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Those satanic prophets themselves the Rolling Stones summed it all up years ago when Mick Jagger remembered it’s only rock ‘n’ roll.
Yet there are many who swear by the new Wave, convinced XTC, Blondie and The Clash provide a radically different soundtrack for a sparkling new decade. A few million others simply swear at it, rejecting out of hand any skinny punk attired in narrow tie and jauntily affixed safety pin.
But a close listen to the evidence proves New Wave does not boldly go where no music has gone before. In fact it is a solid part of a rock legacy that harks back to the time when Joe Jackson was just a twinkle in his dad’s eye. Certainly few would have dreamed of screaming obscenities at the Queen, as did the Sex Pistols, or staging such frantic Martian sock-hops as those put on by the B-52s. But once past those spikey hairstyles and truculent attitudes, most New Wave types are pop classicists, rediscovering some of the wandering directions of earlier pioneers. It’s no easy matter to pin this music down to a set of common values. Just check the exploding New Wave section of any record store. Under the one banner are amateurish punk and rough-edged reggae, pop and passionate rock discs and other worldly electronic rock. You can even find a few records that recall the pelvis-shaking antics of Elvis.
These wild inconsistencies are partially due to overzealous record companies eager to slot their acts into a marketable category. More strong proof there is nothing terribly “new” about New Wave.
The divisions that follow attempt to uncover the new music’s barely hidden roots. The groups mentioned are the genre’s biggest and brightest. The records listed are essential listening for both New Wave followers and all lovers of rock ‘n’ roll – period.
The First Wave,
English Division:
Punk rock’s smash-all-the-barriers extremes paved the way for New Wave. It started in England where young men and women torched conventional social rules and shocked the tea and crumpets set. It also shocked a well-fed rock establishment that included such art-rockers as Genesis and Yes.
The Sex Pistols were the ringleaders, their claims of imminent anarchy carried onto their first and only disc, Never Mind The Bollocks (Warner Brothers). Their back-to-basics rock ‘n’ roll, somewhat overwhelmed by Johnny Rotten’s teeth-bared savagery, pointed out just how conservative pop music had become.
The politically motivated Clash were a little more subtle that their infamous counterparts, but still cut from the same rough cloth. After a critically acclaimed punk rock debut, the band has shown remarkable versatility their recent London Calling (Columbia) is an epic tour-de-force that delivers equal parts reggae, rockabilly, jazz and pop with a two-fisted flourish.
The Buzzcocks and The Jam are also part of this early upheaval, circa 1977. Both churn out highspeed pop songs largely influenced by mid-sixties bands like The Who and Kinks.
The First Wave,
American Division:
While England’s punks were tearing strips off one another, a low profile scene developed around a grubby New York club called CBGBs. The grand-daddies of modern punk, The Ramones, sprang from there, four leather-clad louts who sing truly dumb songs at tempos that defy description. A typical line reads “beat on the brat with a baseball bat.”
Their publicist insists Blondie is a band, but to most fans Blondie is Debbie Harry, an authentic New Wave sex symbol. Her ice-cold vocals sit primly atop a sound that originally imitated campy horror movie soundtracks. Now, three years after her debut, the recent Eat to the Beat (Chrysalis), encompasses dozens of influences, notably disco and British invasion pop. Their new record is in the capable hands of Donna Summer producer Giorgio Moroder who should stir the stylised soup further.
David Byrne’s bride of Frankenstein vocals turn many away from Talking Heads, possibly New Wave’s most innovative band. A fluke hit single last year with “Take Me To The River” balanced their avant-garde quirkiness a trait attributable to noted English producer Brian Eno. At Toronto’s Heatwave Festival they unveiled a line-up that should take their music even further from the commercial mainstream.
The Pub Rock Wave:
Groups who refused to jump onto commercial bandwagons are forced to ply their trade anywhere they can. In England, smoke-filled pubs, served as spawning grounds for the less extreme elements of New Wave.
With a front-cover pose reminiscent of his famous namesake, Elvis Costello’s debut My Aim Is True (Columbia) showcased a cold fish with a hot rock heart. His subsequent hit albums revealed his crafty musical revisionism and decidedly unpleasant character. Armed Forces echoed a sound heard on The Beatles‘ Abbey Road while his latest Get Happy (Columbia) is a danceable tribute to the Memphis/Motown sound of Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding and the Supremes.
