Riding the New Wave

["Mark R. Leaman" <mleaman@sccoast.net>]

>a problem with the use of this term to refer to any particular musical
>style.  "New wave" was a term that referred to youth pop culture at a
>particular point in time - the 80s.

Jeff:

That's what they called the music at the time. Although once when going
through my parents' old albums I found an LP called "The New Wave" which was
all early 60's Folk music. So "New Wave" was not a new term by any means.

> A bit like "alternative" came to be used in the 90s.

Again, this is the term which was used for the music. And I don't know that
many fans of Alternative were practicing an alternate lifestyle...no more
than any other group of people, I mean.

>contrary sort of person, I found the label to be distasteful.  I defy you
to
>include or exclude these artists in the wave, if you include them all you
>will find great dissimilarity in their musical styles:

>The Doors (prominence of keyboards and pretentions to art), Velvet
>Underground (see Doors), Roxy Music (See Velvet Underground), Bowie (Ziggy
>Stardust to Lets Dance),

These bands were too early for New Wave, although as I said before Bowie is
the most influential artist for NW. Roxy started as Glam Rock and mutated
into Euro Disco (not to be confused with American Disco, because they're not
the same thing).
VU were almost as influential as The Who in the Punk area.

>Police (punk, reggae or pop?), Elvis Costello, U2
>(Bono's 80s hair and Unforgettable Fire), Talking Heads, Go Gos , B52s, The
>Clash (Sandinista & Combat Rock), Beck

Costello and The Clash were Punk, all of the other bands incorporated
different styles of music but New Wave is certainly where I'd place them.
Costello changed and The Clash went soft.

>I submit to you, the jury, that these artists represent attempts to combine
>previous forms of music into something their own.

Who doesn't? Even Elvis did that. I don't see your point.

>all good rock) has done and will continue to do.  The exhaustion of the
rock
>genre comes when artists can't get passionate about continuing to combine
>previous styles together because they are either too bored, drunk, tired,
>stoned, or old to get fired up about it any more.

Or there's just nothing left untouched. Unused, I mean.

> I think this is what happened to Pete in the 80s.

It happens to most bands/artists. I can't think of any who had a long career
it didn't happen to, in fact. Even Spinal Tap. However, that doesn't mean
they did any New Wave. I can't think of a song which Pete wrote which would
fit into the New Wave style of music...Uniforms comes closest, but it's not
that different from The Dirty Jobs so...


"(My favorite song is) `Wake Up Little Susie' by Buddy Holly."
       George W Bush, boy genius, Presidential candidate 2000


        Cheers                 ML