American records that were viable '80s *New Pop*?

figures on the beach? (too late too, maybe...)

the "paisley underground" bands such as Three O'Clock were plugged into the underground/indie/college-rock scene in the 80s which as a rule stood in opposition to the New Pop movement aka haircut bands.

Prince
Billy Ocean
Teena Marie
Cyndi Lauper
The Bangles
John Waite

...and about 50 others.

And John Waite's "Missing You"?!? Oh man! The synth twinkles, chugging rhythm, the sound of that guitar -- not possible three years earlier.

And I definitely see Alfred's point about the 1984 Top 40. I think the Cars (certianly by the time of *Heartbeat City"*) figure heavily in the equation as well. Hell, "Boys of Summer" and BOTH "Jump"s (Van Halen and Pointer Sisters) probably do. But then again, as I confess above, I have no idea, really, how Simon or anyone else is defining "new pop." (I've never even read that *Like Punk Never Happened Book*! Though I do remember some old Simon Frith columns from those days.) So when I made my own nominations above, I was thinking specifically in terms of "Americans who wished they were British haircut bands." (And actually, I think Figures on a Beach *may* have gotten some pop airplay, in Detroit and Boston at least. Though, right, they never hit Top 40, which probably should matter.)

Anyway, here's one nobody will argue with: Til Tuesday!

Oh, I don't buy this. I'm talking about it as a musical genre, not just a cultural phenomenon or something. Besides, plenty of the singles released by the basic New Pop canon of artists were not hits. (Plus, they released albums, which had lots of songs which also were not hits.)

Still not sure how Billy Ocean or John Waite presented a new eighties vision of a New! Wave! aesthetic. It's not just about instrumental sounds and production. (If it was, you could say that anyone's modern sounding pop record from the mid-eighties was "New Pop.")

But it is! And I never implied "just" either.

I'd define New Pop roughly as "singles and albums influenced by the intersection of New Wave, the MTV visual aesthetic, and the uptick in record sales which started around the time Thriller became mega."

Pat Benatar circa "Love is a Battlefield-We Belong-Invincible" was definitely New Pop, but the Crimes of Passion isn't.

Tim, what doe these cryptic phrases mean? You're talking in circles. Ocean's and Waite's music totally sounded '80s. How are they any less a new '80s vision than Missing Persons? I don't get that. (So, are YOU saying only the kind of Anglophiles I've been nominating should qualify? If you argue that somebody like the Cars or Van Halen is too "guitar oriented"--not that you have, but I suppose the argument could be made; I forget, were the Psychedelic Furs, say, considered "new pop"?--where does that leave Three O'Clock?) (Unless they had no guitars. Not like I've heard them in a quarter century.)

Sure, but so did lite jazz albums from the mid-'80s.

Anyway, how about Laura Branigan? Or Irene Cara? Or Ray Parker Jr.?

I don't know about Ray Parker Jr. "The Other Woman" sounds like Emotional Rescue-era Stones, no? "Ghostbusters" is New Pop once removed since it lifts that Huey Lewis riff.

Tony Basil, "Mickey"
Moon Unit Zappa featuing Frank, "Valley Girl"

I'm guessing lots of stuff from L.A. was VERY new pop, actually.

And come to think of it, what about the Go-Gos? (More so as they moved along.) (And the Motels, maybe? Or were they too ballad heavy?)

Again, it's not just about sound - lite jazz albums also sounded '80s - it's about the whole package. I said they had more of a modernist aesthetic overall. More futuristic, perhaps.

>"Karma Chameleon" took its main hook from "Handy Man" by James Taylor. And sure, it was great. But in what way does it sound more new wave than "Missing You"?<

Well, I suppose the Babys were sort of considered new wave? But New Pop is, I think, about the new '80s vision of new wave which, yes, came mostly from the English groups.

"i guess he really just wants examples of american bands that sounded like kajagoogoo."

No, don't be an ass.

tim these guys are fuckin witch ya. john waite was new wave by association, while culture club defined the genre's MTV phase..

Minus the popularity, though, I guess.

Re: The Records. They weren't American, were they?

cause ppl use the term now to describe 80s "new pop" but I remember it being used interchangeably w/punk to describe bands like Talking Heads and Pere Ubu. And then, as Scott says, came the deluge: the Cars, power pop. and Pulsallama hahaha. they were like the cool kids in school circa 1982 in the east village (and I was total nerd)

Again, it's not just about sound - lite jazz albums also sounded '80s - it's about the whole package. I said they had more of a modernist aesthetic overall. More futuristic, perhaps

I have no idea how Culture Club, or any of the bands we've mentioned, fit this description. And my initial posts defined what 'the whole package' was anyway.

otm. probably one of the only songs from my youth that i distinctly remember hearing for the very first time.

