Music Scholars - Deconstruct New Wave Music

Cafe Society
1

I don’t know squat about the technicalities of music. Technically speaking, what is “New Wave” and “New Romantic” music?

What technical elements makes a song, album, or artist fall into the New Wave category? What instruments, settings, playing styles, effects, lyrics, themes, time signatures, beats, chords, or anything else makes a New Wave song a New Wave song? If you were going to replicate an old New Wave song, or compose a new New Wave song with that 80s sound, what would you likely need to do?

One obvious answer is to get some keyboards. However, the Doors had keyboards and I don’t think the Doors were New Wave. I guess you need a certain kind of keyboard or a keyboard with certain settings.(?)

What makes the guitar parts in New Wave different from the guitar parts in other forms of rock?

Etc.

What is it about a song, perhaps even a song I have never heard before, that allows my brain to instantly identify it as New Wave or not New Wave?

2

It’s not really music theory, but music history. A group of artists in the late 70s started being grouped at New Wave. Basically, they were more sophisticated Punk Rock (punk was characterized by simple arrangements, guitars only, angry lyrics – see The Ramone or the Sex Pistols). It was more melodic than Punk, and often used synthesizers, but very much a catchall description; many New Wave bands had nothing in common with each other at all.

AllMusic.com has a nice overview.

3

You don’t want a music scholar, you want a fashion consultant.

4

(Ex-)music scholar checking in…no bloody idea what ‘New Wave’ is supposed to mean. So Biffy might be right :slight_smile:

5

[QUOTE=RealityChuck]
It’s not really music theory, but music history. A group of artists in the late 70s started being grouped at New Wave. Basically, they were more sophisticated Punk Rock (punk was characterized by simple arrangements, guitars only, angry lyrics – see The Ramone or the Sex Pistols). It was more melodic than Punk, and often used synthesizers, but very much a catchall description; many New Wave bands had nothing in common with each other at all.

AllMusic.com has a nice overview.
[/QUOTE]

“New Wave” was also perceived as a less threatening term than “punk,” but they were often used interchangably. In fact, then Warner Brothers acquired Sire Records (home of the Ramones and Talking Heads, among others), they took out an ad in several trade magazines showing Bugs Bunny (WB’s most visible character) in a leather jacket, with the caption “DON’T CALL IT PUNK, CALL IT NEW WAVE.”

Also, when Time magazine named The Clash’s Give 'Em Enough Rope one of its top ten albums of 1979, they referred to The Clash as “new wave rock.” The term “punk” was nowhere to be found.

New Wave didn’t really have anything to do with keyboards or melodic vocals, really; it’s just that the bands who featured those musical elements also tended to be the bands who stood a chance of commercial success and therefore were more likely to embrace the kinder, gentler genre name.

6

So, it’s impossible to draw technical similarities between these artists:

Duran Duran
ABC
Adam Ant
Blondie
Talking Heads
Madonna

…and compare them to these artists, which also have no technical similarities to each other:

Dio
Judas Priest
Scorpions
Ozzy Osbourne
Twisted Sister

… and compare them to these artists, which also have no technical similarities to each other:

Pearl Jam
Smashing Pumpkins
Ret Hot Chili Peppers

etc.?

7

New Wave is Punk plus Disco. They called it New Wave because “Pisco” didn’t have that ring to it.

8

[QUOTE=mack]
New Wave is Punk plus Disco. They called it New Wave because “Pisco” didn’t have that ring to it.
[/QUOTE]

In the case of Blondie, at least, this is a very apt description.

9

Well, I am not a music scholar per se. But I do know that ‘new wave’ was a term appropriated from film history. The original cinema New Wave occured in France during the late 1950s / 60s, and referred to a whole new generation of film-makers (Godard, Chabrol, Truffaut, etc.) who began making films in a radically new style & with more sensational content than had previously been done. They were referred to as the “new wave” of cinema because all these film-makers began working (or at least getting known) at roughly the same time, and represented a very dramatic break from traditional film-making.

New Wave rock & roll was essentially punk rock performed by would-be urbane sophisticates (who tended to be pretentious artistes & cine-snobs). They (and their audience) viewed themselves as a radical shift in the vanguard of pop music. They were the ‘new guard’, and all the bands that came before them were ‘oldies.’

