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And then, after punk’s arduous reset, bands commenced a brand new spherical of sonic experiments. They explored longer songs, slower tempos and softer dynamics, keyboards and synths, harmonies and horns and, regrettably, the keytar.
The ensuing motion, variously referred to as new wave and post-punk, delivered a crateload of albums with masterful songwriting, literary lyricism and virtuosic musicianship: a pop-music renaissance.
Here are 13 nice LPs from the brand new wave period. We’ll restrict this survey to the 5 years after first Clash album dropped, 1978 to 1982. We’ll favor recordings that had actual influence, yielded a minimum of one semi-legendary track, characteristic robust songwriting all through, emanate a new-wavy vibe, and symbolize the artist’s greatest work.
Look for an inventory of estimable also-rans on the finish!
The Cars – The Cars, 1978.
The debut album from this Boston band is a front-to-back masterpiece, so deep that Side 2 may very well surpass Side 1. “Good Times Roll,” “My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Just What I Needed” have been radio staples for well-nigh half a century. Filmmaker Cameron Crowe immortalized “Moving in Stereo” in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Ric Ocasek, the skinny white duke of Beatitude, ranks amongst historical past’s coolest front-men. Candy-O and Shake It Up are almost pretty much as good, however that is the band’s greatest.
Unknown Pleasures – Joy Division, 1979.
New Order, the band Joy Division grew to become after the suicide of singer Ian Curtis, may appear the extra apparent alternative for a brand new wave roundup. (Were we to incorporate them, we might showcase the band’s superb, evolutionary 1981-1982 EP.) Still, it is arduous to overstate the influence of the 2 Joy Division LPs. Closer, launched after Curtis’s dying, options subtler manufacturing and nice songs, particularly on aspect two. But Unknown Pleasures, the debut, hit Britain like a bomb, a detonation of manic power and menace. The large track is “She’s Lost Control,” and the YouTube video (with 8 million views!) makes a pleasant primer on the band’s coiled energy. At the top, the musicians do not cease a lot as seize up, like an overheated machine.
The B-52’s – The B-52’s, 1979.
Just a few years earlier than REM, Athens, Ga., gave us the B-52’s, a dance-surf-punk band fronted by two girls with towering beehives and a person who appeared like a lifeguard shouting at swimmers by a megaphone. What did Carter-era Atlanta membership patrons make of this insanity? The B-52’s weren’t the planet’s most disciplined songwriters, however the good things on their 1979 debut is volcanic: “Planet Claire,” “Lava,” “52 Girls,” “Dance This Mess Around” and, in fact, “Rock Lobster.” Want extra? Check out Wild Planet (1980) and the autumnal smash Cosmic Thing (1989), a maligned treasure.
The Specials – The Specials, 1979.
The British ska revival yielded a minimum of two nice albums. I Just Can’t Stop It, the 1980 debut of the English Beat, options the irresistible “Mirror within the Bathroom” and magnificence to burn. But The Specials got here first, and their debut performs like a biggest hits. The best-known reduce is “A Message to You Rudy,” and it is gratifying to see 32 million views for the YouTube video. The album brims with nice songs: Toots Hibbert’s “Monkey Man,” the originals “Concrete Jungle” and “Nite Klub” and, on my outdated U.S. vinyl copy, the band’s understated first single, “Gangsters.” Rowdy, bawdy and hilarious.
Pretenders – Pretenders, 1979.
The Pretenders’ debut is a transatlantic triumph. Chrissie Hynde, an Ohio transplant, fell in with the London punk scene and finally fashioned one of many best post-punk bands on both shore, recruiting crack British sidemen. Like The Cars’ debut, Pretenders is a front-to-back basic. The large hit, “Brass in Pocket,” does not arrive till halfway by aspect two. The cowl of Ray Davies’ “Stop Your Sobbing” is gorgeous however pointless: Hynde wanted no assist writing killer materials. The wonderful sequel, Pretenders II, options a good higher Ray Davies cowl, the beautiful “I Go to Sleep.”
Remain in Light – Talking Heads, 1980.
Talking Heads launched 4 good albums between 1977 and 1980, and it is arduous to choose the very best. But Remain in Light most likely represents the band’s collective peak. Singer-songwriter David Byrne took a step again, scripting lyrics to music the band found collectively. Brian Eno, the British producer and ambient-music guru, looms giant within the sonic margins, together with Adrian Belew’s escaped-zoo-animal guitar textures. The album pulses with textured polyrhythms and power that ebbs and flows; the steadily slowing tempos on aspect two counsel a turntable being lulled to sleep.
Crocodiles – Echo & the Bunnymen, 1980.
Liverpool’s second-greatest rock and roll band fashioned in 1978, unveiling an edgy, swampy, neo-psychedelic sound and a strong, Jim Morrison-styled vocalist in Ian McCulloch. Crocodiles is a tour de drive, from the whales-on-acid cries that open “Going Up” to the swirling drums that shut “Happy Death Men.” The album produced no monster hit, however “Do It Clean” and “Rescue” blasted out of many Eighties dorm rooms. “Pride” presents a poignant pop-star manifesto. Will Sergeant’s hypnotic guitars shimmer all through. If you are hooked, take a look at the underrated Heaven Up Here (1981) and the justly celebrated Ocean Rain (1984).
