Where post-punk was arty, difficult, and challenging, new wave was pop music, pure and simple. Cleverly chaotic, the album capitalizes on the rolling blankets of warmth that soon follow an ocean rain.—Kristen Blanton, With Skylarking, XTC succeeded in creating an album that sounds squarely out of time. Not Costello’s greatest work, but a landmark, highly influential first album.—Mark Baker. Clever, infectious, with genuine emotion lying just below the surface—it’s everything a great New Wave record should be.—Bonnie Stiernberg, Elvis Costello had already made a splash with My Aim Is True, but the addition of his own band makes an immediate impact, as the rhythm section of Bruce Thomas and Pete Thomas launch right into “No Action,” colored with organ from Steve Nieve, who’d added so much to “Watching the Detectives.” Songs like “Pump It Up” and “Radio, Radio” are as energetic as anything in his catalog. We’re gonna please ya please ya please ya please ya.—Dan Weiss, If “How Soon Is Now” off The Smiths’ previous album was the starting-pistol shot announcing their intentions to delve into darker territories, then the title track off The Queen Is Dead was rhythmic strafing to the same effect. David Byrne wasnt nessarrily angry enough to be considered "punk", but wasnt pop-sensed enough to be considered "New Wave". Full of Adamson’s trademark guitar playing (it can easily be seen as a partner to Big Country’s debut The Crossing), it also has the band’s most accessible and consistent set of songs. The lighthearted playful nature of the songs were offset with an undercurrent of dark, subtly experimental songwriting. They helped to establish music videos as an art form, and their weird merchandising operation was as entertaining as their music. All rights reserved. In the U.K., the Sex Pistols were thought of as a serious threat to the well-being of the government and monarchy, but more importantly, they caused countless bands to form. Not that “Whip It” isn’t an amazing song, but it was a little too goofy and ubiquitous for me to take seriously at that very serious age. As punk gained in popularity (as well as a reputation for salacious danger) some industry folks opted for the safer term “New Wave” to describe the raw, back-to-basics rock ‘n’ roll they were trying to sell to kids. Although there had been several bands to flirt with what became known as punk rock -- including the garage rockers of the '60s and the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and the New York Dolls -- it wasn't until the mid-'70s that punk became its own genre. The Smiths were never considered a "New Wave" band, nor a "Post-Punk" band, they were considered "College Rock", which was basicly underground rock bands, that gave appeal to independent college radio stations, but Smiths do carry the New Wave vibe through they're slick Pop melodies and Morrissey's witty and sarcastic lyrics, Queen is Dead, recorded in 1986, is The Smiths' 3rd Studio album and is also considered their best album, which is no surprise at all. Pop gone skew-whiff, Duran Duran’s second record ‘Rio’ couples experimental recording techniques (reversed tapes, audio of tumbling ice cubes and sampled nature sounds, among other things) with punchy panache. Their backwards robotic cover of Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” would be their biggest single next to monster hit “Whip It” a few years later. I give Elvis more credit, for being the one of the few artists to prove themselves by just their name and songwriting and not just sound, and isnt surprising why he has survived so long making music in the music inudstry by just doing that, making music. —Jessica Gentile, Most of us who love rhythm and propulsion and striking musical ideas moved on from Sting after his communion with Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland imploded, which makes it easy to forget that Synchronicity was a hell of a way to go. Prior to forming this band, Adam Ant was embedded in the London punk scene – his former group Bazooka Joe infamously headlined the Sex Pistols’ first ever gig, and an earlier line-up of Adam and the Ants toured with Siouxsie and the Banshees. One way or another, they sneered. Poppy enough to feel like candy; weighty enough to leave a deliciously painful knot in your gut after “The Day The World Turned Day-Glo” grinds to a halt.—Robert Ham, Adam and his Ants were perhaps known as much for their look as they were their music. Dare was a huge hit for The Human League, but it also remains a forward-thinking record that has aged better than most.