British Invasion: From London to New York

Welcome back to British Invasion, the column that dives into British music history. Today’s column covers the rise of British New Wave, or New Pop music, in the United States at the start of the 1980s. This period is also characterized as the second British invasion, which means we are covering something related to the namesake of this column! But I’ll describe this trend as new wave throughout. 

New wave isn’t a genre but rather an umbrella term to describe young, mostly British, androgynous and technically savvy artists. This doesn’t mean the phenomena was strictly British, as many new wave artists emerged in New York. Many of these artists started in London punk bands in the mid to late 1970’s, including Eurythmics duo Annie Lennox and Dave Steward, who were in the punk band the Tourists.  

Some desired to move away from punk and focus more on songwriting and finding a larger audience. Journalist Kelefa Sannah said these “bands found ways to cool the hot rage of punk into something smoother and slyer… emphasizing songwriting instead of noisemaking.”  

Martin Fry, singer of ABC, praised the punk movement for inspiring more people to create music, noting that “it was a kind of explosion that came out after punk rock swung through Britain — a whole generation that was kind of interested in making music that was more polished.” 

These punk kids also messed around with new musical innovations, like synthesizers and drum machines, which became major players in the new wave sound. Reggae and West African music were major influences on several new wave bands, like The Police and Talking Heads. This influence may have arisen from the influx of Caribbean migrants who arrived in London after World War II, bringing their musical styles with them. 

Speaking of style, new wave bands demonstrated a unique fashion sense for the time, which set them apart from everyone else and became the flamboyant spirit became a core piece of new wave’s identity. From Boy George’s makeup to Lennox’s flaming orange buzzcut, everyone was dressed to impress.

First, they invaded the television screens. When cable network MTV debuted on Aug. 1, 1981, it provided a massive boon for new wave artists. MTV showed tons of videos from new wave artists because there were more videos to choose from. The first ever music video on MTV was the aptly named “Video Killed the Radio Star,” a new wave hit from The Buggles. Beforehand, Robin Scott’s 1979 single “Pop Muzik,” released under the alias “M,” gave American listeners a taste of the future with its robotic synthesizers and eclectic music video featuring the most baked back-up singer captured on screen.

After that, the floodgates opened. “Don’t You Want Me” by synth-pop band The Human League topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1981 thanks to a considerable boost from MTV. “I Ran (So Far Away)” by new wave rockers A Flock of Seagulls was the first chart hit that owed almost everything to video play. Duran Duran was one of the first big stars of MTV, as their innovative music videos and glossy style embodied this nascent era.

Lee Abrams, a radio consultant for 70 album-oriented rock stations, started suggesting that his clients start spinning records from across the pond. He said, “All my favorite bands are English… it’s a more artistic place. Experimentation thrives there. Everything over here is more like McDonald’s.” 

With the rise of MTV and its expansion into major television markets, radio stations succumbed and began to play music by the people on MTV.  

The next few years arguably represent the peak of the new wave movement in the states. On July 16, 1983, 20 of the top 40 singles were from British artists. Bands like Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet created teen fan hysterias like “Beatlemania” back in the 1960’s. For a five-month period in 1985, nine of the 11 No. 1 singles came from British bands. 

One of these singles was Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing,” which spawned a groundbreaking music video that used early computer-animated characters that provided a meta-commentary on music video culture and included a sound bite of Sting singing “I want my MTV!” as reminder of how ubiquitous MTV became during the 80s, with the new wave firmly seated on that bandwagon. 

After the halfway point of the decade, the Americans started to catch up. American artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna did the synth-pop sound bigger, better and brighter. Throughout the 80s, each artist released blockbuster albums mining the synth-pop sound, each influenced with their own backgrounds.  

Furthermore, there was strong backlash that revolted against new wave artists in the mid to late 80s, as critics thought the synths and music videos hid the lack of talent in these bands. They also criticized the bands for prioritizing chart success instead of creating good art. Alongside a rising sentiment of distaste, their hitmaking abilities faltered later in the decade, and not even a flashy music video could hide the excess these artists started to inhabit. Duran Duran and A Flock of Seagulls lost band members to a myriad of problems, while The Human League’s 1986 follow up, “Crashed” … crashed. 

New genres also started to take hold of the public’s consciousness. In the UK, indie bands like The Smiths and The Cure adopted the jangly guitar work of the new wave artists, creating a more raw, less processed sound. In the US, there was the rise of glam metal to contend with as they took a page out of the new wave playbook and created wild, expressive music videos that ruled the airwaves of MTV. 

Of course, that’s not the end of the story. You could argue new wave warmed up the general listening audience up to the bright dance pop that Swedes Denniz Pop and protégé Max Martin introduced in the 90’s. The use of drum machines and synthesizers may have encouraged more people to get into music production, as people realized you don’t need to set up a band to create music, inspiring more and more people to get into music production (once the costs decreased, of course).