New Wave

New wave is a genre of rock music, and a term which became popular in the late 1970s and
the early 80s with connections to punk rock, disco, and electronic music. The term refers
to the outgrowth from punk combined with the cross-pollination happening in music in the
late 70s, when non-mainstream musicians began incorporating a wide range of seemingly
disparate sounds with a DIY rawness. Early punk, dub reggae, funk, art rock, glam pop,
kraut rock, and experimental electronic music were all very influential on this new wave
of rock musicians. For a very short period in the 70s the term was interchangeable with
Punk, especially in the US, where the industry was wary of the "punk fad" (Malcolm McLaren
described New Wave as simply a means of repackaging the "old wave"). There were also
different usages in the UK and the US mainstream media. Some music journalists consider
New Wave to be a genre that takes the energy and ethos of Punk and combines it with more
sonic and structural experimentation. Still, many consider New Wave to be such a broad
umbrella term that it loses any defining power, similar to Alternative Rock which came
later. As a result many artists and fans use related subgenres like Synth-Pop, Post-Punk,
Goth-Rock, New Romantic, and Dark Wave to point to more specific qualities embodied in the
diverse New Wave sound. By the mid 80s the term was less frequently used by both the
music industry and journalists, but in the late 1990s and into the 21st century a
resurgence and nostalgia for popular 80s music has brought the term back into popular
usage.