The Learn Tracker
...life-long learning: structured, organized, searchable...
920
Lectures Watched
Since January 1, 2014
Hundreds of free, self-paced university courses available:
my recommendations here
Peruse my collection of 275
influential people of the past.
View My Class Notes via:
Receive My Class Notes via E-Mail:

VIEW ARCHIVE

Contact Me via E-Mail:
edward [at] tanguay.info
Notes on video lecture:
American New Wave 1977-80
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on February 5, 2016 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
punk, record, Sharona, Byrds, art, Schneider, markers, Fieger, psychedelic, future, hippy, simplicity, profits, liked, Capitol, traditionalist, ironic, matching, sixties, quotation, 1970s, Lennon, Psycho, naive, Ocasek, River, irony, icon, past, least, Mothersbaugh, connected, Foreigner, CBGB, Monroe, Torpedos, scandals, urban, memorable, Weymouth, American, exposure, Hammond
•
New Wave
•
arises at the end of the           
•
embraces the          attitude but takes the danger out of it for record companies turning it into a kind of a lifestyle choice and aesthetic attitude as opposed to any form of cultural rebellion or revolt
•
when you think about the Sex Pistols and the ways in which they would create                  and get themselves arrested and banned
•
fun stories to tell
•
but if you run a              company, you don't want to have an artist like that
•
people like that usually can't sell enough records to make it worth the trouble being professionally                    to trouble they make
•
record companies were not so much interested in punk
•
but they could see that the music might be the next big thing
•
for people getting tired of            rock from the first half of the 1970s
•
the wanted to domesticate punk a bit
•
try not to take away its attitude but don't let the musicians get into trouble and embarrass the record company
•
didn't want to lose their                in court defending things the musicians had done
•
New Wave was the solution
•
New Wave
•
became a way of pushing back on hippy rock music in a way that would compete with hippy rock music record sales and for                  on the radio
•
the hippy types knew this and at first, New Wave and Punk were not well thought of at all
•
           alienation
•
American New Wave Groups
•
Blondie
•
out of         
•
1978 Parallel Lines
•
Heart of Glass
•
Debbie Harry
•
the group            likely to succeed
•
success once they turned away from punk scene
•
Talking Heads
•
out of CBGB
•
David Byrne
•
Tina                  as bassist
•
women making a return to performing as more than the lead singer
•
older
•
students at the Rhode Island School of Design
•
understood       , aesthetics, irony
•
1977 Talking Heads 77
•
             Killer
•
rhythmic patterns
•
1978 More Songs about Buildings and Food
•
Take Me to the           
•
got them on the radio and into the awareness of the American music listener
•
American New Wave
•
irony
•
using ideas from the         
•
using ideas of                     
•
music from 1950s, 1960s
•
           lyrics
•
they are using all of this in                    marks
•
Debbie Harry looking like Marilyn             
•
not an accident
•
not because she liked how Marilyn Monroe looked and wanted to look like her
•
because Marilyn Monroe had already become a popular         
•
Debbie Harry didn't look like her per se but was putting her in quotation marks
•
Talking Heads
•
scaling their sound down to approach a                sound
•
but a sixties sound in quotation marks
•
The Cars
•
Ric             
•
1978 The Cars
•
My Best Friend's Girl
•
Just What I Needed
•
the first New Wave album a rock listener would have bought if they were just testing the water
•
a cross between New Wave and                    or Boston
•
Tom Petty
•
initially we thought he was             
•
but he was never ironically quoting the            and Roger McGuinn
•
he just really liked it
•
in the 1980s, he became a new                             
•
New Wave
•
looking back at music before Sgt. Pepper
•
Cars using the cheap                or Vox Continental organ sounds
•
drawing stylistic                from earlier music
•
we thought Tom Petty was doing this
•
he actually just            that music
•
sounded like the Byrds
•
1977: "                 Girl"
•
Roger McGuinn heard it and wondered when he had recorded it
•
1979 Album: Damn the                 
•
Don't do Me Like That
•
Refugee
•
Devo
•
Bob and Mark                         
•
1978: Are We Not Men? We are Devo!
•
produced by Brian Eno
•
U2
•
I Can't Get No Satisfaction
•
come out in                  outfits
•
Bob1 and Bob2
•
full of           
•
art school students
•
what we thought the              would be like in the 50s but we know it is not going to be like that so we can use this in quotations
•
B-52s
•
Fred                   
•
two female backup singers
•
1979: B-52s
•
"Rock Lobster"
•
it's hard to listen to Rock Lobster and not hear the irony in it, between the kind of pre-                       cheesy organ and the surf guitar licks
•
together with a kind of herky jerky like voice not unlike the Talking Heads
•
not so much a synthesis but a collage of pre-hippy musical references all being used in a very ironic way
•
more as a way of protesting hippy music than endorsing pre-hippy music
•
the song "incredibly infectious" and "                  "
•
The Knack
•
out of Los Angeles
•
Doug             
•
1979 Get The Knack
•
records it with                Records (same as Beatles with Meet the Beatles)
•
wants the old logo that looks like the Beatles logo
•
pictures on album as if they are on the Ed Sullivan show
•
matching suits
•
narrow ties
•
Fieger looking an awful lot like John             
•
this copying of the Beatles worked
•
#1 album in 1979
•
"My               "