Good choice! With 1985's Rhythm & Romance she made the leap (check out her dyed bangs on the cover).

Yeah, isn't that also where Exude, of "Boys Just Want To Have Sex" fame, were from? And Scott is very right about Philly; I was going to say that myself but I was having trouble coming up with names -- Pretty Poison are the PERFECT example of this stuff. (I feel like there were similar groups from Detroit, too, but I'm coming up blank on specific names.) Romeo Void seem like a smart nomination, too.

Marginal possibilities (and no, I'm not trying to mess with Tim at all; as I said in my very first post, which was ALL Anglophiles, it's just that it's really not clear to me where the line's supposed to be drawn; is "new pop" the same as "new wave" or not? and can ONLY Anglophile Americans qualify?), anyway: B-52s, Devo circa "Whip It", Steve Miller's "Abracadabra," Corey Hart, and, uh, MADONNA! (Though Corey's Canadian, right? So maybe he doesn't count. And I'm not saying these other guys necessarily do; just saying they MIGHT.)

wait, so only americans raised on fish and chips qualify now? that's *really* gonna limit things. (oddly, though, i associate the hooters as much with "roots rock" as with "new wave"--like, they were zydeco fans who belong in the same category of *lonesome jubilee*. or marah antecedents, maybe. i know this is completely off-base, and simply my misinterpretation of their use of melodica. but i can't help it.)

Johnny, Are You Queer? - Josie Cotton
A Woman's Got The Power - The A's
88 Lines About 44 Women - The Nails
It's A Night For Beautiful Girls - The Fools
Jeopardy - Greg Kihn
I Know What Boys Like - The Waitresses
Whirly Girl - OXO

AND THE STRAY CATS!! (I think.)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0571137393/203-0175356-9755150?v=glance&n=266239

am i alone in being totally unconvinced of the usefulness of this term?

I first read it in Christgau's review of Duran Duran's 1989 hits compilation: "...they pretend their decade didn't end around 1984-'85, when U.K. new pop conquered the world and went phfft."

Were any of the actual Brit "new pop" groups rock bands, without synthesizers? If not, I guess you could stipulate that being a rock band without synths (especially one who did actual live shows *before* recording a debut album) automatically disqualifies a group from newpopdom, which would probably discount Stray Cats, the A's, the Fools, the Waitresses, the B-52s, and maybe even Romeo Void.

Also, nobody has mentioned Lene Lovich! She counts, right? (Unless, and this would go for Shox Lumania and maybe Gleaming Spires and who knows who else too, she wasn't pop *enough.* Like, is it possible to have been *too* futuristic to be new pop? Or maybe just too weird?)

also, i've seen that "like punk never happened" book before, but haven't read it so i don't know if it's good or not. if the title's really intended sardonically, that's good to know. cuz culture club sure as hell did not make it seem like punk had never happened. (anymore than blondie did.) (and if there is such a thing as new pop, surely blondie qualifies?) (or is new pop something different than new wave? because that's also what we called this stuff in the '80s.)

When I was in the Army in the early '80s, soldiers who liked punk rock were quite frequently addressed as "Boy George." True story!

Aztec Camera, at least initially.

"new music" = basically equalled everything not being played on commercial radio or MTV. "college rock" later known as indie rock, then alternative rock, then I don't know eat shit and die rock.

The Smiths and Aztec Camera sorta got lost in the terminology seeing as they were Brits w/guitars. I always thought the Smiths = the English REM but oh man most US "college rockers" didn't agree.

I could be wrong tho.

Reynolds says as much in his big ol' book -- the unmitigated careerism of Duran, Eurythmics, the reconfigured Scritti Politti. But was it true in America? We have a problem with shooting for hits.

Motorhead were Brits with guitars! But I guess they were too ugly.

xp: You left out "modern rock" (that's what it was called in the Church/Midnight Oil/Love and Rockets era, if I remember right.)

More nominations: Wall of Vooodoo! and Oingo Boingo! (Too weird, again? Actually, I'm not sure I've ever actually heard Oingo Boingo.)

