"The Waiting Room" has been covered numerous times, including by TV on the Radio, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rancid. This isn't quite the little red Corvette going much too fast in Prince's classic, but the Primitives certainly dip their toes in the same metaphoric territory, although "Crash" could have a broader variety of meanings. (Finished July 4th, 2019) Obscure 80s New Wave Songs, Part 2 Hello, Every few months or so there's a New Wave station that drops into Salt Lake for a few months. Playlist: Underrated 1980s New Wave Our favorite sophisti-pop, early alt rock, and art punk Hazel Cills 06/15/2016. It wasn't classic rock, it wasn't punk, it wasn't glam, it wasn't disco, it wasn't pure pop... but it drew from all them. If you wanted an archetypical set of 10 average Americans, would you want ten 40-something white women who were all five-foot-four? Many of these songs fit into multiple categories and many that were left out for not being alternative could very easily be considered by others to fit into that label quite nicely. Metro - Berlin 2. It had a rockier edge than 80's synth pop and was a more refined version of punk with some 50's, back to the basics, rockabilly aspects. I'll include it if I ever make a list of prototypical new wave. From the Wisconsin group's self-titled debut album, "Blister in the Sun" is a simple stripped-down skiffle with just acoustic guitar, a snare drum swatted with brushes, a sometimes frenetic bass and bits of violin. (A year later, a re-recorded version was included on the outstanding soundtrack to the John Hughes film Some Kind of Wonderful.). After all, there are plenty of artists who reside outside the limited universe of Top 40 radio who wouldn't be considered alternative: folk, metal, country, reggae, bluegrass, orchestral, jazz, blues, some hip-hop and others. Editor's Note: This list was researched and curated by Chris Gerard, and it is not a staff-wide list. (Finished July 6th, 2019) Obscure 80s New Wave Songs, Part 4 Hello, Every few months or so there's a New Wave station that drops into Salt Lake for a few months. French Kissin In The USA (1986) - Deborah Harry Defining new wave sexual cool, fronting the iconic Blondie, and racking up four #1 singles from 79 - 82 so why couldn't our Debbie find U.S. Top 40 love whatsoever as a solo artist? As it winds to its harrowing conclusion, the guitars flash like sirens in the wake of yet another shooting as they fade to black. © 1999-2021 PopMatters.com. The video (which unfortunately features the single edit rather than the much superior full-length version) suggests cold war era intrigue with a hint of danger. All rights reserved.PopMatters is wholly independent, women-owned and operated. (Note- These songs are not necessarily the artists all-time greatest, but their best of the 'New Wave' sound.) (Startedh July 9th, 2019) Obscure 80s New Wave Songs, Part 5 Hello, Every few months or so there's a New Wave station that drops into Salt Lake for a few months. Good question. I come here to ask you about an unknown 80s song first posted by an user of WatzAtSong: Basically, the user claims to have recorded the … Press J to jump to the feed. It reached #8 in the UK, the first in a long string of Top 10 hits in their native country. No. At the 0:22 point during the chugging guitar introduction, the song stops entirely for four unexpected seconds of silence before heavy drum beats get it rolling again. JoBoxers' jubilant "Just Got Lucky" was a surprise hit in America, spending two week at #36 in November 1983. The main melodic hook is in the thick waves of sinuously flowing synthesizer, with dense layers of guitar providing support. There is great truth to the line, "She says 'all you need is therapy.' The opening track and first single from Lovely, the Primitives' debut album, "Crash" is a fizzy, melodic power-pop confection. Last Updated: 2017-04-19. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Eurythmics (1983) 2. "You don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do?" "Outside the mainstream" isn't really enough of a definition. Along with their cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground", the wickedly funky "Knock Me Down" helped crack open the door to massive success for Red Hot Chili Peppers, reaching #6 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart. Einen New Wave 80er Hit erreicht Culture Club mit Do You Really Want to Hurt Me. The Top 40 should've slipped some tongue to this feather-light kitschy gem ("Paris is calling!") These are a mix of obscure New Wave songs … Given it's punk rock roots new wave bands almost by definition require a guitarist, I would actually classify many of those tracks as synthpop.Unlike a previous poster, I agree with your inclusion of Rock the Casbah for the