Quote:
Originally Posted by dankrsta
And I never thought of New Wave as a specific genre, but a phenomenon in the second half of the 70's. As the term states, it's a wave of some new aesthetics and music compared to that often bombastic 70's rock, led by punk as a more genre oriented music.
Still, there's a very broad term, post-punk, which encompasses many styles from that time and beyond and which relates to the music that takes the punk aesthetics and attitude, but expands on it and takes it to more adventurous, sometimes even experimental directions. I've seen that that's what sometimes referred to as New Wave.
People usually have this need to use genres as some kind of little shelves where they can neatly arrange music, but that's not what it's like in the world of art. That's why there's a lot of confusion about this New Wave period. A lot of new things were happening at the same time like in a kind of creative explosion. That's why I (personally) like to refer to it as a New Wave time 'cause then it's less likely to make a mistake. As I understood the term was expanding as the time went by. I don't know, sometimes time helps to see things more clearly, especially when we deal with this kind of creative periods that were over shortly after they started, but managed to live further through a very strong influence.
Uh, this post was longer then I thought it would be EDIT: But what a hell.
I had a major crush on John Taylor when I was a little girl.  He was adorable with that yellow lock of hair  (Is that what you call it?) |
Heh heh...no worries about
me being scared off by post length, dankstra!
You express all your thoughts on genres and the "New Wave time" very clearly! I know very little about genres...although I think of their development as similar to the evolutionary tree of life: one type of music inspires other musicians, who take parts of it and combine them with aspects of other genres that they like, as well as their own new ideas, to create a new "sound." So, there is never a definite beginning or end to a genre.
And every once in a while there are new musical paradigms that rush in and become "selected" as popular because their freshness appeals to people, who seem to like novelty and challenging the status quo. So, New Wave seems like that.
John Taylor...yes, I think "a yellow lock of hair" is completely correct. I remember one thing I liked about Duran Duran when I was a teen was that they weren't afraid to be pretty. It made them seem more accessible and approachable!
Aren't they pretty? There he is on the right! :-)