Were they? Devo's robot schtick was already established in the late '70s when their first couple of major label records came out. Was Culture Club's vision not a little fresher than what Devo was doing around 1983? I would think so. And B-52s had way more retro-isms (early rock and roll retroism was more of a '70s new wave component, no?).

This, btw, should go to addressing Alfred's professed lack of comprehension re. Culture Club as modernist/futurist overall aesthetic: '80s new pop people as futuristic friendly monster people or whatever they were. Like this guy:

http://www.lyricsvault.net/halloffame/limahl.jpg

http://www.multinet.no/~jonarne/Hjemmesia/Favorittartister/roxy_music/brian_eno.jpg

Tears for Fears certainly count.

I omitted the Pet Shop Boys cuz they arrived at the end of the New Pop boom, and augured a more serious turn (as opposed to "merely" making frivolous chartbound pop). I always heard them lumped with Depeche Mode, New Order, the Cure, etc.

> And B-52s had way more retro-isms (early rock and roll retroism was more of a '70s new wave component, no?).<

They also came from Planet Claire and drove a Plymouth satellite faster than the speed of light. (Again, where is the comparable futurism in Culture Club? Just 'cause their fans had yellow hair?) (And sure, to Akron punk rockers, Devo may have been old flowerpot hat by '83, but not to people listening to the Top 40, I don't think. And retro shtick hardly died in the '80s; again, see Stray Cats etc. '80s new wave mainly just picked up where '70s new wave left off. Really, you can probably just blame it all on Roxy Music.)

Also, weren't the BIGGEST new pop group Human League (who started out as some artsy Joy Division style gloom band)? It seems to me is that *Dare* was Frith's main reference point about the phenomenon.

Spandau Ballet started out sort of as funk wannabees before they purchased all that frilly new romantique evening wear, didn't they? With "Chant No. 1", around the same time Heaven 17 did "Fascist Groove Thang"? At least I associated those bands as being related, and maybe Fad Gadget too, which was somewhat ridiculous of me. (Also, how does Wham! fit into all this? Any way they want, I bet!)

we called them electro-pop back in the day. if anyone is making a list. but seriously, there was a new wave show in 1980/81 on the big rock station where i lived and they called this stuff new-rock. that's where i first heard culture club and talk talk by talk talk.

It was the other way around: they bought the pirate gear and asymmetric haircuts before they discovered Bryan Ferry.

Speaking of Ferry, he and Roxy circa Flesh & Blood were really the biggest influences on the New Popists in that they dressed well and scored big hits using received funk rhythms. God, which makes Spandau and ABC's funk rhythms thirdhand, if you think about it.

Echo/Teardrop/U2 were a discrete mini-movement of their own who got lumped in w/new pop when they hit the states. at first. that live EP elevated U2 to arena-rock godhood

The arena-rock moves distinguished them, true. Plus, Echo and U2 (Big Country too) wrote songs About Something, right? They would have been horrified to be marketed with Haircut 100.

I mean, one thing people really have to understand is that, when Simon Reynolds writes about "post-punk" or "new pop," it doesn't necessarily mean those phrases were widely used when that music actually existed, and if they were, they weren't always used exactly as he defines them. At least not in the U.S. (And possibly not even so much in the U.K. either, unless you happened to have a sociology PhD.) (Actually, I don't know that; it's possible they were very common in NME and MM at the time. Does he quote reviews from then?)

no. the u.s. greatest hits comp made more of an impact than anything else. and john hughes/dancing horses. wait, wasn't dancing horses in a movie? john hughes broke everyone on the way down. omd. simple minds.

on Echo's initial audience: hard to say. I was out of college by then, saw Echo play live several times 1981-84 and they were superb, a great rock & roll band. but my rock critic confreres HATED them, a "haircut band."

me too! (okay, i'm gonna get out the ginger for the two-way thai chicken now...)

But Big Country got a gold record before U2 did (Echo never got close). I remember BC and U2 marketed together until The Joshua Tree.

same here! apparently western connecticut liked lots of different terminology. techno-pop, electro-pop, new wave, new rock, we liked it all! but never new pop. i was blessed with a very good college radio station all thru the 80's for all manner of newwave/punk/indie. WHCN. Thanks, guys!

No, Simon DOES take this approach. It was the counter-revolution, so to speak.

(As a sidenote I just flipped thru Chris Heath's 1990 Pet Shop bio. Neil Tennant says that their American handlers referred to them as "this year's Tears for Fears.")

i'm not welcoming it. i like calling things new wave. i'm a waver.

xp
hahaha there's a bit somewhere in that book where Neil pisses on Big Country from a great height

haha, actually, he pisses on U2! And he really loses his temper. I'll find the quote.