reasons I just outlined.Anyway still a great list of tunes thanks for taking the time to compile it. Unlike many songs from the new wave era which can often sound hopelessly dated, the upbeat Northern soul-influenced "Just Got Lucky" has aged extremely well. 5:45 PREVIEW Indigo Children. Listen to music from Obscure 80s New Wave - Rare Hits of The 80's like Select Songs From Rare Hits of The 80's Comps. The spacey, dramatic ballad "Airwaves" is particularly compelling. The atmospheric synths quaver until the very end, when it finally falls apart and stutters out without resolution -- much like the sorrow of opportunities missed that forms the heart of the song. "White Horse" is built on a repetitive keyboard riff and rhythm pattern from which bleeps and spikes of synthesizer with various effects and textures erupt throughout the song. And if Wakeling is actually singing "save it fellator" at some points in the song as is widely assumed, then that opens whole new avenues of possible interpretation (not to mention humor). Despite the sharply worded warning in the lyrics, "Crash" is a breezy nugget of glimmery perfection. / Ah-ha the kiss you gave, it's never going to fade away". I agree that there's no particular "sound" that makes a song new wave. Unlike many of Ant's earlier singles, which tend to be murkier and harder to penetrate, "Goody Two Shoes" is razor sharp and fresh -- it sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday. "It's so hard to love when love was your great disappointment", she confides tremulously near the end of the song. "I'm at the stage where everything I thought meant something seems so unappealing." These are a mix of obscure New Wave songs … He also talked a little bit about the casette tape he recorded the track onto (TDK SA Super Avilyn), which seemed of very high quality, as you can notice listening to the song. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. There were nearly 400 songs on the initial list of potential candidates for inclusion, and narrowing that to 100 involved cuts that were heartbreaking. This is one of those times that we have a New Wave station here in Salt Lake City, The Wave 103.1. Some of these artists I wouldn't list as New Wave.It seems youadd songs that everybody else adds to their lists.Some good songslisted,but nothing special. Cole describes an alluring character who's been bitten too many times by love and relationship problems, and who has now adopted a detached persona as a barrier and protection.There's a sadness and vulnerability under the lady's ultra cool exterior. "Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)" spent two weeks at #26 in July 1983. Despite the grim lyrics about a woman so depressed she can't get out of bed, "Like the Weather" has a gentle warmth to it. The other side of the coin in new wave were the experimental bands like the Talking Heads which later lead to 80's synth pop.New Wave died out around 1981 as new wave bands became more pop oriented. 2015 Preview SONG TIME Selfless Horizons - 80s Obscure New Age Music. Generally when people think of '80s music, the first artists that pop into their heads might be Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, Prince, Duran Duran, a-ha and other staples of MTV and the Top 40. It's a far cry from their edgy debut album Pleasure Victim, which includes new wave essentials like "The Metro", "Mannequin", and "Sex (I'm A…)". This New York City group was informed by punk rock but rarely sounded like it, choosing instead to explore dissonant sonic landscapes at the expense of traditional song structures and melody. 5:20 PREVIEW Sinking Sun - … With "Knock Me Down", the band showed they were capable of writing great songs that were still unmistakably their style, but with mass appeal. Die Wave-Bewegung kann als Ursprung für die Erfolgsstorys von Bands wie Depeche Mode, die Talking Heads und OMD in den 80s betrachtet werden. It became a popular dance hit, and for a while it was a go-to tune for breakdancers showing off their Robot skills. "Alternative" requires a certain edge, a particularly adventurous vibe, a very specific sensibility. 