Why do people always confuse NW and Post-Punk ?

[TheMunDial]

Post-Punk was artsier and darker, employing soundscapes that seemed to use a lot more bass than the New Wavers, who enjoyed synthesizers, obviously. But like I said, these artists did not stay within their own genres (how could they when they were being bombarded by so much diversity at the time?), so you'd have stuff like Echo & The Bunnymen's "The Cutter," which is a New Wave-sounding song from a Post-Punk album, Porcupine.

Or else you'd have occurrences like OMD making a really heavy, Post-Punk album, yet its star single was "Enola Gay." Can you tell me that The Human League's Reproduction and Travelogue were NOT Post-Punk? How about New Order's first album?

To rest my case, I will just say that the two genres were not mutually exclusive, and they helped each other a great deal to make the most fantastic music of all time. (Am I biased?)

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[Surly]

I tend to use post-punk for some of those bands, but usually not for anything after 1982 (except for current bands co-opting that sound). I use new wave for bands like A Flock Of Seagulls and other synth bands of the era, but it's my understanding that the original intention was for '70s acts such as Elvis Costello, etc.



"Words like conviction can turn into a sentence"

[catcreptin]

I think Post-Punk should be seen as a reaction against Punk. The latter pretented to be rebellious, but was de facto pumped up rock 'n roll, nothing more, nothing less. In spite of their image, most bands were pretty good, listen to Never mind..., Stranglers albums etc. Post-Punk on the other hand took the DIY of Punk, and really looked forward. Chorus verse structures were disregarded in favour of experimentation (Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, The Fall), the traditional role of drums and bass vs. guitar was abandoned (again: Joy Division) and lyrically, it wasn't 'us' against the world, but 'me in my own world' (yes - Joy Division). And don't forget the first affordable synths (OMD, Human League, Eyeless in Gaza).
Here in Holland, New Wave at first was bands like Fischer Z, The Police and people like Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello. Later on, there was a shift to Eurythmics, Simple Minds etc, - a more synthetic sound. For me, where Post-Punk and New Wave shook hands, is The Sound and (less though) Comsat Angles. Shame they never really got the recognition they deserved...

[Clifford Darling]

Cabaret Voltaire's "Sensoria" got included on New Wave Hits of the '80s, but I don't think of Cabaret Voltaire as New Wave. If anything, they're Industrial. People say, "Yeah, but they did disco and house music too!" Yes, and so did Genesis P. Orridge and Psychic TV.

Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" was also included in New Wave Hits of the '80s; however, I call JD "Post-Punk."

Does the distinction make much difference? Not really. I prefer to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Leave the borders porous.

[tha_farfetch]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Clifford Darling[/i]

Does the distinction make much difference? Not really. I prefer to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Leave the borders porous.
[/quote]

It doesn't make much difference if you like both genres. But, if you enjoy only one of them (it's my case), New Wave for instance, you would probably get mad when you purchase the next edition of "80s New Wave Groups on CD" that features Post-Punk bands like The Fall, Chameleons UK, Echo & The Bunnymen, Joy Division, etc.

Or viceversa, if you are a Post-Punk fanatic and you go to the music store where you get your "Greatest Post-Punk Hits CD" featuring "Rock Lobster", "De Doo Doo Doo De Daa Daa Daa", "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", "Down Under" and "Take On Me".

Between New Wave and Post-Punk, I am more than 80% Waver and less than 20% Post-Punk.

FarFetch.

[miami]

I think that Post-Punk and New Wave are very different. "New wave" was used to describe bands who were not punk, but somehow using "punk tide" emerged and find their place in public. NW was much more pop oriented and often without or mild political or social attitude. I'm talking about the bands like Motors, Fischer-Z, Cars, B-52's, Pretenders, Squeeze, and even Elvis Costello, as different category, can be described as NW...somewhat XTC...It's definitely 70's thing and it can't be mixed with bands like Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet or other New Romantics bands, neither with SKA movement. Post-punk can be described as not unique style, but mixture of a lot of diversified artist approaches, experimental, often based on literature, painting and other art experiences, avangard, sometimes with strong ethnic, asian and african influences etc...Of course, the trigger was punk.

