45 original 45s from the post punk era
New Waves captures the essence of a brilliantly vibrant era in
music (1978-82), in just 45 brilliant 45”s on this new
2CD set...
Surfing the wave of post-punk, these bands combined the energy
and anger with which punk had reinvigorated a stagnant music scene
but added a little more glamour, politics and, well... tunefulness
to proceedings.
So, who makes the New Waves cut? Well, for starters there’s
the edgy, spiky sounds of Elvis Costello ‘Pump it up’,
The Jam ‘The Eton Rifles’, Ian
Dury ‘Wake Up & Make
Love With Me’,The Lambrettas ‘Poison Ivy’, Stiff
Little Fingers ‘Alternative Ulster’, The
Jags ‘Back
of my hand’ and the The Vapors wankthem ‘Turning Japanese’...
Then there’s the brilliant first Number One by the Dexys
Midnight Runners - ‘Geno’, Scottish Postcard popsters
Orange Juice with ‘Felicity’, and excellent ‘early-doors’ recordings
from seminal 80’s icons Adam & The Ants (Young Parisians),
The Cure (Boys Don't Cry) and The Police ‘Roxanne’...
and then there’s Gang of Four, The Clash, Squeeze,
Joe Jackson and The The with the sublime ‘Uncertain Smile’...
In a recent Guardian Weekend article, Andrew Collins cites New
Wave as ‘a movement bigger than punk ever was’ and
looking at todays chart hopefuls - Franz Ferdinand, Rapture,
Interpol, Futureheads - it’s not too tricky to see which
era they drew on for inspiration. He also says it’s hard
to pin down exactly what defined the soiund of New Wave and opts
for - ‘Punky. Poppy. Pubby’... Well New Waves certainly
covers those bases... Punky: Siouxsie & Banshees, Spizzenergi,
The Ruts,The Buzzcocks... Poppy: Teardrop Exlodes,
Sparks, Robert Palmer, The Pretenders... and finally, Pubby: Splodgenessabounds,
Ten Pole Tudor, The Piranhas and Jilted John... but there’s
plenty more 45’s to be found on New Waves too.
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