Greatest New Wave Hits Of 1980s Compilation

Greatest New Wave Hits Of 1980s Compilation

New Wave Songs

New wave music is a musical genre of pop/rock created in the late-1970s to mid-1980s with ties to 1970s punk rock. The wide range of bands categorized under this term has been a source of much confusion and controversy. The new wave sound of the late 1970s moved away from the smooth blues and rock & roll sounds to create music with a twitchy, agitated feel, choppy rhythm guitars and fast tempos. Initially—as with the later post-punk—new wave was broadly analogous to punk rock before branching as a distinctly identified genre, incorporating electronic/experimental music, mod, disco and pop. It subsequently engendered subgenres and fusions, including New Romantic and gothic rock.

New wave differs from other movements with ties to first-wave punk as it displays characteristics common to pop music, rather than the more "arty" post-punk, though it incorporates much of the original punk rock sound and ethos while arguably exhibiting greater complexity in both music and lyrics. Common characteristics of new wave music, aside from its punk influences, include the use of synthesizers and electronic productions, the importance of styling and the arts, as well as a great amount of diversity.

New wave has been called one of the definitive genres of the 1980s, after it grew partially fixated on MTV (The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" music video was broadcast as the first music video to promote the channel's launch). and the popularity of several new wave artists, attributing the exposure that was given to them by the channel. In the mid-1980s, differences between new wave and other music genres began to blur. New wave has enjoyed resurgences since the 1990s, after a rising "nostalgia" for several new wave-influenced artists. The revivals in the 1990s and early 2000s were small, but became popular by 2004; subsequently, the genre has influenced a variety of other music genres. During the 2000s, a number of acts explored new wave and post-punk influences, such as The Strokes, Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, and The Killers. These acts were sometimes labeled "New New Wave".

What this Synthpop?

Synthpop (also known as technopop) is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Krautrock" of bands like Kraftwerk. It arose as a distinct genre in Japan and the United Kingdom in the post-punk era as part of the new wave movement of the late-1970s to the mid-1980s.

Early synthpop pioneers included Japanese group Yellow Magic Orchestra and British bands Ultravox and The Human League; the latter largely used monophonic synthesizers to produce music with a simple and austere sound. After the breakthrough of Tubeway Army and Gary Numan in the British Singles Chart, large numbers of artists began to enjoy success with a synthesizer-based sound in the early 1980s, including Soft Cell, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Depeche Mode in the United Kingdom, while in Japan, Yellow Magic Orchestra's success opened the way for synthpop bands such as P-Model, Plastics, and Hikashu. The development of inexpensive polyphonic synthesizers, the definition of MIDI and the use of dance beats, led to a more commercial and accessible sound for synthpop. This, its adoption by the style-conscious acts from the New Romantic movement, together with the rise of MTV, led to success for large numbers of British synthpop acts, including Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, in the United States.

In the late 1980s, duos such as Erasure and Pet Shop Boys adopted a sound that was highly successful on the US dance charts, but by the end of the decade synthpop had largely been abandoned. Interest began to be revived in the indietronica and electroclash movements in the late 1990s and, in the first decade of the 21st century, it enjoyed a widespread revival with commercial success for acts including La Roux, Lady Gaga, Kesha, and Owl City.

The genre has received criticism for alleged lack of emotion and musicianship; prominent artists have spoken out against detractors who believed that synthesizers themselves composed and played the songs. Some artists like Depeche Mode, who helped popularise the genre, were criticised for gender bending. Synthpop helped to establish the place of the synthesizer as a major element of pop and rock music, directly influenced subsequent genres including house music and Detroit techno, and has indirectly influenced many other genres and individual recordings.