Quotes & Sayings About New Wave Music

I was part of punk's second generation, so, not the first wave of '70s punk, but the American hardcore scene. I had a really strong love for music prior to that, but punk created a new template. — Bucky Pope

I guess, for me, what started me getting real excited about music was the New York punk and new-wave scene. All those bands looked back to the Velvet Underground and the Stooges and the Modern Lovers as well. But that was back when Television were punk, and the Talking Heads were punk. — Dean Wareham

Absolute 80's is three hours of mainstream 80's music. I also do New Wave Nation that is more cutting edge. It is more punk stuff from the 70's to the 90's. — Nina Blackwood

Michael [Hutchence] is hands down one of the greatest frontmen in music. The style, the voice - all of it. Any way that I was ever influenced by him really comes down to small, pale imitations compared to the real thing. There is a fearlessness about him. Watching him at Wembley Stadium with 70,000 people, he looks as comfortable as if he were in his own living room. — Lori Majewski

New wave disco was coming to the fore then, and we were at a different point entirely. I like to listen to dance music, but I don't think I'm primarily a dance music writer. — Stan Ridgway

There were a lot of things I listened to, but so-called pop music never killed me, you know, the type of stuff that always seems to make it on the radio. The whole radio thing seems so ... it's like they've accepted the whole "new wave" thing only because this kind of pop element came into it. In Europe they really love emotion, but here it's like, "let's stay away from it because we might cry or something". — Tom Verlaine

When punk and new wave styles exploded in the late '70s, some established artists were nimble enough to respond to the changes around them. Some grumbled, "What am I supposed to do, forget how to play?", and continued to ride their dinosaurs into extinction, but others willingly adapted to the streamlining and back-to-basics urges of the times, without giving up all they had learned. Former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel, for example, or former Yes keyboardist Trevor Horn, continued to produce vital, influential music through the '80s and '90s. Ian Anderson has continued to lead Jethro Tull out of the '60s and '70s and quietly through the decades, making high quality music and finding a large enough audience to continue recording and touring worldwide. — Neil Peart

I mean I like pop music, and I like heavy music and, stuff that I like ... the band I've signed on to our label right now; they're called The Sounds. They're kind of like a new-wave pop band. — James Iha

In the music business, especially the country music business, every 10 years or so you're going to have this changing of the guard, this wave of new artists that comes in. — Jason Aldean

I think I heard it [ Ferris Bueller's Day Off ] earlier. This was being played on a station in San Francisco called Live 105, which was a new wave station. It was one of the first stations to change its format in the early '80s. There was this wave of really strange music coming from Europe like Kraftwork and Freur. — Margaret Cho

I think there will always be great new music and bands. As long as there's people around, there's going to be great music. I think there's bands like Wolf Eyes, Q & Not U, the Evens and many others that are doing great stuff. The music that doesn't please you, you just don't listen. No one makes me listen to Nickelback, so long may they wave. — Henry Rollins

Had Kurt Cobain not committed suicide in 1994, would his genius have survived the continuous incisions of a media that was only too proud of its ability to chisel away at his fragile psyche in the years before he decided that he'd had enough off their invasions? And, had Jimi Hendrix not passed way in 1970, would he, too have eventually fallen into decline, first equalled, then eclipsed by the brilliant wave of new guitarists: Robin Trower, Ritchie Blackmore, Mick Ronson, who emerged during the early 1970s? In death, Hendrix led by example: in life he could have been left for the dead. — Dave Thompson

I think there's just so much awesome music coming out of New Zealand, I've always loved The Naked And Famous, I absolutely love Ghost Wave ... it just seems like there's a really cool scene happening out there, I'd love to go and spend some time there and see what other bands are popping up. — Lizzy Plapinger

I really want to do a book on the history of the no-wave music scene in New York, how it extended out and formed lots of other things. It was such a great visual culture. — Thurston Moore

When I started out as a music journalist, at the end of the 1980s, it was generally assumed that we were living through the lamest music era the world would ever see. But those were also the years when hip-hop exploded, beatbox disco soared, indie rock took off, and new wave invented a language of teen angst. — Rob Sheffield