New Wave renaissance man, Nick Lowe, has parlayed his own brand of “pure pop for now people” into a successful career. An album of the same name is an example of his chameleon-like abilities. Lowe’s partner in back-to-the basics, Rockpile is Dave Edmunds, a man who constitutes a “blue suede wave” all his own with his obsessive recreations of fifties rock’n’roll.
Ian Dury is an odd one, a true vaudevillian who updates music hall traditions with the aid of his feisty cohorts, The Blockheads. Not everyone’s cup of meat mate, but well worth a cock’n’sparrer.
The Tidal Wave:
The names Herman’s Hermits, Kinks and the Zombies may only spark dim remembrances for the majority of post-baby boom teens. But once upon a time these mod young men were part of an older new wave – the British invasion. What is now called “power pop” is largely a distillation of the Beatles sound characterized by trebly rhythm guitars and school boy harmonies. After the Knack broke through with their own brand of Beatlemania in 1979, the floodgates opened to a tidal wave of similar fab four clones.
Among the few who survived the resultant riptide are The Records, creators of perfect time capsules of boy-meets-girls innocence. Mid-western Americans, the Shoes also sound right at home clicking down the streets of Liverpool. Their name is one Ringo Starr jokingly claimed the Beatles had once considered.
The No Wave:
On a masterful campaign from A&M Records, the “No Wave” pointed out that New Wave was really rock’n’roll in a brand new set of rags. Three groups have gone far on the label: Squeeze are a good pop band capable of great pop singles; Joe Jackson has overcome early signs that he was another Costello imitator to prove he’s his own man if not the man his second record claims; and The Police have grafted an infectious reggae beat onto some solid melodies, creating an influential blend as unique as the rhythm and blues stylings of the early Rolling Stones.
The Red Coat Wave:
Fifteen years after the first British invasion, another wave of English lads have assaulted the American charts. Leading the troops is XTC, a live-wire pop ensemble who found a big audience with Drums and Wires (Virgin). Early reports on a new album make lofty comparisons to John, Paul, George and Ringo, ridiculous perhaps, but these guys can back up their most enthusiastic reviews.
The Undertones are from Northern Ireland but don’t expect any laments on the woeful state of the emerald isle. The boys-will-be-boys pop of Hypnotized (Sire) is only concerned with girls, cars and more girls, an ideal accompaniment for street corner loitering.
The brightest new stars of the moment are The Pretenders whose debut album has clung to the upper half of the charts for six months. Lanky Chrissie Hynde is a raunchy femme fatale and the band has an instrumental prowess that is unmatched. Their new “Talk of the Town” single should further establish their credentials as one of the New Wave’s few super groups.
The Nouveau Wave:
While much of the new music harkens back to early styles, a handful of bands are inspired by recent progressive rock. Gary Numan is typical of this nouveau wave. His three albums of David Bowie retreads have somehow attracted a large following. While he managed an archetypal cruising song with “Cars”, an energy crisis finds “Telekon” (Beggar’s Banquet) running on empty.
From the Far East come the Yellow Magic Orchestra whose album Replicas (A&M) exhibits three Japanese synthesizer players who compose modern machine rock with a human touch. Also worth investigating is Japan’s Quiet Life (Ariola), a take-off on early Roxy Music, and the Cure’s Seventeen Seconds (Polydor), a masterpiece of introspective progressive music.
New Crest On An Old Wave
Rock listeners were ill-prepared for the initial onslaught of furious rock’n’roll that emerged from the clubs of New York and London. After the smoke had cleared, “New Wave” seemed as apt a title as any to pin on the new music.
But in the waning months of 1980 it might as well be called the “whatchamacallit” wave. Try confining the following into one stylistic straitjacket: the reggae of the Specials and the English Beat: the hard rock of Magazine and The Only Ones; the incisive polemics of The Gang Of Four; the playful jive of Martha and the Muffins and B-52s; the nail-on-a-blackboard scrapings of John (Rotten) Lydon’s Public Image; and so on.
It is evident the new wave label has outlived its usefulness. As time and distance separate us from the seemingly radical sounds not so much a “new wave” as a new crest on an old and well-established wave. After all, “it’s only rock’n’roll”.
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