[Clifford Darling]

[quote][i]Originally posted by tha_farfetch[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by Clifford Darling[/i]

Does the distinction make much difference? Not really. I prefer to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Leave the borders porous.
[/quote]

It doesn't make much difference if you like both genres. But, if you enjoy only one of them (it's my case), New Wave for instance, you would probably get mad when you purchase the next edition of "80s New Wave Groups on CD" that features Post-Punk bands like The Fall, Chameleons UK, Echo & The Bunnymen, Joy Division, etc.

Or viceversa, if you are a Post-Punk fanatic and you go to the music store where you get your "Greatest Post-Punk Hits CD" featuring "Rock Lobster", "De Doo Doo Doo De Daa Daa Daa", "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", "Down Under" and "Take On Me".

Between New Wave and Post-Punk, I am more than 80% Waver and less than 20% Post-Punk.

FarFetch.
[/quote]

I like both generes, but not all of either. I could care less for the Knack! I like all songs by Joy Division, which is a very significant band for me personally, but only a few by the Fall.

Devo and the B-52's are certainly in the New Wave genre, but some would argue that Cyndi Lauper and Men At Work were simply '80s Top 40 and had only tangential connections to New Wave.

I have also seen "No Wave" artists such as Lydia Lunch and Essential Logic included as part of New Wave, when most "No Wave" took it's cues from punk, free jazz, experimental, and world music. In fact, No Wave is still an esoteric hipster genre that broke little ground in pop culture outside of the Downtown scence.

Furthermore, performance artists, such as Laurie Anderson and Yoko Ono sometimes get stuck in the New Wave genere...but they don't really belong there because they were simply a popular outcropping from the Fluxus movement and experimental music, including artists such as John Cage, Robert Ashley, Meredith Monk, "Blue" Gene Tyranny, and Joan La Barbara.

[MikeP]

True enough, the distinction between the two is often tough to explain to neophytes and the younger generations. I agree with the observation that post-punk was definitely more "bassy". I still consider New Wave to be the big umbrella though.

Jeez, I know I've played this one before but...[:o)]

[b]Post-punk[/b]
Bass-heavy
Angular, jagged guitars
Mechanical or disjointed rhythms
Brooding, generally subdued keyboards
Slower tempos
Lots of world music influences, particularly dub
Defies pop music standards
Microtonality or deliberate off-tuning
1979-1982 for the most part

[b]New Wave[/b]
Bouncy, upbeat
Pop music structure (4/4, distinct verse & chorus)
Emphasis on synths or melodic guitar
Continued well into the mid-80's

Adding to the confusion is that so many bands effectively transitioned from one style to another or blurred the lines altogether.

I've been listening to The Sound and Comsat Angels again recently, and I'm struck by how post-punk the earlier albums were and how they got progressively more melodic. Some great stuff though... I need a good post-punk fix every so often!

[Clifford Darling]

I'd say John Zorn and Tzadik Records is part of the "post-punk" legacy.

[Spectre General]

Thanks farfetch for bringing this up, it's been debated a lot here over the years or rather people will disagree with other's tastes on the grounds that "that band isn't new wave." Which should really be translated as "my new wave is better than your new wave."

I am younger than most of you, 25, when I started posting here I was 19 (holy shit I can hardly believe it's been 6 years...) and I love all 80's music, AND I didn't grow up listening to it when it was emerging so I only got the distilled "what the radio stations decided should survive" version of 80's music which was a bunch of genres mixed together. Now I have over 6,000 80's albums, in all different genres, but I still have a hard time differentiating between them sometimes.

I was often confused by the post-punk/new wave schism you see on this site here as well.