's second album, Organisation. There are omissions that some might find surprising. Much of the song simmers at a slow boil, until the emotion spills over during the bridge with cascading drum rolls, squeals of saxophone, and Irvin's voice crying out vehemently "shame / shame on you / shame!" In making the list, there was only one guideline: I can only use 1-2 songs per band. It's also appeared in numerous films, including a new version recorded for Gross Point Blanke in 1997. Posting songs that are gone but not forgotten. Obscure 80s New Wave - Rare Hits of The 80's - Select Songs From Rare Hits of The 80's Comps. Select songs from Rare Hits of The 80s series; off Vol. Beyond the social commentary, though, Paul Westerberg croons one … 19. Heart of Glass is pure disco. The band actually broke up in 2009 after Gano licensed the song for use in a Wendy's commercial, prompting a blistering public rebuke by bassist Brian Ritchie, and the filing of a lawsuit. I’ll spare you any further history lessons and get on with The Retrospace list of Great New Wave Songs. One of the new wave era's more interesting curios, "White Horse" is included on Laid Back's second album ...Keep Smiling. Der Song Shout der New Wave Band Tears for Fears erreicht innerhalb von vier Wochen am 04.02.1985 der Spitzenposition der deutschen Single Charts. These are a mix of obscure New Wave songs … It is the band's most fully-realized track, catchy with tight harmonies, subtle strings, enigmatic lyrics (presumably about a young man discovering that adulthood does not automatically provide the answers and solutions that one might have assumed), and a terrific vocal by Wakeling. Rock. That wasn't an oversight. Notable for its dizzying synthesizer that whirls relentlessly in the background, "Enola Gay" is a landmark single of the synthpop genre. 4. The deep multi-tracked vocals sung in a deadpan baritone exude a sense of menace, repeating "If you wanna ride, don't ride the white horse" with the air of someone speaking from experience, and recommending instead to "ride the white pony", evidently suggesting cocaine is preferable to heroin. The Don Was-produced comeback gave the B-52's their first taste of mainstream success with three major pop hits: "Love Shack", "Roam", and "The Deadbeat Club". It's wonderfully sleazy, like it should be playing at the world's most squalid strip club. The band took a few much-needed years off and came back with the biggest album of their career: 1989's Cosmic Thing. "24 Hour Party People" captures the beginning of the ecstasy-fueled rave culture, of which Happy Mondays were an integral part. And a lot falls under that blanket. At the very least, even if you pay no consideration to the rankings, it's a great starting point for exploring some of the amazingly diverse and powerful music from the '80s that still holds up today. It's a breathless three-and-a-half minutes, ending with two quick strums of guitar and a final kiss-off from the drums. The term "alternative" didn't really become prominent until the very end of the '80s, and into the early '90s. Some of my own favorite songs out of these very popular compilations I started putting together back in 2007. Good question. The song is a neat juxtaposition of precise math rock and sweetly charming nostalgia tinged with faint regret. A certain about of rockabilly revival made it onto this list, but I associate psychobilly more strongly with garage rock and punk. As powerful today as the day it was released, "God Is a Bullet" is the opening track to the band's second album, Free, and it reached #15 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart in June 1989. Greatest New Wave Songs 1. The song's extended fade-out is punctuated by Nunn's steamy moans of passion, to the point where it almost begins to sound like low-dollar amateur porn. They play all the classics, but they also play some really obscure songs as well. Even if we called it an archetypical sample, you'd still want some variety. "Blister in the Sun" blew up on college radio, and is somewhat ubiquitous even though it was never officially released as a single. The best punk, post-punk, new wave, college rock, underground, modern rock, goth, industrial, new romantic, ska, power pop, hardcore, and indie rock of the '80s. I'm going to check a handful of the songs on there that I'm not familiar with. Whew (they probably are the purest form of post-punk New Wave). Washington, D.C.'s hardcore legends Fugazi first released two EPs (1988's Fugazi and 1989's Margin Walker), which were compiled for their September 1989 release 13 Songs. The decade that gave us New Romantics, New Wave and Live-Aid, also gave us more than our fair share of the slightly embarrassing things, like huge shoulder pads, mullets and … New Romantics-Bands wie Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran und Visage feierten große kommerzielle Erfolge, wohingegen andere Wave-Acts eher Underground blieben. It's a breathless three-and-a-half minutes, ending with two quick strums of guitar and a final kiss-off from the drums. "The Waiting Room" is typical of early Fugazi. The Replacements – “Androgynous” It might seem strange that one of the best songs on the Replacements’ tremendous Let It Be is a spare piano ballad, but “Androgynous” is a masterwork and an ode to gender-bending romance decades ahead of its time in the largely trans- and homophobic 1980s. Natalie Merchant's glimmery vocals skate above the lean and insistent groove, with restrained organ, a lyrical bass, and bright lines of guitar. In recent years the trio has patched up their differences, and can be heard touring the festival circuit, with "Blister in the Sun" still the audience favorite in their set. List of new wave artists. No Television? Most radio stations wouldn't touch a track oozing with such brazen sexuality, but it sold well enough to crawl to #62 on the U.S. pop chart. Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) (1983), 126) Tin Huey - The Revelations Of Dr. Modesto (1979), 151) "Like the Weather" was the second single from 10,000 Maniacs' second album In My Tribe, and is arguably their finest. Some new wave bands featured guitars and others featired synthesizers. Finally in 2010 Cherry Red Records put out a deluxe reissue of what many consider to be a lost classic -- … The very last gasps of new wave were probably songs like "Just Like Heaven" (The Cure) and "Lips Like Sugar" (Echo & the Bunnymen) in 1987. "The Waiting Room" has a bit of a laid-back ska influence during the verses, and then it explodes with hard rock intensity during the chorus. Overload the resonant filter; turn off the oscillators; use the cutoff frequency to control the pitch." There is necessarily and unavoidably a degree of subjectivity in not only selecting which songs to include and ranking them, but also determining which songs can be considered alternative in the first place. The Wild Life isn't especially funny or insightful, but its New Wave-influenced soundtrack is highlighted by Bananarama's uber-catchy theme song, which somehow has not achieved the same level of appreciation as “Cruel Summer” or their cover of … This is one of those times that we have a New Wave station here in Salt Lake City, The Wave 103.1. This is a list of classic & osbcure Indie/ Jangle Pop/ Post-Punk/ New Wave/ Synthpop/ Goth/ and Punk Rock acts from the 80's to early 90's. McCluskey personalizes the bomb, as if it is actually a "little boy": "Enola Gay, is Mother proud of Little Boy today? "The Waiting Room" was initially the lead track for their self-titled 1988 EP and remains one of the band's signature songs. The song has a placeholder name of "For My Murder". With all of the above in mind, I won't be posting this as a countdown. Ant is practically giddy at the prospect. A community dedicated to collecting and putting a spotlight on great music that has gone unnoticed, lost its … Obscure 80s new wave song, no title/artist/release year. Some of my own favorite songs out of these very popular compilations I started putting together back in 2007. There's a sizzling brass solo about mid-way through, and then a snarl of electric guitar as the verses escalate up one half-step with each new line, broiling the excitement to a fever pitch. The artists in this list are not your typical mainstream TOP 40 acts. "Crash" is compact at only two-and-a-half minutes, but its brevity only adds to its impact. And when the inevitable crash comes, well, the pain only lasts until the next party begins. What defines new wave? It's new-wave-ish-ness was definitely enhanced by the video which was huge on MTV at the same time as a number of other songs on this list.Regarding being something special, that would run counter to the concept of an archetype in my opinion. One of the most unusual songs to make a splash in the ‘80s was an anthem by a nasally voiced country singer celebrating the romantic appeal of sitting on a front porch swing. Speaking of Moroder, it's hard to envision while listening to "Sex (I'm A…)" that barely three years later, Berlin would be riding high at #1 on the pop chart with the Giorgio Moroder-produced soundtrack ballad "Take My Breath Away". Hey guys! I'm comfortable with just Avalon at #77. https://rateyourmusic.com/board_message?message_id=5171304. Natalie Merchant sings lines like, "The color of the sky is gray as I can see through the blinds / lift my head from the pillow and then fall again", with deceptive vibrancy. "Sex (I'm A…)" is seedy red-light district synthpop featuring a sexy vocal by Terri Nunn with bandmate John Crawford adding the male counterpoint. 1. If you're looking for something more obscure, there are plenty of other lists on this site where you can find that. Obscure 80s New Wave, Post Punk, Indie - Forgotten hits Here are some of my own favorite songs 00:00 ¡Ack-Ack! "Like the Weather" peaked at #68 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was a substantial hit on college radio. Early MTV staples like "Pop Music", "Cars" and "Video Killed the Radio Star" were all released in the '70s. The touch of human emotion bleeds through the cold edges of the oddly perfect music which ratchets with machinelike precision. Also note: these are not in a particular order. 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