the 80s, and Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Eurythmics all started releasing music to the masses. Hits like ‘Tainted Love’, ‘Cars’, ‘Ant Music’ and ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ took over turntables and TV screens around the world and in Australia and New Zealand, Split Enz and Flowers (who became Icehouse) both had regular top 10 singles.

Usually wearing makeup and big hair, and dressed in ultra-smooth fashion, the New Romantics used David Bowie and Roxy Music as role models. Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran were pin-ups of the style, relying on image as much as content to lure their victims into the space. They often produced slower, more jazz or soul influenced tracks, to accompany the ‘new wave sophisticate’ look, gathering the largest ‘teeny-bobber’ fan-base.

Also in the early 80s, more established artists like The Police, Blondie, David Bowie and The Pretenders fused New Wave with their own sounds and rode the wave too. Songs like ‘Atomic’, ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’, ‘Ashes to Ashes’ had more than a hint of synthpop, and were danceable too.

Towards the end of the decade, Madonna, Kate Bush, Pet Shop Boys, The Cure, Cocteau Twins and others continued a pop and ambient progression, and U2 and REM fought it out for ‘biggest band of the world’ title.

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Images by MTV

In all its guises, the New Wave genre was going strong until 1982. Although things may have died out when people ran out of variations of the same hooks, a new medium arrived that would become the face of the music industry. Music TV, 24 hours a day…MTV.

Initially, MTV was a fledgling company trying to stay on air, and they needed to buy enough content to fill every day at a reasonable price. New Wave was very popular, but many of it's bands were relatively obscure, so the company was able to get the rights on many music videos for a low price.

There were literally hundreds of artists that should have disappeared into ‘one-hit-wonder’ heaven, but because of MTV, which combined the catchy sound with striking images, they are ingrained in the minds of anyone who was avidly listening to and enjoying music during in the early 80s. 1982 and 1983 were boom years for slick and savvy New Wave groups like Culture Club, Adam Ant, Spandau Ballet and A Flock of Seagulls.

New Wave was a catalyst for the use of video to sell records, making look as important as sound in reaching an audience. The images presented were intoxicating statements of fashion and mystery, and many artists looked overtly powerful and mysterious, no matter what lay beneath. As is still the case today, music videos were often far cleverer than the lyrics, adding weight to a fantasy beyond the song.

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Progress with Regress

A small group of stars from the era remained together, maintaining their lack of rage as well as the same core principles of composition and sound.

Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and Duran Duran are alive and relatively well. Roxy Music, Culture Club, Bananarama have ‘reformed’. And there are many 21st Century dance and pop songs that sound like so much deja vu.

The New Wave period led others to experiment with synthesisers and explore fusion with just about every other genre around including glam rock, reggae, jazz, blues, rap, and classical. Current dance producers are sampling New Wave songs because their bass lines or hooks are still so damn catchy.

The music of the early '80s, dismissed by most ‘expert’ critics as fluff, has proven the test of time, because it still makes people get vertical and emotional. People who listened when the songs first came out, have great memories of times in clubs and parties when the sound of drum, bass and synth was brand new and inspiring. As was staring in wonder at the new video on TV.

New Wave lies powerful and semi-dormant in the record collections of millions, ready to be discovered by another generation.

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