Mike P's definition is pretty correct however. My boss claims to like 80's music, in fact he has an 80's show he sometimes hosts on the radio, but everything I ever hear him listening to I rarely like. And the same is true of him about the music I play. Today he played a Jesus & Mary Chain song, and I hated it. Based on the bands you named and the definition Mike P listed, I can concluded that I rarely like post-punk, typically I dislike it. Also I think a lot of you put much emphasis on the time that the song came out. I don't listen to modern music at all but I've heard about "Darkwave" and I would include most bands that are being labeled in the "Post-Punk" category as "Darkwave" or you could even go so far as to call it "Goth" (per the 80's definition of Goth, not the early 00's Marliyn Manson bullshit.) I'm pretty sure "Darkwave" was coined in the 90's but bands like Echo & the Bunnymen, Bauhaus, Siouxsie & The Banshees, & even The Cure seem to fit right into that category to me. Am I gravely mistaken?

There's also a legit argument that the time-frame is the most important determining factor. Mr. P indicates that Post-Punk was from 1979-1982, which would indicate that real punk was finished in 1979 or before. Are we to believe that any band releasing Punk records after 1979 weren't really punk? What about Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, The Clash, & The Meatmen, were they all sellouts and hence, [i]NOT[/i] punk despite almost irrefutably being punk bands? Or are they simply "Hardcore" another seemingly meaningless genre distinction just because of the timing of their releases?

One band that I think is decidedly both Post Punk and New Wave is The Comsat Angels, as has already been brought up. Also I can think of a band who only had 3 releases and basically ran the spectrum. Red Rockers. Their first album "Condition Red" in '81 is pretty much as close to punk as 1981 could provide. "Good as Gold" in 1983 which had their only hit "China" on it was a lot closer to Post Punk, but maybe a little too poppy, and 1984's "Schizophrenic Circus" was a complete pop "New Wave" sellout.

Then there's bands that just sort of can't be classified by time or genre, for instance Loverboy's debut album in 1980 was classified as "New Wave" no lie, but it was released in 80 which time-line wise would put it in "Post Punk." Apparently they did enough differently to not be considered "Rock." The Cars, who are also [b]NOW[/b] regarded as a "Classic Rock" band (right along with Loverboy according to my radio station) were easily a true New Wave band, but in 2009 they're just plain old "rock." The Police were easily one of the most iconic "New Wave" bands of the time, now they too are "Classic Rock" And what about The Romantics, other than "crap" what genre do they fit in? Genres switch both because of time when they were released, and over time as the songs/bands mature, apparently.

I think the issue here is that Punk did change things, it basically put a giant wedge into "Rock N Roll" which for the entire late 60's & 70's didn't have any big enough splinters to really create something new that wasn't completely self-contained. After punk lived hard and died fast by basically standing right in the middle of the highway of rock music and detonating itself, nobody had any idea what the hell to call everything "new" so it was [b]ALL[/b] New Wave, no matter how dissimilar the bands under that umbrella were.

For me however, I'd just as soon listen to Joy Division, as much as I would A-Ha, as much as I would Dokken, as much as I would Phil Collins. Music is music, people like what they like, genre distinctions are important for classifications but often times are only relevant to certain time periods/geographical areas and don't really matter as much as we think they do.

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What is love after all
but occasional steps
of a dance.........
.......In a trance?

[gpow]

I think my main distinction between new wave vs post-punk was normally classified as college music back in the day

[miami]

[quote][i]Originally posted by catcreptin[/i]
<br>I think Post-Punk should be seen as a reaction against Punk.

I strongly disagree...

A lot of, later labelled as Post - Punk bands, emerged from, had punk roots, were "fueled" with Punk or simply were part of "Punk society". For an example, Joy Division's first inacarnation were Warsaw, Death in June started as trotskyst ideology influenced punk band Crisis, Howard Devoto started as "Buzzcock" and later formed Magazine. Siouxsie & the Banshees were punk, part of "Bromley Contigent", Pere Ubu started as Rocket from the Tombs (protopunk) and split into Dead Boys (punk) and Pere Ubu. To be honest, Ubu can't be described as Post Punk, but Punk's contemporaries, closer to Residents and other American avanguard and underground bands. And many others had similar history...

