Naim Go Deeper - New Wave

New wave has been called one of the definitive genres of the 1980s. Moving away from the popular rock, blues and punk rock music, new wave gave birth to new sounds to create pop music that incorporate disco, mod and electronic music - a truly distinct genre! It subsequently engendered subgenres and fusions.

Looking back - we can see that the music following punk could be divided more or less into two categories - post-punk and new wave. New wave was pop music, the friendly sister to post punk which boasted more artsy and challenging elements. New wave gave us countless one hit wonders but also generated some of the world’s major artists, that continue to influence the face of music today.

Talking Heads - This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)

One of the most critically acclaimed bands of the 80’s, Talking Heads are famous for fusing punk to world music to avant garde to funk. Former art school students who became heavily involved in 1970’s New York post-punk scene, they were one of the ambassadors of the genre new wave.

"This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" was released in November 1983 as the second single from their fifth album Speaking in Tongues.

Squeeze - Up the Junction

Squeeze are a British band that came to prominence in the UK during the new wave period of the late 1970s and continued successfully into the 1980’s and 80’s.

"Up the Junction" was the third single released from Squeeze’s second album “Cool for Cats”. It is one of the band's most popular and well-remembered songs (especially in the UK). The phrase 'Up The Junction' is London slang for being in deep trouble. It is also, like other lines in the song, a reference to the working-class area of Clapham Junction in Battersea in London.

Blondie - Atomic

Blonide are singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American new wave and punk scenes of the mid/late 70’s. Its first two albums contained strong elements of these genres, and saw success in the UK and Australia, but interestingly only ‘broke’ America after the release of “Parallel Lines” in 1978.

“Atomic” came after this US success and was produced as a mixture of new wave, rock and disco which had proven to be so successful in their No.1 hit from earlier in 1979, "Heart of Glass".

If you haven’t already, check out our April playlist celebrating some of those New Wave classics. You can listen on TIDAL or Spotify.