The Associates, Altered IMages, Simple Minds, Eurythmics, Thompson Twins, Wham!, Culture Club, ABC, the Human League, Scritti Politti.

certainly don't make me think of echo and u2.

and to college radio. i've seen interviews with bono where he gives big props to the college stations. and college radio, interestingly or not, stayed pretty rock-oriented through this whole era. some of the synth bands got airplay (especially people like heaven 17, who didn't have u.s. hits), but it was much more guitar bands like echo, teardrop, r.e.m., etc. so if you're gonna invent a category of american new pop, one place to start might be stuff that got more commerical airplay than college airplay.

xpost: i really still think of the 3 o'clock as being much more influenced by west coast and u.k. '60s pop than anything else.

and synth-pop! i forgot one.

certainly don't make me think of echo and u2.<

But there were other aesthetics, too - were Madness New Pop or Siouxsie?

Gypsy, check out a song like "Hand in Hand" on Arrive Without Travelling. (And of course after that they wanted Ian Broudie to produce them and then they made a record for Paisley Park.)

see, this is where i lucked out. my hometown station was in LOVE with synth-pop. for years. and dance pop music (din da da, dominatrix,madonna, etc). i was very fortunate. i heard tons of stuff.

That's precisely what Greil Marcus said in one of the ArtForum essays collected in In the Fascist Bedroom. He deconstructs the semiotics of a Big Country video from '86 or '86 -- a bit unfair, actually, since they were well past their peak (insofar as Big Country had one).

http://www.geocities.com/xci_realitybreak/wxci/music.html

a lot of that stuff i heard for the first time on that station as it came out.

american college radio at its finest!

You have if you saw Weird Science: My ceation, is it real?

>ebn ozn or kissing the pink or tin tin <

Scott, what country were these bands from? I was almost thinking of nominating Kissing the Pink for American newpopitude status upthread, but then I realized I have no idea. What I do know is they were supposed to be a big influence on early Chicago house music -- outside of Telex, they might be the only technopoppers on that great 12-LP *History of the House Sound* vinyl box set, which matters!

And of course, I associate Ebn Ozn with Freez: vowel-rock rules!

Finally, "Black Flag Kills Ants on Contact" (a slogan, not a song) of course totally belongs alongside that X song in the Revolutionary War against Limey nancy-boy noble savage drum drum drum pantheon.

"What [rock critics} basically want is for it to be like 1969 again. It 's this thing where British – or in U2's case, Irish – groups discover the roots of American music. U2 have discovered this and they're just doing pastiches [his voice rises] and it's reviewed as a serious thing because DYLAN PLAYS ORGAN on some song and B.B. King plays on some throwaway pop song `When Love Comes to Town' that could have been written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It could be in Starlight Express if you ask me.

...We hate everything that they are and stand for. We hate it because it's totally stultifying, it says nothing, it is big and pompous and ugly. We hate it for exactly the same reasons Johnny Rotten said he hated dinosaur groups in 1976. To me U2 are a dinosaur group. They're saying nothing but they're pretending to be something. I think they're FAKE."

Geir would apparently argue for Grace Jones, and Kid Creole & the Coconuts:

What was the best New Pop album (80-85)?

What a great thread. I learned a lot.

"I Touch Roses" by Book of Love sounds like American New Pop to me.

Book of Love are the shit!!

The Romantics: Talking In Your Sleep
The Brains: Money Changes Everything
Ebn-Ozn: AEIOU Sometimes Y

The Nails: 88 Lines About 44 Women

I mentioned that one above!

John Eddie, "Jungle Boy" (= Springsteen doing Antmusic)

(actually John Cafferty doing Antmusic, more like)

Oops..I searched for "Nails" but not every answer was loaded on the page.

A good one:

The Monroes: What Do All The People Know?

that's a beautiful song!

Yeah, that one has aged real well.

Industry were Americans, weren't they? "State Of The Nation" is a great song!

Lady Gaga.

Jesus, we talked a lot in this thread.

this was great, just discovered it tks to the critic's darling thread

I'm going back there again, this is a good list, Information Society aren't bad at all, I remember not being bowled over by them back in the day. But look at their cool outfits.

http://images.artistdirect.com/Images/Sources/AMGPORTRAITS/music/portrait200/drp000/p015/p01568vsy7e.jpg