Your way in
New wave 1978
Post-punk's commercial face: synthesizers, hooks and jerky rhythms. Punk without the rage, but with the same ideas.
- Heaviness
- 2
- Speed
- 5
- Melody
- 10
- Where from
- UK / USA
- Tempo
- 120-160 bpm
- Song length
- 2.5-4 min
- Written about
- Modern life, Anxiety, delivered cheerfully, Technology, Romance, obliquely
- Vocals
- Sung
Why this one
| You said | New wave | Match | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light How much weight do you want behind it? | 2 out of 10 | 100% | ×2 |
| A steady walk What pace? | 5 out of 10 | 100% | ×2 |
| Normal How long should a song be? | up to 4 min | 96% | ×1 |
| Weighted mean | 99% | ||
Ranked over all 150 genres in the encyclopedia, on the 3 answers you gave, weighted heaviness 2, pace 2, length 1 out of 5. New wave leads the next by 2 points. Where two genres score the same the broader one wins, because a genre with subgenres under it is somewhere to carry on from and a leaf is a full stop.
Five records, in this order
- 1Start one step outside
Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures 1979
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures. Martin Hannett's production is half the record.
- 2The one to put on first
- 3Then
- 4Then
- 5Then
The first is the entry point for Post-punk, one step outside, so the second record has something to be heard against. After it come New wave's essential records in the order the encyclopedia lists them. Every one of these has a page here with links out to somewhere it can be played.
If that is not it
-
Beat / British Invasion 98%
The British took American rock and roll, added vocal harmony and shipped it back across the Atlantic. Both hard rock and pop-rock start here.
5 steps from New wave, meeting it only at Rock.
The way into Beat / British Invasion -
Britpop 96%
Britain answers grunge with Beatles-and-Kinks melody and lyrics about ordinary English life.
5 steps from New wave, meeting it only at Rock.
The way into Britpop
Not simply the second and third of the ranking: those are almost always near neighbours of the first, which is three names for one suggestion. An alternate has to sit at least 4 steps through the tree from the headline and from the other alternate, which is the same floor the "sounds like this, but isn't" panel uses.
What your answers ruled out
- Light put 12 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Death metal, Brutal death metal, Sludge metal. Worth 2 of 5.
- Normal put 13 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Progressive rock, Krautrock, Acid rock. Worth 1 of 5.
Counted as genres scoring 20% or less on that answer alone. A recommendation that only shows what it chose is hiding half of what it did.