As a music genre, New Wave has become a broad palette through the decades, from its humble and obscure beginning in 1967.
Supported by many published books, Internet articles, film documentaries on the subject, and years of personal immersion on various kinds of music, I have simply used the term–like many other musicologists and journalists have also done–to include many other sonically related styles of sound, like Gothic Rock, Indie Pop, Jangle Pop, Synthpop, Sophistipop, Dreampop, Post-Punk, and Italo Pop–for the lack of a better and more appropriate and popular word.
However, at the end of the spin, Music Taxonomy (genrification or classification) should be a flexible guide–and not a stringent rule. The individual listener remains the master of his own taste and captain of his own collection.
This set consists of some of the first New Wave-classifiable albums that I have listened to, in my late-elementary days, in the early ’80s. They remain regulars on my player.
* The B-52s – The B-52s (1979) (“Rock Lobster”)
* Television – Marquee Moon (1977) (“Guiding Light”)
* Tubeway Army – Replicas (1979) (“Are ‘Friends’ Electric?”)
* Men at Work – Business as Usual (1981) (“Who Can It Be Now?”)
* The Cars – The Cars (1978) (“My Best Friend’s Girl”)
* The Buggles – The Age of Plastic (1980) (“Video Killed the Radio Star”)
* Ultravox! – Ultravox! (1977) (“The Lonely Hunter”)
* Talking Heads – Speaking in Tongues (1983) (“Burning Down the House”)
