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Is it more of a genre or a time period? Is it meant to be a general category pre "alternative"? I've heard songs called New Wave that are more pop in feel, and then other songs that have more rock or electronic influence. Does it have to fall within a specific time period? I wanted to post some songs here that I feel are New Wave but might actually qualify more as pop since they hit the Billboard Top 100.
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New Wave is an umbrella term, but it originally described music made in the Punk era (1976-1980) that was less aggressive, more melodic, and generally less "scary" than Punk. Elvis Costello, The B-52's The Police, XTC, Devo were classic New Wave bands. Of course then it just became a catchall term for what became known as Alternative. (See also Modern Rock, College Rock, etc.)
Genre for sure. In the 80s, we spelled it Nu Wave. Depeche Mode, New Order, Bauhaus.... NOT Madonna, Prince and Michael Jackson.
Prince had a lot of New Wave influences. Dirty Mind and Controversy albums in particular. Plus he got radio play on KROQ, which was the flagship New Wave radio station.
"Delirious" for example
New Wave is an umbrella term, just like Rock or Electronic, there are a lot of subgenres but all of them fall into the higher category.
But I personally use New Wave to refer to the music from 1978-1983 that was more guitar-heavy and used live instruments instead of synths and drum machines, (like ABC, Blondie, The psychedelic furs, B-52s, The smiths, Classix nouveaux, Talking heads, early Ultravox and XTC)
Synthpop is New Wave. Post-punk is New Wave. You are denying huge chunks of its musical legacy with your narrow description.
I always thought Some of those Shoegazer bands of the late 80s early 90s were new wave influenced anyway. Goth was part of the New Wave scene. Shoe gazer seem to be somewhat influenced by Goth and new wave and Pop at times. I’m talking about bands like The Primitives The Stone Roses, The Darling Buds, Jesus and Mary Chain Etc. I prefer the term 80s alternative. As someone mentioned, College rock was big in the 80s also. That was like early R.E.M., Guadalcanal diary and so on. In the early 90s grunge bands were Being called alternative, But it was really main stream. The powers that be a knew That teenagers wanted to be considered alternative. So they capitalized on the word. Some new wave bands became kind of poppy, like Duran Duran, Thompson Twins etc. They start out being new wave bands but had a lot of crossover songs. It seems like my favorite songs by these bands are the ones that got little airplay on mainstream radio and never were really popular among the masses. Unless you were listening to college rock or a station like KROQ.
DD has some great songs like "All Along the Water", "My Antarctica", "A Matter of Feeling" that have been almost totally forgotten.
My favorite by Duran Duran is “Friends of Mine” from their first album.
Yes they are, sorry if I got misunderstood. I classify my New wave library in 4 playlists (Synthpop - New Wave - New Romantic - Electro Pop) even if all 4 of them are in fact, new wave. But not all of them sound the same, you know what i mean
Definitely a tough question, and I'm sure answers vary by region (namely US vs. UK). I've always described it as a movement that later became a genre. It evolved from the punk scene as the music and artists diversified; it still packed a punch but came off as less angry and more melody driven exploring new themes/tones (sarcasm, satire, irony, paranoia, etc.) as well as new sounds (synth, drum machines, etc.). It still retained much of the spirit of punk, still serving as a stark contrast to the over-the-top rock scene, creating music much more conducive to clubs than arenas.
I describe it as a movement because there are bands very associated with the new wave scene in the late 70's - Talking Heads, Blondie, Elvis Costello, Devo, B-52s, and lesser known bands like the Comateens - and the music of these acts always seem to be considered "new wave" no matter how much their sound changed over time. The same is true in the other direction: there are some decidedly non-new wave acts (e.g. Billy Joel, Linda Ronstadt, etc.) who released new wave material, but will never be associated with the genre. I know some say that Prince would not be considered new wave (and I would agree as a whole), but to me Dirty Mind is a new wave album, and some tracks from 1999 and Purple Rain (e.g., "Let's Pretend We're Married" and "I Would Die 4 U") play well on new wave stations.
The definition became looser over time, and by the early 80s it was very much associated with synth pop, the rise of British rock/pop acts on MTV, and music on John Hughes films. Because it became so hard to define, the term seemed to fade with the end of the 80s, so I very much think of it being a 70s-80s phenomenon.
One of my all-time favorite genres and eras in music.
It was also called New Wave because most of the bands were coming from England. It was a new wave of music coming across the pond. Of course, there were some American new wave bands too like Blondie, The Pretenders, The Cars, Devo etc.
This is how I understood it to mean. The British Invasion was the original wave (beattles, bowie, stones, etc) and then later the fixx, furs, abc, madness, alarm (scottish, but still England) etc, comprised a second, “new wave” of artists from across the pond. I do understand it is more considered a catch-all for alternative and/or synth heavy bands that emerged in the later 70’s and 80’s.
It was not just the synth- and bass-heavy music, but a whole fashion style. We moussed up our hair and spent a fortune on cool clothes.
New Wave is late 70's to early 80's synth pop, new romanticism, post-punk, goth, ska and rockabilly revival. The reason why some of it sounds like pop is because it's synth pop like Human League or Duran Duran which is still technically New Wave. It was an alternative to disco and arena style music at the time, that's why its perceived as alternative music which eventually became main stream with artists such as Cyndi Lauper and The Go-Go's.
Subgenres of true alternative music from 1977 until 1990. In no particular order. Punk NewWave Electronic, Goth, Power Pop, College Rock, Shoe Gaze, Dream Pop