Episode #13: New Wave

As with all musical genres, New Wave is hard to explicitly define. It is usually considered to have flourished in the wake of punk with some bands borrowing so many elements of punk music that it may be hard to distinguish where punk ended and New Wave began. To simplify matters, New Wave can generally be narrowed down to late 1970s through the early 1980s. There are two main schools that evolved from the punk movement in the mid-late 1970s: post-punk and New Wave. New Wave can be considered the more straightforward, pop-conscious sibling to post-punk’s artier, darker, and more complex approach.

Basically anyone in the early-mid 1980s using a synthesizer was considered New Wave, but this serves to oversimplify things. Hugely influential and talented bands such as Talking Heads, Blondie, The Cure and Elvis Costello arose in the New Wave era and exemplify the high, nervous energy and irreverent attitude of punk while crafting catchy pop songs. However, there is certainly a wide variation within the confines of New Wave. Tinges of reggae can be heard on Elvis Costello’s “Watching the Detectives” while synthesizer and other electronic instrumentation are very prevalent on Gary Numan’s “Cars” and Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough.” Then you have more straight-ahead, traditional pop/rock, such as The Pretenders, The Knack and Nick Lowe and the punk-influenced stylings of The Jam and The Undertones.

After the advent of MTV in 1981, many copycat New Wave bands began to spring up everywhere. From that point on, New Wave would be harder and harder to describe as the music splintered into countless sub-genres and became increasingly reliant on synthesizers in an effort to create electronic pop dance music. However, here I try to salute the purest of the New Wave bands and celebrate its heyday.

Give it a listen and enjoy.

Track listing:
1) Uncontrollable Urge (3:11) – Devo
2) My Sharona (4:54) – The Knack
3) A Bomb in Wardour Street (2:38) – The Jam
4) Cities (4:10) – Talking Heads
5) Watching The Detectives (3:57) – Elvis Costello
6) My City Was Gone (5:25) – The Pretenders
7) Age of Consent (5:16) – New Order
8) Respectable Street (3:38) – XTC
9) Maria (4:09) – Blondie
10) Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl) (3:05) – Haircut 100
11) So It Goes (2:34) – Nick Lowe
12) Cars (3:31) – Gary Numan
13) Automatic (3:07) – The Go-Go’s
14) True Confessions (1:54) – The Undertones
15) Separate Beds (3:21) – Squeeze
16) I Know What Boys Like (3:13) – The Waitresses
17) Boys Don’t Cry (2:35) – The Cure
18) Just Can’t Get Enough (3:44) – Depeche Mode