Club Synth Loops
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
Club Synth Loops
R&P- Definition of New Wave?
Now, I wouldn't really consider bands like Culture Club or Duran Duran New Wave; they're more synth-pop to me. (With early Duran Duran being "New Romantic" e.g. Visage or maybe early Ultravox)
I think that New Wave is more along the lines of '77 through Speaking in Tongues Talking Heads, Devo, Pere Ubu, early XTC. These bands share a clear distinction between the above. I can't really see them being looped in the same category as Duran Duran's sleek, shining pop. Rather, these are bands that, for me, represent that herky-jerky neurosis and sense of irony.
Your thoughts?
I don't know. I can't really see the similarities, other than the use of a synthesizer.
@Opiner
I agree that music is music and it's all the same in the end, but, genres are just musical stereotypes... conveniences of life to group bands together with similar functions, niches, sounds, etc. Just one person's opinion. 
I see your problem and it's a common one - New Wave means more than one thing in musical terms.
At first "new wave" and "punk" were synonymous - punk was a wide term at the time meaning the US bands that you mentioned as well as the Pistols, Clash , Damned etc.
The New Wave started getting used by bands such as the Jam and the Boomtown Rats who had come through with punk but wanted to get away from what they saw as the negative connotations of punk. New Wave was used to refer to commercial music that had a strong punk influence - The Vapours' Turning Japanese is one such record off the top of my head. I guess "herky-jerky neurosis and sense of irony" was often a feature of this kind of New Wave.
In the US New Wave seems to be used to describe early 80s pop without any reference to punk (although some of the artists may have had a punk past of some kind) - Duran Duran being a prime example of a "New Wave" band in this sense.
Music genres are just labels, usually invented by music journalists, and the meaning of them often shifts in this way.
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Synth RnB Club beat [HD]