East Side Story – Squeeze, 1981.
For a couple of years on the flip of the Eighties, Squeeze songwriters Difford and Tilbrook may do no fallacious. Cool for Cats (1979) and Argybargy (1980) brimmed with excellent pop songs. East Side Story was deliberate as a triumphal double album, with sides produced by Elvis Costello, Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe and Paul McCartney, a measure of the band’s respect amongst fellow artists. The plan unraveled, however East Side Story emerged as a crowning achievement, a unfastened idea album within the working-class dramatic type of the late-Sixties Kinks. Each of the 14 songs is a marvel of chord inversions and descending bass. The band scored a permanent radio staple with “Tempted.”
English Settlement – XTC, 1982.
This double album capped an period of surging artistry for Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding, senior and junior songwriters in a band blessed with two. The previous Drums and Wires (1979) and Black Sea (1980) had been tense, rhythmic art-pop classics. English Settlement supplied a 15-song tilt-a-whirl of intertwined guitars, syncopated polyrhythms and encyclopedic lyrics, a mission so huge that many critics bristled (and bristle nonetheless) at its sheer scale. Partridge tossed in two pop gems, “Senses Working Overtime” and “All of a Sudden (It’s Too Late),” however this was an album to be heard as an entire. Not lengthy after its launch, Partridge suffered a nervous collapse.
Imperial Bedroom – Elvis Costello, 1982.
Costello produced a outstanding string of albums within the period this text covers. A half-dozen price as five-star efforts: My Aim Is True, the gorgeous 1977 debut; This Year’s Model, the highly effective sophomore effort; the beautifully crafted Armed Forces, from 1979; Get Happy!!, a 20-song R&B celebration from 1980; and Trust, a complicated, Squeeze-like manufacturing from 1981. My favourite is Imperial Bedroom, most likely Costello’s apex as a pop stylist. It boasts as many songs as English Settlement and performs with the identical depth. To my ears, “Man Out of Time” marks its emotional peak.
Avalon – Roxy Music, 1982.
Roxy Music was new wave half a decade earlier than the wave broke. If you want an introduction, begin with Siren, their 1975 masterpiece, or Stranded, the 1973 art-glam-prog exercise. By the time the band assembled to report its swansong, after a run of weak recordings, many followers had given them up for lifeless. But Avalon emerged as a sensuous, makeout-record marvel, a tone poem about love and lust and longing. From Phil Manzanera’s opening arpeggios on “More Than This,” Avalon envelopes the listener in clean, tropical textures. That track and the title observe rank among the many best lounge-rock songs ever put to tape.
Marshall Crenshaw – Marshall Crenshaw, 1982.
Marshall Crenshaw is a musician’s musician. A era of guitarists embraced “Someday, Someway” and “Cynical Girl” as trendy rock-and-roll classics, new and cutting-edge but additionally acquainted and nonthreatening to listeners weaned on Buddy Holly and the Beatles. Crenshaw would launch two extra terrific albums, Field Day (1983) and Downtown (1985), however the first is the very best. His songs sound like three-chord rockabilly chestnuts till you attain the bridge, and Crenshaw modifications key, and the compositional grasp class begins.
1999 – Prince, 1982.
Dig, if you’ll, the ridiculous racial silos that confine The Artist to the funk/soul/R&B wing of fashionable music. Prince was a musical genius, and his ambitions transcended style. New wave? Please. Look on the hair, the ruffled shirts, the purple trench coats. Listen to the songs, the synths, the brittle percussion. “Delirious” feels like Devo. Prince is the unsung prince of recent wave. And I believe this sprawling, double-disc masterpiece would be the best musical journey of its period, to not point out the second-best Prince album. (After Purple Rain, natch.)
Honorable mentions:
Obviously, this record just isn’t exhaustive. Here are some wonderful albums that did not make the reduce, a mixture of private favorites and apparent style classics. What are another new wave treasures? Leave a remark!
Parallel Lines – Blondie, 1978
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! – Devo, 1978
Entertainment! – Gang of Four, 1979
Labour of Lust – Nick Lowe, 1979
Look Sharp! – Joe Jackson, 1979
Squeezing out Sparks – Graham Parker, 1979
Boy – U2, 1980
Never For Ever – Kate Bush, 1980
Peter Gabriel – Peter Gabriel, 1980
Scary Monsters – David Bowie, 1980
Sound Affects – The Jam, 1980
Underwater Moonlight – the Soft Boys, 1980
Zenyatta Mondatta – the Police, 1980
Beauty and the Beat – the Go-Go’s, 1981
Computer World – Kraftwerk, 1981
Dare – The Human League, 1981
Discipline – King Crimson, 1981
Faith – The Cure, 1981
Stands for Decibels – The dB’s, 1981
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – Midnight Oil, 1982
Daniel de Visé is a frequent AllMusic contributor and writer of King of the Blues: The Rise and Reign of B.B. King.