New Wave

New wave music is kind of hard to describe. It was mostly 80s music. Some popular new wave bands include: The Cure, Depeche Mode, A-ha, Human League, Echo and the Bunnymen, Cocteau Twins, Iggy Pop, the Stooges, Spandau Ballet

The following description of new wave music was taken from New Wave Outpost _~~ New wave music occupied the era from 1978 to 1986. Musically, new wave should not be pigeonholed or written off simply as “skinny ties,” synthesizer geeks, new romantics, and pretentious, fashion-as-content bands. Certainly at the core of most new wave was an infectious dance beat or D.I.Y. energy, and more mainstream artists like Joe Jackson, Greg Kihn and rock veterans like David Bowie and The Kinks brushed the fringes of this musical tapestry. Movements like the more guitar-driven Power Pop often seemed to mesh virtually indistinguishably.

Movements and styles such as Synthpop (Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Human League, Soft Cell) and New Romantic (Ultravox, Visage, Classix Nouveaux, Spoons, Peter Godwin, early Talk Talk) were, to many, the defining styles of new wave. Despite the general inadequacy of pigeonholing, there were the other requisite, defining styles from the era: Goth (Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Cure, Specimen, Bauhaus), Postpunk (The Chills, Gang of Four, The Sound, Joy Division, Comsat Angels), Ska (Madness, The Specials, The English Beat, The Untouchables, Bad Manners), Rockabilly (Dave Edmunds, Stray Cats, Polecats, The Cramps), and Power Pop (The Vapors, The Producers, 20/20, The Records). And still that’s only scratching the surface. _~~