The “New Romanticism” is essentially late period “New Wave” / early goth. It occurred around 1983-84. New Romantic bands (Echo & the Bunnymen, Adam Ant, etc.) were a post-MTV wave of bands who were extremely style conscious (and video savvy), and heavily influenced by gay camp (Culture Club). Michelangelo Signorile makes an interesting point in his book “Queer Nation” that “New Romanticism” was in part inspired a reaction to the newly emerging threat of AIDS - the ‘downtown club’ culture was in deep denial about the disease that was rapidly plowing through them, and ‘new romanticism’ was an escape into a campy fantasy world.

10

Madonna was never to the best of my knowledge considered New Wave. Pop/Dance.

11

[QUOTE=mack]
New Wave is Punk plus Disco. They called it New Wave because “Pisco” didn’t have that ring to it.
[/QUOTE]

So what makes punk, disco, new wave, heavy metal, grunge? Is that not subject to technical analysis?

For example, just jibberish from my ass… punk bands typically use ______ type bass, with a ____ bass line, very little hi-hat, guitars set to distortion level 3, whatever, etc.

12

[QUOTE=Bearflag70]
So what makes punk, disco, new wave, heavy metal, grunge? Is that not subject to technical analysis?

For example, just jibberish from my ass… punk bands typically use ______ type bass, with a ____ bass line, very little hi-hat, guitars set to distortion level 3, whatever, etc.
[/QUOTE]

Sure, most of these musical genres have identifying traits. Especially homogenous ones, such as disco, have many. Pretty much every disco song ever recorded had:

  • big bass drum hits on the first and third beats of each measure and open hi-hat on the second and fourth beats
  • guitar parts consisting of sixteenth notes played on the high strings with syncopated fret-hand muting and, frequently, a wah pedal
  • bass lines consisting of slapped octaves
13

Okay - I’ll bite:

New Wave ingredients:

  • a thin-sounding guitar - typically a Fender with single coils
  • often some chorus on the guitar; maybe a little digital delay to fatten up the tone without resorting to distortion
  • digital amp - little tube warmth; very cutting - combined with the guitar you get a lot of room in the mix
  • Music Man or Jazz bass, worn high - the bass steps up and plays a more prominent role, filling in the hole left by not having Classic Rock guitars (when the bass is often playing simpler pedal tones)
  • Drums are small sets - nothing special, if I recall. Synth drums don’t get used a ton until you get to post-punk stuff in the early 80’s and Phil Collins and Prince using Linn drums
  • keyboards - use of mono synths (i.e., can only hit one tone at a time - can’t chord) with some experimentation with the new poly-tonal synths, like Oberheims and Prophet 5’s. Obviously Elvis Costello had an organ in his band and their sound is somewhat emblematic of New Wave.

Read **Rip it Up and Start Again ** by Simon Reynolds for a detailed exploration of mostly UK postpunk '78 - '84…

That help?

14

[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
Sure, most of these musical genres have identifying traits. Especially homogenous ones, such as disco, have many. Pretty much every disco song ever recorded had:

  • big bass drum hits on the first and third beats of each measure and open hi-hat on the second and fourth beats
  • guitar parts consisting of sixteenth notes played on the high strings with syncopated fret-hand muting and, frequently, a wah pedal
  • bass lines consisting of slapped octaves
    [/QUOTE]

Beautiful! Thanks! That means nothing to me, but that’s what I’m looking for. When I play Pearl Jam, I instinctively know it’s not disco because Pearl Jam doesn’t use ________ like disco does.

Can we get some kind of analysis or “identifying traits” for New Wave?

15

Thanks WordMan. Very helpful.

16

[QUOTE=Bearflag70]
Thanks WordMan. Very helpful.
[/QUOTE]

My pleasure!

runs off to add “music scholar” to his resume…

17

[QUOTE=Bearflag70]
So what makes punk, disco, new wave, heavy metal, grunge? Is that not subject to technical analysis?
[/QUOTE]

This is gonna be really general, because categories cross over and sounds can be blended.

