Tag: new wave

The Jam | English Rose

“In May 1977, a three-piece rock group from Woking appeared on Top of the Pops. You can see what happened on YouTube: the presenter announcing an ‘effervescent new 45 called In The City, and the 140 seconds of wonderment that followed,” recalls The Jam’s website. “The song fizzed with the energy and sense of purpose that was firing what had been called punk and was now mutating into New Wave, but it had a lot more: a melodic charge – as in the glorious opening riff – that betrayed its makers’ love of classic British pop, and the clear sense that the band’s main creative force was already thinking like an accomplished songwriter. Between 1977 and 1982, the band released an incredible array of music. In the UK, there were five albums and 17 singles, a stack of number 1s, and a journey which encompassed no end of influences, styles, and textures.”

The punk/New Wave/mod revivalist band was best known for hard-edged, uptempo rave-ups like the debut album title track, but also for more reserved, carefully constructed New Wave songsmithing like 1981’s “That’s Entertainment” (listed by BBC 2 radio as the 43rd best song ever released by any artist) and the UK #1 hit “A Town Called Malice.” But its spare acoustic ballad, “English Rose” (1978) shows a different side of the band, with the extra weight of invoking England’s national flower and one of the nation’s most venerated symbols. The tune was written by band member Paul Weller, who later continued his success with the soul-inflected band The Style Council, founded just as The Jam lost steam in 1982.

The track modulates up a half-step at 1:39, propelled by many unexpected inversions along the way. Many thanks to MotD regular Rob Penttinen for identifying this mod in the wild!

The Specials | Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)

“The Specials were the fulcrum of the ska revival of the late ’70s, kick-starting the 2-Tone movement that spurred a ska-punk revolution lasting for decades,” AllMusic reports. “As influential as they were within the realm of ska, the group and its impact can’t be reduced to that genre alone. The Specials were one of the defining British bands of new wave, expanding the musical and political parameters of rock & roll … (the) 2-Tone label (was) named for its multiracial agenda and after the two-tone tonic suits favored by the like-minded mods of the ’60s.” Originally performed by Guy Lombardo, the big band leader made famous by his multi-year televised New Year’s Eve gig, the tune was later covered by Jamaican singer Prince Buster before it reached The Specials’ repertoire in 1980.

This party tune isn’t entirely representative of the band’s full repertoire, which also includes a marked focus on social justice. The Guardian describes the 21st century version of The Specials at a reunion tour show in 2019: “Their ranks diminished by death and fallings out, the trio are part nostalgia act, part wrathful fighters for fairness, who walk on to a stage decorated with signs reading ‘Vote’, ‘Resist’, ‘Think’ and, incongruously, ‘Listen to Sly and the Family Stone’ … this highly influential group have found their feet again in an era that encourages activism and increasingly reviles apathy … The Specials’ 40-year campaign against injustice resounds down the generations.”

A whole-step modulation appears at 2:22. Many thanks to regular contributor Rob Penttinen for this tune!

XTC | Senses Working Overtime

AllMusic describes the cult status of UK band XTC: “(Its) lack of commercial success isn’t because their music isn’t accessible — their bright, occasionally melancholy melodies flow with more grace than most bands. It has more to do with the group constantly being out of step with the times. However, the band has left behind a remarkably rich and varied series of albums that make a convincing argument that XTC is the great lost pop band. ‘Senses Working Overtime’ (1981) showed … a bemusing, distinctive take on catchy guitar music. There’s enough hints of ringing sixties guitar and clever wordplay to keep Beatles obsessives happy, say, but this is definitely the sound of a band on its own path.”

The fact that XTC’s style has been categorized with terms as varied as pop, art rock, new wave, rock, post-punk, art-punk, and progressive pop suggests that promoting their music was anything but straightforward. Lead singer Andy Partridge also suffered from severe stage fright, leading the band to experience difficulties with touring. According to Record Collector, both the album (English Settlement) and the single were the band’s highest-charting UK successes, peaking at #5 and #10, respectively.

