A term encompassing a range of pop music styles from the mid-1970s onwards. ‘New wave’ and ‘punk’ were initially synonyms used interchangeably between 1975 and 1977. However, Malcolm McLaren (manager of the Sex Pistols) used ‘new wave’ to draw a comparison with the left-field anti-establishment practices of the French Situationist movement of the 1960s. From early 1978, new wave began taking on a more specific meaning as a generic description of certain styles of post-punk music. Groups as diverse as the Stranglers, the Boomtown Rats, Blondie and Talking Heads were promoted as ‘new wave’ acts in that they had developed beyond punk's guitar-based fetishisation of incompetence; thus, acts such as Elvis Costello and the Attractions carried some of punk's angry attitude alongside a more well-crafted, politically informed lyricism. The Stranglers, who had in fact preceded punk, used keyboard runs inspired by progressive rock and unusual time signatures, while Talking Heads utilized disco and ethnic musics. New wave also reaffirmed more traditional methods of promotion and visual presentation: whereas the rhetoric of punk had been constructed around subverting the star system and usurping gender stereotypes, Bob Geldof (Boomtown Rats) and Deborah Harry (Blondie) became sex symbols. Musically varied, new wave acts spawned many artists who built long-lasting careers, with the Police emerging globally as the most commercially dominant.
The impact of punk and new wave was also felt in Europe, Canada and Australasia. The most significant reaction was seen in Germany's ‘Neue Deutsche Welle’, a phrase coined by Alfred Hilsberg, one of the editors of the German rock magazine Sounds, in October 1979. Among the leading groups were Der Plan, DAF and Palais Schaumburg. However, it was the more conventional pop of Nena with her UK number one hit 99 Red Balloons (1984) and the synthesizer pop of the quasi-novelty record Da Da Da by Trio (1982) which became crossover European hits.
Since the late 1970s, the term has become an imprecise signifier for renewal and generational angst. For example, in late 1993 ‘the new wave of the new wave’ was used by the music press to describe British guitar groups such as Elastica, S*M*A*S*H and These Animal Men, who were seen by the music business as re-creating the energy of late-1970s punk.
D. Hebdige: Subculture: the Meaning of Style (London, 1979)
D. Laing: One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock (Milton Keynes, 1985)
J. Savage: England's Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock (London, 1991)
S. Reynolds and others: ‘Sham 94?’, Melody Maker (26 March 1994)
D. Buckley: The Stranglers – No Mercy: the Authorised and Uncensored Biography (London, 1997)
DAVID BUCKLEY