New Wave Music: The History and Bands of New Wave Music

New wave music is a broad subgenre of rock 'n' roll that combines elements of punk rock, mainstream pop music, art rock, synth pop, funk, and reggae. New wave bands largely emerged during the punk and post-punk eras of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but their influence prevailed throughout many decades of pop rock.

The new wave music scene was stylistically diverse from its outset. Some late ‘70s new wave artists—such as Blondie, XTC, Nick Lowe, and Elvis Costello—appropriated the raw punk energy of groups like the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls. Other early ‘80s groups like Human League, Tears for Fears, Devo, Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, and Duran Duran embraced synthesizers and funk rhythms. Still, others, like the Talking Heads, Adam and the Ants, Bow Wow Wow, and The Police, incorporated reggae and West African rhythmic concepts to traditional rock music.

The term "new wave" is largely associated with music critics, not the musicians themselves. It first appeared in music reviews of The Velvet Underground and New York Dolls in the early 1970s. New wave bands of the ‘70s were largely driven by guitars, owing much influence to rockers like David Bowie and Lou Reed.

• Multiple signifiers: Other 1970s groups like Television and The Modern Lovers were considered both punk and new wave. Ultimately, the punk moniker would be pasted more consistently on indie rockers like the Germs and X, while new wave groups cracked the popular music charts.
• New York and London HQ: Two epicenters of new wave music in the late 1970s were London—home of the pub rock scene as well as Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, The Pretenders, and The Psychedelic Furs—and New York City, where the nightclub CBGB hosted countless shows by Blondie and Talking Heads. Other new wave hubs included Athens, Georgia (home of The B-52s), Boston (where The Cars originated), Los Angeles (where The Knack and Oingo Boingo formed), and northeast Ohio (the birthplace of Devo).
• Influence of synthesizers: By the 1980s, the use of synthesizers became widespread. When the post-punk band Joy Division dissolved upon the death of singer Ian Curtis, the remaining members reformed as New Order—a new wave group that brought keyboards and a power-pop sensibility to the Joy Division ethos. Synth pop influenced many other 1980s new wave acts, including The Human League, A Flock of Seagulls, Tears for Fears, Soft Cell, Simple Minds, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Joe Jackson, ABC, Culture Club, Gary Numan. Even rockers like The Cure incorporated synthesizers into their sound, which helped create a unified aesthetic in most 1980s power pop.

New wave music encompasses many styles from the 1970s and 1980s, yet several characteristics tend to unify the movement:

1. 1. Reduced blues influence: Unlike the prevailing rock music of the 1970s, new wave music does not draw heavily from the blues tradition.
2. 2. Punk energy: In the early days of new wave, the term was used interchangeably with punk. While later, there was a clear distinction between punks like The Sex Pistols and new wavers like Talking Heads, the two styles are united by intense energy and lyrics that can be shouted as well as sung.
3. 3. Rhythmic experimentation: New wave artists show varying approaches to their rhythm sections. However many groups from the era, including Devo, Talking Heads, The Police, Adam and the Ants, Bow Wow Wow, and Duran Duran, ambitiously approached rhythm. Many of these groups regularly used rhythmic ideas from Jamaica, Cuba, and West Africa.
4. 4. Increasing use of keyboards: As new wave evolved in the early ‘80s, electronic keyboards became prominent. Some new wave groups always remained guitar-driven, like The Cars, Talking Heads, and The Police. Others, like Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, and Human League, elevated keyboards to the primary instrument.
5. 5. Mainstream appeal: Unlike punk music, new wave cracked the mainstream pop charts. MTV was filled with new wave music videos; in fact, the network's very first music video was from a new wave group, The Buggles.

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