New Wave Outpost Forum

Hello everyone,
As a longtime fan of New Wave and ’80s music, I’m curious — what do you think made the New Wave movement so unique and influential compared to other genres of that era? Also, how do you feel the ’80s revival today captures or differs from the original spirit of New Wave?
By the way, for anyone interested, there’s a great playlist capturing the essence of the ’80s era available here: https://www.nostalgie.fr/playlists/nostalgie-la-playlist-generation-80
Looking forward to hearing your perspectives and any favorite albums or artists you’d recommend!

I don't know if I'd single out new wave music as being incredibly influential on the broader trends of popular music. Reflecting on it, a lot of the things which made new wave music particularly great (at least to me) have never been returned to after the 80s. Highly pretentious, imagery-focused lyrics were pretty resoundingly rejected by pop culture in favor of 'songwriter as autobiographer' style writing from the 1990s onward. And the way that instruments were used in new wave hasn't returned. Once rock divided from electronic, they really never came back together in a particularly dynamic way. When they did collaborate, the sound was pretty much always much harder than the 80s sound, taking its cue much more from industrial.

Depends what you mean by "the 80s revival". Some people have been using this to describe basically any post 2010 pop for some reason. People used to say to me "Lady GaGa is part of the 80s revival" which is just bizarre. If you mean the cult popularity of synthwave, which seems to be in its death throes, it doesn't really sound anything like the 1980s. It's more what people imagine the 80s sounded like, mixed with a heavy dose of 90s video game soundtrack motifs... nonetheless, I do actually like a lot of it. Biggest weakness is that the songs are written in the modern style. There is no synthwave band with lyrics like Ultravox for example. Doesn't exist.

I think the closest authentic re-creation of the 80s sound, and even this isn't perfect, is going to be in the new generation of post-punk revival bands. If you check out something like 'Your Touch' by Girlfriends and Boyfriends, not only is the singer doing his best Robert Smith impression, but they actually made use of a lot of period synthesizer effects. Similar acts I've come across include Sacred Skin and Fotocrime, but of course this is all leaning much more in the dark, post-punk legacy of 80s music than new wave. I don't really think anyone is making that music, including, for the most part, 80s bands that either never stopped or have tried to launch comebacks.... I lie actually, one does come to mind and that's White Door, if you want to group synthpop under new wave. Their comeback album was more or less identical in sound to their 80s output.