What made substantial difference, Post Punk bands had different roots, art and musical influences. "Straight" punks were influenced by, so called, Pub Rock and rhytm and blues bands, Flamin' Groovies, Stooges, classic Brit Rock bands like Who and Pretty Things, and even Glam Rock bands. On the other side, Post Punk reflected ideas of Krautrock (Can, Faust...), Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, Eno, experimental music (White Noise), even John Cage, Tery Riley and others...Some of them were strongly influenced with ethnic music, like Slits and Raincoats - and they were Punk...

New Wave? I don't want to be offensive, rude or priggish, but as genre it was musically, ideologically and on creative level "inferior" to Post Punk, even I appreciated bands like Devo, B-52's, but surely not Police, The Knack and others who find their way to success using imagery, Punk elements and "zeitgeist"...

[catcreptin]

@ miami:

In a way we're both right. Of course all these groups had their roots in punk. It's the punk mentality that got them started in the first place. But musically, they were a reaction against punk. Devoto left the Buzzcocks, 'cause he didn't want to be limited by (let's face it) simple three chord songs. And Siouxsie always held it as a big compliment that someone (was it Glenn Matlock?) told her after the first Club 100 show that it sure wasn't rock 'n roll.

I myself wouldn't dare to call one genre better than another, at least not in a serious discussion. I do think you can say something about bands individually, but anyway, as the great "Sir" Duke Ellington once put it: there's only two kinds of music, good one and bad one. And in the end we all have to make this out for ourselves.

[Clifford Darling]

"Punk" was an entirely negative genre more concerned with calling people "poseurs" than making interesting art. There was also an ass-kicking macho streak in it. Lots of male aggression.

Well, that gets tired fast. I listened to the Sex Pistols to hear what they were all about, but I don't think I've listened to "Never Mind the Bollocks" more than twice in my life. I find it's not interesting music, and that's Sex Pistols at their most listenable.

PIL I like. I like PIL in the same way I like Cabaret Voltaire. John Lydon showed he could create interesting sounds and rhythms.

Steve Jones put out that record in the mid-'80s: A potboiler produced by Keith Forsey. Jones was a hack like Billy Idol.

Post-punk/No Wave/New Wave were much more fluid genres and stimulated my mind much more than so-called Punk.

[Bad Penny]

Very interesting discussion, and I'm in strong agreement with Miami's post.

Post-punk was not a reaction against punk. In essence, it grew up in sympathy with punk. That's always been my main argument against Reynold's thesis. It's all very well employing hindsight, but in those very fertile years around 78/79 and onwards, the retrospective generalisations now current simply didn't apply.

I'd back up Miami's examples and add a few more. The Undertones, for example - I remember writing something about them and one of the band members reacted with horror when I inadvertently used the term 'new wave'. To them, the term was a betrayal of the punk ideal which they'd wholly bought into. Whereas someone like Bid of the Monochrome Set believes that 'new wave' was the umbrella term derived from French cinema that actually encompassed everything that subsequently evolved, including punk. Most American punks, like the Kennedys (well, specifically Biafra), view the term new wave as a surrender of core values to commercial instincts.

The added complication is that, in the UK, the term 'independent' (and its diminutive 'indie') crosses all over the musical genres as a technical classification that ultimately merged into a musical one.

And there are bands that fit all four of those categories (punk, post-punk, new wave, independent) to a degree, depending on where your prejudices are. Joy Division spring to mind. They'd probably fit 'alternative' programming as well - though I've always found that term largely meaningless. Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains etc etc were always just rock bands to me, so the idea that 'alternative' denoted some kind of additional cultural cache was faintly ludicrous.

While it is useful to re-define these things, my caveat is that, as several posters have illustrated, trying too hard to do so risks overlooking the fact that there was a great deal of fluidity and confluence at play. Like SG's point about Comsat Angels - depending on which point you chanced on their output, you'd draw very different conclusions on what they represented and where they 'belonged'. The same is true of The Thompson Twins, Flying Lizards, or even Altered Images. Or how about Scritti Politti, etc etc.