After a reserved intro and verse in G# minor, clanging guitars announce the pre-chorus at 0:36 — a resounding all-major progression centered around plenty of compound chords. At 0:48, an E major chorus arrives, later proclaiming that the churchbells softly chime … hardly! Next up is a multi-section, multi-key bridge, which starts boisterously in A major at 2:35, charged with yet more compound chords and a schoolyard taunt of a vocal hook at 3:23. By 3:38, we’ve somehow been hoisted into F major — but making use of its rapidly expanding songcraft, XTC skillfully hides the tune’s seams.

The Fixx | Walkabout

“A London-based new wave group that managed to sustain a successful career in America for several years in the mid-’80s,” reports AllMusic, “the Fixx always flirted with the mainstream with their catchy, keyboard-driven pop.” After several albums and growing success in the US, “The terse, pulsating ‘One Thing Leads to Another’ became a #4 hit.” The band, which had less success in its native UK, “kept their basic, synth-driven sound intact for 1986’s Walkabout, which featured the hit ‘Secret Separation.'”

Starting in E major, the groove-driven title track shifts to G major at 1:12, Bb at 1:44, and finally Db at 3:04. Throughout, the melody features a very un-poppy factor: a very prominent tension 11 in the melody (heard for the first time at 0:16 on the final syllable of “investi-gate“), seemingly leading the way in providing the tense atmosphere so common to the band’s output.

Dan K. Brown deserves a special mention for his imaginative fretless bass lines, which hop and skitter through the track, providing as at least as much drive to the tune as its prominent percussion or Cy Curnin’s distinctive vocals.

Swing Out Sister | Break Out

“… Swing Out Sister‘s music is unashamedly commercial pop,” AllMusic notes. The UK group’s “jazz-tinged arrangements and knack for clever hooks move them closer to the indie dance territory of St. Etienne or late period Everything But the Girl than to the cookie-cutter dance-pop of Kylie Minogue or Paula Abdul.” “Breakout” was the stand-out single from the band’s 1987 debut album, It’s Better to Travel, which AllMusic calls “a dreamy collection of mostly electronic pop songs that manages to sound warmly organic through the judicious use of real strings and horns and Corinne Drewery’s lovely voice, which recalls the throaty purr of vintage Dusty Springfield … ‘Breakout’ (was) one of the finest U.K. pop singles of the late ’80s.”

This unapologetically bouncy pop tune somehow seemed to know upfront that it would become an international smash hit, scoring top 5 chart positions in the UK, US, Canada, and New Zealand as well as prominent chart performance throughout Europe. The track swung for the fences and succeeded in nearly single-handedly establishing the band as late-80s sophistipop royalty. A whole-step modulation at 3:02 is announced by the boisterous horn section.

Many thanks to not one but two of our regular contributors, Chris L. and JB, who suggested this tune completely independently of one another!

The Cars | Got a Lot On My Head

Pitchfork describes the eponymous debut album by The Cars: “It’s a tale as old as time. A band arrives on the scene with an album so fully formed, it seems impossible that they could improve upon it, let alone escape its gravitational pull. The Cars would seem to define this trope. The 1978 debut contains so many classic rock staples, a modern listener could mistake it for a greatest hits collection. But the band is the exception that proves the rule: They managed to move forward from The Cars with a pair of albums that both refined and expanded their tightly wound new wave.”

1979’s Candy-O was an album of equal ambition. AllMusic reports that “the group were a little unhappy with how slick their debut sounded, so they asked (producer) Roy Thomas Baker to dial back the stacked vocals and make sure there was a little dirt in the machine … Candy-O is the rare follow-up to a classic debut that almost reaches the same rarified air … it may be one of the best second albums ever made, full of great songs, inspired performances, and sporting a still-perfect sound …”

Serving as something of a fulcrum for the American branch of New Wave, The Cars were known for “classic-rock riffs and melodies, synthy new-wave cool, wry, often deadpan vocals … a sound unlike any other in 1978,” according to Guitar World. But perhaps the most consistently memorable ingredient which the Boston-based quintet brought to the table was its massive hooks, which were frequently performed by keyboardist Greg Hawkes. In the case of Candy-O’s “Got a Lot on My Head,” lead guitarist Elliot Easton serves up the hook, bursting brashly out of the gates at the very top of the tune over a four-measure A major –> C major loop. The chorus (0:13) oddly appears before the verse, featuring a ii-bVII-I progression in C; 0:31 brings a verse in A major.