Heavy metal is characterized mostly by power chords, where the guitarist plays the 1st and 5th notes of the chord (leaving out the 3rd). That is, instead of playing GBGBDG for a G chord, he’ll play GDG — perfect fifth and perfect fourth intervals, no sixths or thirds.

Since it is the state of the B in the scale of G that decides whether it’s G major (B natural) or G minor (B flat), heavy metal is kinda neither major nor minor. Melody-wise, the singer can sing the normal B or the bluesy B flat without committing to “happy” major or “sad” minor tonality.

Typically a heavy metal song relies most on the I, IV and V — the tonic, subdominant and dominant chords of the key. In the key of G, that would be G5, C5 and D5. Because it is neither major nor minor, heavy metal can also leap to the subtonic — that is, in the key of G, the F is usually sharp, but the subtonic would be F natural.

Those intervals of 4ths and 5ths really stand out and they don’t turn muddy or garbled when you distort 'em, so they’re a clean, loud, powerful choice for that particular style.

Good example: “Problem Child” by AC/DC.

Grunge has many of the same musical qualities as heavy metal, but since it’s descended from punk music, it’s slightly more committed to minor tonality and dissonance — they knew, like heavy metal guitarists, that the 3rds and 6ths and suspended 4ths sound dirty and muddy when distorted, but the grunge guys wanted that kind of sound that you could get with thirds, suspended fourths + major seconds, and so on.

Instead of sticking with the big 3 (I, IV and V), they were free to wander off into other chords. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is in F minor (where the I-IV-V progression would normally be F5, Bb5, C5) but instead plays F5, Bb5, Ab5, Db5. There is no V chord — they don’t play C5 during the verses, but instead play Db5 which is a half-step difference — so the song doesn’t have a musical resolution where it goes to the C5 dominant, making it sound restless and dissatisfied.

You could also characterize grunge from punk by the dynamic variations that grunge seemed to enjoy (soft and minimalist bits, then loud rockin’ bits).

Disco is much more brazenly harmonic than heavy metal or grunge; not content with a simple C chord (C-E-G) you might hear a C major 9th chord (C-E-G-B-D), or a C9 (C-E-G-Bb-D) or a C minor add 9 (C-Eb-G-Bb-D) by the rhythm guitar. You may also hear a syncopated bass line — like the one in “Stayin’ Alive” that starts on the 1 beat, and goes like this:


1   &   2   &   3   &   4   &
x x x y-- x y--     x   x   x

where you see that note Y, the one that gets held out and emphasized, does not happen on the beat, thereby preceding the drums and guitar by half a beat.

The disco beat is generally in quarter notes or eighth notes on the high-hat, hitting closed-open-closed-open, making a sound like tk kssss tk kssss tk kssss tk kssss tk kssss.

Add to that some electronic synth (or real) strings playing octaves (C, then a C above that), some fat horns, and give it a tempo you can dance to.

New wave was a marketing term applied to a whole bunch of different kinds of musicians who sort of inherited the spiritual mantle of punk music, but who took it in a more keyboard-and-harmony direction, and with cleaner (read: digital) recording and post-processing techniques. Musically speaking, there isn’t much about the notes themselves that makes it a “new wave” sound. As Wordman suggested, and I agree with, it’s mostly about the engineering sound and the recording equipment rather than the notes.

Are these universal truths for every band, every song? Hell no. Surely someone will come along and say, “Remember that one forgettable band who had that one song that used that technique, and they weren’t a ____ band!” These are very general statements, and yeah, they’re broken all the damn time. :smiley:

Next week: reggae, blues, and the mu major chord of Steely Dan. :wink:

18

I don’t think I could settle on what a good definition of New Wave is. For me, New Wave, post-punk, and punk all get really muddy, and some bands straddle all three genres (Wire, for instance). To me it describes a type of rock music that come out of punk, with the same ethos for punk and rebellion against Top 40 music of the time, but with more of an ear toward melody and “listenability.” A band like the Talking Heads were certainly classified as “punk” at one point, but eventually became classified as New Wave. But you can just as easily call them “post-punk” as well.

