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Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Wed May 31, 2017 7:50 pm
by MissingPersons
- Drive by The Cars
- I Want To Know What Love Is by Foreigner
- Broken Wings by Mr. Mister
- Africa by Toto
- Dancing In The Dark by Bruce Springsteen

They are pretty similar sound-wise, and all of them were huge hits in the 80s, and they can be found in multiple 80s compilations. But for example in Wikipedia, Africa and IWTKWLI are classified only as "Soft Rock", when Broken Wings is classified as "New Wave" and "Dance Rock" (Dance Rock, really?) too.

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 8:35 am
by q89747
None.

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 2:44 pm
by swerve
None

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 3:14 pm
by tha_farfetch
The Cars was a New Wave band.

"Drive" was produced in 1984 (New Wave era 1979-1984/85).

So, "Drive" by The Cars is New Wave.

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 4:08 pm
by negative1
See our muliti page discussion about whether the cars were new wave in the new remasters for panorama and candy-o.

for me, the cars were rock.

later
-1

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 4:42 pm
by tha_farfetch
Well, for me the three American New Wave pioneers and defining New Wave bands from the era were The Cars, Blondie and The Talking Heads. I hear 100% New Wave from The Cars debut album to "It's Not The Night" from Heartbeat City in 1984. New Wave eventually emerged to Pop after 1984, that's what happened exactly to The Cars "Door to Door" in 1987, a 100% Pop album.

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2017 7:40 pm
by MissingPersons
swerve wrote:None.

Was Bruce really Dancing In The Sark ?


Fixed.


tha_farfetch wrote:Well, for me the three American New Wave pioneers and defining New Wave bands from the era were The Cars, Blondie and The Talking Heads. I hear 100% New Wave from The Cars debut album to "It's Not The Night" from Heartbeat City in 1984. New Wave eventually emerged to Pop after 1984, that's what happened exactly to The Cars "Door to Door" in 1987, a 100% Pop album.


Are the songs "Double Trouble" and "Door To Door" poppy, in your opinion?

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Fri Jun 02, 2017 7:32 am
by tha_farfetch
Poppy as "You are the Girl".

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Sat Jun 03, 2017 12:22 am
by MissingPersons
tha_farfetch wrote:Poppy as "You are the Girl".


YATG was a poppy tune indeed. But the guitar-driven Double Trouble, poppy?

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Sat Jun 03, 2017 6:21 am
by bpdp3
I wouldn't consider any of those songs new wave.

The "new waveness" of the Cars can be argued ad nauseum. But most would tell you that by the release of heartbeat city they were past the temporal constraints of new wave.

Let's try it this way...the song "we can get together" by icehouse sounded very new wave at the time; few would argue. However, the song "crazy" by icehouse is something altogether different...call it pop, AOR, your choice. But it's from a different place than 'new wave'. It's the place where acts like mister mister, cutting crew and the hooters come from. It's not necessarily a bad place, just different.

hey, ask 20 geezers the new wave/not new wave questions, you get 59 answers. Good luck!!

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2017 12:39 am
by MissingPersons
I would consider the song "Crazy" and the album "Man Of Colors" in general, an AOR record.

And since you mentioned Mr. Mister, Cutting Crew and The Hooters, I have noticed that all three of them, have been labelled "New Wave" according to some sources. Maybe Mr. Mister's debut (I Wear The Face) was pretty New Wavish...but "Welcome To The Real World" was what we would call "Hi-Tech AOR". Cutting Crew would be AOR/Adult Contemporary and The Hooters...well, that's hard to tell. They were a melting pot of various styles. (Hard Rock, Country, Folk and also some New Wave indeed)

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2017 5:15 pm
by negative8ball
I often wonder how some of these sat at the time vs now - I agree with the general sentiment (none of these particular songs are new wave, Cars are a borderline NW act as a band) - but, I was young when this stuff was coming out - so it all lumped together more than I think it does now, and I wonder how much of the labelling is a problem of "there" vs "now" in the case of some borderline bands.

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2017 8:23 pm
by MissingPersons
I guess there was a time (perhaps mid-80s) where literally almost everything that included synths was labelled as "New Wave". Even Elton John and Leonard Cohen had a few songs labelled as such.

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 3:46 pm
by InvisibleMan
an interesting band that i recently came across is The Truth.... their early releases are UK pop/alternative, however their last LP Jump is rather standard AOR/Pop, just compare 1983 vs 1989

1983 -The Truth - Confusion (Hits Us Everytime)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz1Y7kM9SwA

1989 - The Truth - Wings of a Prayer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b70xqy2_IOI

Re: Which of these songs do you consider New Wave?

PostPosted: Sat Jun 24, 2017 5:00 am
by MarcD
MissingPersons wrote:- Drive by The Cars
- I Want To Know What Love Is by Foreigner
- Broken Wings by Mr. Mister
- Africa by Toto
- Dancing In The Dark by Bruce Springsteen

They are pretty similar sound-wise, and all of them were huge hits in the 80s, and they can be found in multiple 80s compilations. But for example in Wikipedia, Africa and IWTKWLI are classified only as "Soft Rock", when Broken Wings is classified as "New Wave" and "Dance Rock" (Dance Rock, really?) too.


1) To me, the Cars are New Wave. The greatest American NW band of all time.

2) Foreigner? Not a bad band but not New Wave. I do like the song "I Want To Know What Love Is", though. It's my fave Foreigner track.

3) Mr. Mister are one of my least favorite bands of the 80s. No offense to any Mr. Mister fans out there. To me they sound like New Wave as imagined by some corporate record company executive. Personally I vote no on Mr. Mister being NW.

4) Love the song Africa, and it has NW aspects to it, but to me its not New Wave.

5) That Springsteen track is pop/rock, in no way is it NW. Also, I got terminally sick of "Dancing In The Dark" and almost all Springsteen, in the 80s. The only songs by him on my playlist are "Streets of Philadelphia", "Radio Nowhere", and my fave Springsteen track, "Murder Incorporated".