Squeeze | Last Time Forever

A long-overdue MotD debut today for the utterly unique UK band Squeeze. “As one of the most traditional pop bands of the new wave,” AllMusic details, “Squeeze provided one of the links between classic British guitar pop and post-punk. Inspired heavily by the Beatles and the Kinks, Squeeze were the vehicle for the songwriting of Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, who were hailed as the heirs to Lennon and McCartney‘s throne during their heyday in the early ’80s … Squeeze never came close to matching the popularity of the Beatles, but the reason for that is part of their charm. Difford and Tilbrook were wry, subtle songwriters who subscribed to traditional pop songwriting values, but subverted them with literate lyrics and clever musical references.”

“Last Time Forever” (1985) has an unsettled harmonic setting which fits the film noir mood of the lyrics: although it sounds like an account of a garden variety breakup at first, the eerie midsection takes us somewhere else entirely:

I’ve said goodnight tonight
The last time forever
It all went wrong when I grew jealous
I didn’t realize my strength
Could take the life of one so precious
Together we were known as good friends

Although each verse starts in C major, the harmonic dominoes soon start falling (for the first time at 0:33).

Kajagoogoo | Too Shy

Another tune from our frequent contributor JB: Kajagoogoo’s 1983 hit “Too Shy” is “both harmonically interesting and a completely formulaic relic of the epoch in which it was made: a lush, synth-dominated arrangement, big hair, vaseline-on-the-lens music video, etc.”

According to AllMusic, the track reached #1 in the UK and #5 in the US. But between lead singer Limahl’s departure for a solo career and the UK group’s “similarities with Duran Duran and Naked Eyes — they were pretty and played immediately accessible, polished pop,” the band wasn’t destined for a sustained string of hits. “Kajagoogoo was essentially a synth pop variation of a bubblegum group.”

With the overall key flattened from A 440 by more than just a few cents, the tune has an extended intro built around ambiguous suspended chords, settles into Bb minor for the first verse at 0:47, and shifts to Eb minor at the chorus (1:13). At 2:18, the suspended chords from the intro return for a wordless bridge — but this time are clarified by a more complex Bb major bassline. At 2:53, we return to the chorus for the duration.

Thomas Dolby | The Flat Earth

After releasing his debut album Golden Age of Wireless, which featured his iconic hit “She Blinded Me With Science,” UK songwriter / keyboardist / synthesist / vocalist Thomas Dolby‘s work took a turn towards the atmospheric. Much of his second album, The Flat Earth, had a gentler, more organic sound. A huge contributing factor to the sound of both albums was bassist Matthew Seligman, whose imaginative, wide-ranging style is front and center in the mix throughout. Much of Seligman’s work on The Flat Earth was on fretless bass, further burnishing the sound.

Seligman also worked with David Bowie and The Thompson Twins; did session work for Morrissey, Tori Amos, the Waterboys, and more; and co-founded The Soft Boys. He passed away last week from complications of COVID-19 at the age of 64.

AllMusic reports that Seligman’s bass on The Flat Earth “is a welcome addition — throughout the album his work is lavish, growling, popping through octaves, funk-a-fied and twinkling with harmonics. The title track is a wondrous R&B daydream of piano and Motown stabs of rhythm guitar…”

Although the tune is largely in Db major, there’s a short bridge in D major (3:33 – 4:02), striated by layers of nearly wordless vocals, before a transition back to the original key.

Madness | The Sun and the Rain

The Guardian suggests that Madness “are still perhaps England’s greatest post-Beatles singles group. ‘The Sun and the Rain’ was a tribute to precipitation, and what could be more English than that? Accompanied by an urgent, string-laden stomp,” the lyric speaks of “standing up in the falling down.” The track was released in 1983 as a stand-alone single, reaching 10 weeks on the UK Singles chart (peaking at #5). It later appeared on the group’s subsequent album, but only after its strong showing as a single.

Setting the tone, there’s a quick key change from the intro into the first verse at 0:34. Taking a back seat to the band’s unique piano-driven post-ska sound and goofy, irreverent style, the main modulation drops with minimal fanfare between two choruses at 2:49. Many thanks to MotD regular Rob Penttinen for this submission!