I really think the term is most useful as a historical one, as the bands that can be lopped under the umbrella of “New Wave” are so varied that I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a definition of the genre in purely musical terms.

19

Yeah, “New Wave” was, as some have pointed out, basically a marketing term invented to attract consumers who were put off by the idea of punk. New wave covered a wide range of artists, but the main thing they had in common was they came out of the punk movement (whether they sounded punk or not) - they favored concise, catchy songs without the masturbatory solos and displays of technical expertise favored by the classic rock/prog rock artists who had dominated the landscape before punk. I also vaguely remember someone explainig at the time that the name came about because these bands were the new wave of the British Invasion - pop/rock or rock & roll acts rather than rock acts. Of course, not all the bands were British (Talking Heads, Blondie, etc.), but they shared a disdain for the plodding dinosaur bands that had been selling out stadia for most of the decade.

Even groups most people wouldn’t associate with punk at all - Fine Young Cannibals, Duran Duran, The Human League (after they went pop), The Smiths, New Order (which came out of the ashes of doom-punks Joy Division) - were heavily influenced by punk. In simplistic terms, you can think of punk as 50s rock & roll/rockabilly, and new wave as the more expansive 60s pop/rock that it eventually led to.

Most of the bands in Rip It Up And Start Again, which WordMan alluded to - Gang Of Four, PiL, The Mekons, Pere Ubu, etc. - I think most music geeks would classify as “postpunk”, which is a whole different, more discordant/jarring direction that punk-influenced music shot off in, but it often gets lumped in with new wave to simplify things for non-geeks.

20

**Fish ** - gotta disagree with you regarding your definition of Heavy Metal. What you describe is hard rock - AC/DC is the quintessential hard rock band, along with Aerosmith, Bad Company, etc. Basically Classic Rock that is Gibson guitars through Marshalls with blues n’ boogie roots, but played more aggressively and, as you say, with power chords.

Heavy metal, on the other hand - and I hope folks like **ultrafilter **chime in here, since he knows his stuff - veers away from hard rock pretty quickly. Black Sabbath started off in a hard rock place - they thought of themselves initially as a heavy blues band - but you quickly get to big differences from hard rock:

  • use of non pentatonic scales - from Uli Jon Roth in early Scorpions through Metallica and other thrash bands to the metal of today like Mastodon (great stuff, btw), there is little/no use of standard blues scales. This is true for both rhythms and lead work.

  • different tones - as a guitarist, I could spend a lot of time on this topic, but will try to keep it short. Hard rock relies on tube-based, organic distortion in the amps - take old-style guitar-and-amp rigs and push them a bit. But only a bit - if you listen to AC/DC for instance - or try to replicate their sound, they do NOT use a lot of distortion - trust me, I have tried this at home. And the distortion that they do use is all about the mid’s - the middle tones in the guitar signal, compressing them and making them sound “creamy” (official guitar geek jargon alert). That is a standard hard rock objective.

Metal on the other hand is ALL about distortion - more and more and more of it. Their rigs abandon quality, vintage guitars and great wood, which the guitar’s pickup merely amplifies and distorts a little - they have super-distortion pickups and chained effects pedals that boost the overdrive. What the guitar is made of is unimportant (unlike with hard rock) - all that matters is having powerful pickups. In fact, to accomodate all that distortion, metal players had to adopt a “scooped mids” tone profile - looking a the EQ on a metal player’s amp, the lows and highs are boosted but the mids are zeroed out - because that much distortion creates ear-splitting feedback in the mids. Completely the opposite of hard rock.

Okay - that took longer than I wanted.

Drums - hard rock is about a boogie feel - you may have double-bass, a la Bonham, but still about groove - playing behind the beat. Metal is much more on beat and militaristic - and the speed of double-bass playing goes through the roof. Just as importantly, because the speed of the drumming is so fast, you have to record the drums differently - you have to simplify both the tone and the decay of each individual drum hit - if you leave too much decay on the drum tone, then it muddies up too fast when you hit the drums so quickly. So metal producers strip out that stuff - you end up with flat-sounding drums that can be played super fast and be heard cleanly. My hard rock drumming friends hate the drum sounds on metal recordings for that reason.

That help?