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the rise of New Wave at the end of the 1970s

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a signal event in the sense that it helped define the end of the decade that was pushing back and rejecting the hippy aesthetic, which unified Rock music from the mid-60s to the end of the 1970s

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New Wave into the 1980s had three main groups

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1. those who turned to the past in an ironic or detached way

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not that you want to return to the past but that you are using the past because you know that your audience understands what that is so it is in quotation marks distanced from your values and intentions

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2. those who were not using the past ironically at all and just blended in to 80s music

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by the time you get to the early 80s, New Wave blended into main stream Rock and was no longer rebellious

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you could hear the Cars, Foreigners, The Talking Heads, and Boston all pretty much together on classic Rock radio

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there might have been a difference in emphasis but not a difference in kind when it came to style

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3. those who really wanted to go back to and celebrate the past authentically, "New Traditionalists"

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a return to the past and a return to the roots of the tradition

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Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers

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wanted his group to sound like an updated version of the Byrds

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he wasn't doing this ironically, he just thought this was they way good music should sound

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influenced by Dylan

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a lot of jingly, jangly guitars

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pop hooks, three-to-four minute songs

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he really believes in the tradition of mid-60s American rock and roll

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1985 Southern Accents

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"Don't Come Around Here No More"

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1989 Full Moon Fever

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"Free Fallin

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had videos to go along with them

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e.g. Tom Petty is the Mad Hatter who is cutting Alice who is the cake, surrealistic

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but they did not even know MTV very well even though their video was playing on it

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New Traditionalists that embraced Americana

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idealistic idea of what America is in a kind of fly-over country

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that basic, kind of, good-sense, wheat-fed America, a romanticized notion of a country that probably doesn't exist, but it's an idea that people have

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a bit like the New York that is portrayed in Woody Allen film, if you were to go to New York expecting to find what you had seen in those films, you are bound to be a little bit disappointed

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Bruce Springsteen

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a singer/song-writer at the end of the 70s

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but as he went on, he really got into a rootsy, New Traditionalist, a return to simplicity, a return to the past

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a romantic view of the 1960s, growing up in New Jersey and this kind of thing

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the image of a working class guy who talks good sense

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1975: Born to Run

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1980: The River

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Hungry Heart

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1984: Born in the USA

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Glory Days

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both of these tunes became radio staples

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much video on MTV to support him

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John Cougar Mellencamp

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projects the image of a small-town mid-Westerner

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1979: I need a Lover

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1982: American Fool

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Hurts So Good

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Jack and Diane

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it may be easier to think of him as a singer/song-writer fronting a band

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a traditionalist embracing older values

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returning to good, simple, direct music

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New Traditionalists from England

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Dire Straits

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Mark Knopfler

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voice from a Bob Dylan tradition

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playing a Stratocaster guitar, a very clean sound

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very different than the cranked-up, distorted Marshall stacks that other bands were using

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1978: Sultans of Swing

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defined Dire Straits as a group that was going back to the roots and bypassing a lot of heavier Rock of the day

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1985: Brothers in Arms

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Money for Nothing

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plenty of distorted guitar

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an embrace of American roots music

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a criticism of music merchandising

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but went into heavy rotation on MTV

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New Wave and how it merged into mainstream rock in the 1980s

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The Police

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sophisticated musical arrangements that use poetical and intellectual lyrics

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1983 Synchronicity

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Carl Jung

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Every Breath You Take

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King of Pain

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U2

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rose as the popularity of the Police was beginning to die down

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the move from the Police to U2 were stage 1 and stage 2 of similar approaches, even though they are very distinctive bands

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simple songs in very innovative ways

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Bono

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a pursuer of social causes

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a voice of conscience

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trying to use his fame to affect positive change

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The Edge

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David Howell Evans, born 8 August 1961, a British-born Irish musician and songwriter best known as the lead guitarist, keyboardist and backing vocalist

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1987 The Joshua Tree

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producers

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Brian Eno

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Daniel Lanois

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"With or Without You"

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In the Name of Love