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New Wave

Status: proposed

Musicological claims (register 1)​

  • emerged in the mid- to late 1970s in the United States and United Kingdom; took its name from French New Wave cinema of the late 1950s
    • Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'New wave music' — verify
  • branched off from punk into 'a lighter and more melodic broadening of punk culture', in contrast to the more atmospheric sounds of post-punk
    • Source: Wikipedia (EN), 'New wave music', accessed July 2026 — verify
  • stylistic origins include punk rock, pop rock, power pop, glam rock, electronic music, krautrock, art pop, funk, reggae, and disco
    • Source: Wikipedia (EN), 'New wave music', accessed July 2026 — verify
  • features choppy rhythm guitars with angular riffs, fast tempos, keyboards, stop-start song structures, jerky rhythms, and synthesizers
    • Source: Wikipedia (EN), 'New wave music', accessed July 2026 — verify
  • encompassed significant stylistic diversity: power pop (XTC), synth rock (Gary Numan), songwriters (Elvis Costello), pop-reggae (the Police), ska revivalists (the Specials, Madness), and mainstream pop-rock (the Cars)
    • Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'New wave music' — verify
  • Talking Heads' 'Remain in Light' (1980, produced by Brian Eno) was 'a breakthrough melding of new wave and African styles'; Nigerian musician Fela Kuti's 1973 album 'Afrodisiac' became the band and Eno's template
    • Source: Wikipedia (EN), 'Remain in Light', accessed July 2026 — verify
  • the band experimented with 'the communal African way of making music, in which individual parts mesh as polyrhythms', combining African polyrhythms and funk with electronics; sections were recorded as long loops
    • Source: Wikipedia (EN), 'Remain in Light', accessed July 2026 — verify
  • Sire Records chairman Seymour Stein launched a 'Don't Call It Punk' campaign in October 1977, rebranding punk-adjacent music as 'new wave'; key signings included the Ramones, Talking Heads, the Pretenders, and Depeche Mode
    • Source: Wikipedia (EN), 'Sire Records', accessed July 2026 — verify
  • MTV launched on 1 August 1981, beginning new wave's most successful era in the US; British musicians 'had learned how to use the music video early on' through programs like Top of the Pops
    • Source: Wikipedia (EN), 'New wave music', accessed July 2026 — verify
  • the Second British Invasion saw a sharp increase in British synth-pop and new pop popularity in the US beginning summer 1982; on the week of 16 July 1983, twenty of the top forty US singles were British
    • Source: Wikipedia (EN), 'Second British Invasion', accessed July 2026 — verify
  • synth-pop, a subgenre defined by its primary use of synthesizers, drum machines, and sequencers, reached its commercial peak in the UK in the winter of 1981–82
    • Source: Wikipedia (EN), 'Synth-pop', accessed July 2026 — verify
  • Jacno (Denis Quilliard), guitarist of Stinky Toys, met Kraftwerk on a Trans-Europe Express press trip in March 1977; after the band dissolved he recorded the instrumental 'Rectangle' (1979) on a Korg MS-10 and Revox tape machine, a track that became 'a catalyst and a commercial argument for the French cold wave that was already forming'
    • Source: Electronic Sound, 'When Jacno Met Kraftwerk', accessed July 2026 — verify

Source: poc/atoms/new-wave.yaml