—Mark Lore, Siouxsie Sioux started playing music in punk anarchy of the Sex Pistols’ 1970s, but when she invited Magazine guitarist John McGeoch into her band, Goth pioneers Siouxsie and the Banshees helped create a whole new sound. There were in a sense two different OMDs. And having helped to influence the direction of post-punk on 1979’s ‘Fear of Music’, the New York innovators turned their attention to defining yet another wave on follow-up ‘Remain in Light’. —Lee Zimmerman, If Duran Duran’s sophomore album had produced just one monster hit single, it probably would’ve still been considered a success, but Rio isn’t just a success—it’s the band’s greatest achievement, a double-platinum record that featured singles like “Rio,” “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “My Own Way” and the epic “Save a Prayer.” It also marks a turning point for the band as they finally were able to break through in the States, where New Romanticism had less appeal than in the UK. Instead, 1982 and 1983 were boom years for polished, MTV-radio new wave outfits like Culture Club, Adam Ant, Spandau Ballet, Haircut 100, and A Flock of Seagulls. It’s a sly, hilarious tease, coming from a modern female perspective. The group’s debut album proved not only that they could make a consistent, perky sound that made room for several hit singles, but that they would leave a lasting impression on girl groups everywhere. Freedom of Choice is a treasure of propelling bass lines and revolutionary synths seasoned with tongue-in-cheek lyrical delivery, blazing the electronic trail for many musicians to come.—Annie Black, After spending the first half of the ’70s fronting underrated roots-rock band Brinsley Schwarz, Nick Lowe morphed into a superhero at the dawn of punk and New Wave. It’s weird to think that there was a time when people would make out to stuff other than Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s “If You Leave” at prom, but the band actually wrote the song specifically for the movie. There was the early super out-there experimental band, and then the later electronic pop masters. The record was influenced by Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, Arabic music, and a growing interest in the avant-garde. Tricky to pin down, new wave took abrasive, scrappy punk and painted it in Technicolor, bringing synthesisers, a dollop of disco and a tongue-in-cheek absurdity to the table instead. But there’s nary a bad cut on here. Preceded by Blue Monday, Power… continued the band’s foray into dance music - but included some of their best guitar tracks. And through Boy George’s vocal isn’t acrobatic or octave scaling, there’s soul all the same – which collides with backing vocalist Helen Terry properly belting it out on the record’s biggest moments. If it doesn’t make you, at least a little uncomfortable, there’s something wrong with you. As we look at the best New Wave albums of the ’70s and ’80s, we’re focused both on the early records which overlap with our 50 Best Post-Punk Albums list through the New Romantics, left-of-center power-pop and synth rock of the ’80s. So while their record label touted them as The Next Big Thing, their inability to transcend the hype relegated them to a momentary phenomenon that sadly fell out of favor.—Lee Zimmerman, Groundbreaking in its use of the Polymoog synthesizer, Gary Numan’s debut, The Pleasure Principle, still sounds like the dystopian future, almost four decades later. The pure exotic pleasures of “Paper” and “Cities” brushed right up against the sardonic “Life During Wartime,” but it all feels remarkably kindled, free of that overshadowing density of their most “important” work. Music is too often overlooked on RJ and with just this article you're almost repairing that! As important as these major artists were, there were also countless one-hit wonders that emerged during early new wave. Blondie and The B52s loom particularly large as influences, bring the story of New Wave right up to date. Such huge commercial success lined the band’s pockets, but it left Mark Hollis feeling creatively unfulfilled. What was not waning was the widely held belief that keyboard-based music wasn’t as real as rock ’n’ roll, man. If Philip K Dick book could be magically distilled into a record, it would likely be Gary Numan’s third album, Pleasure Principle. Of the others, the Skids are just woefully underrated, falling between two camps (not punk enough for punks, not arty enough for the futurists), and The Jam make it because, while it can be argued that they qualify as a genuine first generation punk band, thousands don’t agree.