New Wave

New wave kept punk's tempo (BPM 110-140) and pop song forms but added synthesizers (early on Prophet-5 and ARP, later the Yamaha DX7), drum machines (LinnDrum, Oberheim DMX), and a clean, chorus-pedal-treated electric guitar. Vocals tend to be flat and conversational rather than belted; lyrics are observational, ironic, futurist, or romantic. Music videos were treated as equal partners to the audio — new wave was the first genre fully native to MTV. Production is bright, dry, and front-loaded with hooks.

The term emerged in 1976-78 in London and New York as a way to describe acts who had punk's economy but more pop ambition: Talking Heads, Blondie, Devo, The Cars, Elvis Costello, XTC. The 1980-85 second wave was synth-led and British — Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Tears for Fears, Eurythmics, A-ha — and MTV's August 1981 launch turbocharged it: the channel's playlist initially had a US-radio gap to fill, and British new-wave acts with videos ready to go filled it. By the late 1980s the term had broadened so much that it stopped meaning anything specific.

Synth presets are time-stamps: the DX7's electric-piano patch (the 'Take My Breath Away' sound) is everywhere on records from 1985-87. Drum-machine snares — the LinnDrum's particular crack — are equally diagnostic. Chorused, clean electric guitars (no distortion, lots of stereo modulation) sit in the mid-range where a 1970s rock band would have its rhythm guitar. Watching the videos alongside the audio is not optional; the fashion is part of the arrangement.

The Cars' 'Just What I Needed' (1978) is the one-track summary of the first wave. For an album, Talking Heads' 'Remain in Light' (1980); for the synth-led second wave, Eurythmics' 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)' (1983).

'New wave' borrows from the French film term Nouvelle Vague — London music journalists started applying it in 1976-77 to mark punk's more polished cousins. MTV's first-ever broadcast at midnight on August 1, 1981 was The Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star' (1979), a new-wave song whose title predicted the channel's effect on the radio industry.