Spelling Corrections:

psychodelic ⇒ psychedelic

Ideas and Concepts:

Musical genres without teeth, via tonight's History of Rock and Roll class: "New Wave arose in America at the end of the 1970s as a kind of response and emulation of punk music coming out of the UK. But while New Wave embraced the punk attitude, it took the danger out of it so that record companies could market them, turning the genre into a kind of a lifestyle choice and aesthetic attitude as opposed to any form of cultural rebellion or revolt. By the end of the 1980s, New Wave was widely applied to nearly every new pop or pop rock artist that predominantly used synthesizers."
From the best-of-new-wave department via tonight's History of Rock and Roll class:

"It's hard to listen to the 1979 B-52s Rock Lobster and not hear the energetic irony in it, between the kind of pre-psychodelic cheesy organ and the surf guitar licks, together with a kind of herky jerky voice not unlike the Talking Heads but with more guts leaning further out the window toward punk.

Rock Lobster is not so much a synthesis but a collage of pre-hippy musical references all being used in a very ironic almost satirical absurdity and energy.

Its lyrics include nonsensical lines about a beach party and excited rants about real or imagined marine animals ("There goes a dog-fish, chased by a cat-fish, in flew a sea robin, watch out for that piranha, there goes a narwhal, here comes a bikini whale!"), accompanied by absurd, fictional noises attributed to them provided by Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, Pierson providing the higher-pitched noises and Wilson the lower-pitched tones, the chorus consists of the words Rock Lobster repeated over and over on top of a keyboard line.

Coming at the end of the 70s, Rock Lobster is performed more as a way of protesting hippy music and introducing something completely new, rather than endorsing any kind of pre-hippy music other than to put it in quotation marks.

The song has best been described as "incredibly infectious" and "memorable"."
1970s: Hippie Aesthetic, Corporate Rock, Disco, and Punk
British Blues-Based Bands and the Roots of Heavy Metal
American Blues Rock and Southern Rock
The Era of Progressive Rock
Jazz Rock in the 70s
Theatrical Rock: KISS, Bowie, and Alice Cooper
American Singer-Songwriters of the 70s
British and Canadian Singer-Songwriters
Country Rock's Influence on 1970s Music
Black Pop in the 1970s
Sly Stone and His Influence on Black Pop, Funk, and Psychedelic Soul
Motown in the 1970s
Philadelphia Sound and Soul Train
Blaxploitation Soundtracks
The Uniqueness of James Brown
Bob Marley and the Rise of Reggae
The Backlash Against Disco
1975-1980: The Rise of the Mega-Αlbum
Continuity Bands in the 1970s
Rock and Roll in the Second Half of the 1970s
U.S. Punk 1967-1975
1974-77: Punk in the UK
American New Wave 1977-80
British New Wave 1977-80
The Hippie Aesthetic: 1966-1980
The Rise of MTV
Michael Jackson: MTV's Unexpected Boon
Madonna as Disruptive Shock Artist
Prince and Janet Jackson
Other Groups Who Benefited from MTV
1980s New Traditionalists and New Wave
1980s New Acts, Old Styles and Blue-Eyed Soul
1970s Progressive Rock Adapts to the 80s
1980's Heavy Metal
1980s Heavy Metal and L.A. Hair Bands
1980s Ambitious Heavy Metal
The Beginning of Rap
1980s: Rap Crosses Over to Mainstream
Late 1980s Hard Core Rap
Punk Goes Hardcore
Late 80s Indie Rock Underground
1990s: The Rise of Alternative Rock
1990s Indie Rock and the Question of Selling Out
1990s Metal and Alternative Extensions
Hip-Hop in the 1990s
Classic Rock of the 1990s
1990s Jam Bands and Britpop
Female Singer-Songwriters of the 1990s
The Rise of Teen Idols in the 1990s
1990s Dance Music