Was New Wave anti-Disco?

[troyjeffries]

Did New Wave flourished as an anti-Disco thing? If so, to be honest, I like both Disco and New Wave. Am I alone?

I have a second question - what style was the early Madonna (1982-1985)? Dance, pop or what? And how did you feel about Disco backlash? Did you go on listening to Madonna, etc. pop/dance stuff. When it comes to my taste, I like 70's Disco, 80's new wave and 80's pop and dance - I love them all.

To me, the 80s Madonna and especially the early one (1982-1985) was better than what she became later. She was more underground, not so mainstream. In 1986-1989 she was still cool to my taste, but I don't like her 90's and 00's stuff (except American Life from 2003).

[drlove]

I, too, love both disco (say 1974-1980) and new wave, much of which encompassed the British synth pop I dig (say, 1982-88). Personally, I don't view new wave as anti-anything.

A sub-genre of British music just took a new wave direction around 1979 or so, and by 1983 (thanks to the rise of MTV), it was pretty darn dominant of a genre, as the US was enjoying its 2nd full-fledged British invasion. True fact: there were more British acts in the US top 40 in 1983 than in the original 1964 post-Beatles time.

And, re: Madonna ....I agree that she lost some of her previous edgyness once she became a pop -- and media -- phenomenon (in the weeks/months following "Like A Virgin" ascending to #1 in December 1984). She's still one hell of an artist, 28 years after her first release.

[SandraDee]

I have a second question - what style was the early Madonna (1982-1985)? Dance, pop or what?

Holiday was so clever as it was very catchy/poppy but at the same time had that early/mid 80s NYC funky 'boogie' sound - it seemed to appeal to many different people at the same time.

[Returnoid]

You are not alone in your appreciation for both genres.

I agree – new wave wasn’t anti anything. It was just a continuation of punk using 80s technology.

If you look closely at what was actually going on in the post 79 period you’ll see that both disco and new wave and other genres such as punk and hip hop were constantly interacting and drawing influence on each other. People from all scenes mixed freely with each other.

To your other question - Madonna's early music was "freestyle", a genre pioneered by her producer Jelly Bean Benitez.

Read about it here: http://www.freestylemusic.com/Interviews/jellybean.htm

[InvisibleMan]

I always thought some Duran Duran was rather disco-influenced, for example Planet Earth from 1981, or even Hungly like the Wolf

wasn't Nile Rodgers producer of early Madonna albums?

[Disco Funk]

I'm confused about the definition of New Wave. I always thought it was that synth pop stuff from the late 70s to early 80s with the above mentioned groups, but then I remember getting a compilation from Rhino and they defined it as the raw dancefloor funk characterized by artists like Pigbag, Liquid Liquid, ESG, etc... And I've also heard that synth pop stuff referred to as the Romantic or New Romantic style.

Either way, I think all genres of dance music, even Van Halen's Jump, drew a little bit here and a little bit there from disco. If not the use of strings, then the drum beat and maybe a bass line here or there.

Disco Funk

[markydefad]

It felt to me like music was just evolving from one genre to another and I continued to dance and enjoy--until it got BORING somewhere in the Nineties. I continued to buy dance remixes until the remixes sounded NOTHING like the original song and then I just stopped and I have no idea what they dance to now. But it was good for me from the Sixties until approximately 2000. In the early Nineties the remixes started getting cookie-cutter, the music less and less enjoyable----but I still found stuff to buy. The remixes of Anastacia's "I'm Outta Love" [circa 2000] pissed me off so much that I vowed to stop buying dance remixes. When the only good mix is the original radio mix--why bother?

[troyjeffries]

@markydefad, I totally agree with you that 90's dance music was boring. I was born in the late 80's so you can imagine how pity is for me that I never had the chance to experience the 70's and the 80's - the best decades for music IMO. Although I'm technically a 90's child, I never related to 90's music. In the 90's I listened to 80's music and in the 00's I discovered many 70's songs. For me the 90's is the most boring decade for music from the second half of the 20th century. Even music circa 2002-2004/5 was better than the 90's. It depends on the country - in Europe dance was quite popular in 2002-2005. What I don't like about most modern music (2006+) that some 90's influences are appearing. IMO disco backlash was mostly a US thing, that's why 80's dance music was renamed to 'dance', but it still was disco. In most European countries BOTH the 70's and the 80's dance music is thought of as disco. In most European countries Hi-NRG and pop/Hi-NRG crossover music is also called simply disco, thus uniting acts such as Kylie Minogue and Bananarama with the likes of Baccara, Amy Stewart etc. All of these are 'disco' here. Here the term is used more broadly than in the USA - all dancey music from the 70's and the 80's is called 'disco' among the general public, while 90's-present dance styles are called simply 'dance'. It appears to me that New Wave and synth pop and 80's dance got big because people were starting to get fed up with the typical 70's disco sound (horns, violins, etc.), they needed something new, something more modern for the changing times. p.s. I'm sorry for the long post.

[discokicks]

I wasn't a new wave fan at the start of its popularity in the late '70s. Because I hadn't yet started going to the clubs, that abrupt end to everything disco that happened towards the end of summer '79 was a bit devastating to me (life would prove that this would not be the only disappointment to come along).

Suddenly, the "trend" of disco was transformed to the "trend" of new wave...but my love was for the music itself not the trend. Thinking about it now, this really was the instigator that opened my naive, young eyes to the world of marketing music and using music as a means to become rich rather than something as expression and to be enjoyed. My great love for pop/radio music slowly dwindled as I gradually realized that all of this music on the airwaves that I'd been hearing throughout my childhood was calculably chosen not because of its musical quality but because of its hopeful appeal to the consumerist masses. My reality of life, politics and greed had begun.

Gradually I warmed up to the British new wave sound by '82...Thompson Twins, Human League, ABC, Modern Romance, Haircut 100....partially because it was all that was seemingly out there until I finally stepped foot inside the bars...most notably the gay bars. I remember distinctly hearing the Boystown Gang's Can't Take My Eyes Off You and it hit me like a wall that all of this music that I so adored didn't die. It had simply gone back to its roots in the nightclubs.

[discokicks]

@markydefad, I totally agree with you that 90's dance music was boring. I was born in the late 80's so you can imagine how pity is for me that I never had the chance to experience the 70's and the 80's - the best decades for music IMO. Although I'm technically a 90's child, I never related to 90's music.

I enjoyed '90s dance music for the most part. I feel it started out rather bleak as house and rave music had taken over. It took me awhile to warm up to house's minimalist/sombre sound and rave was just horribly irritating but when house started to broaden its tone to more of a feel-good/ love-of-life sound (ie. Shawn Christopher's Don't Lose The Magic and Alison Limericks' Where Love Lives), that's when I started to embrace this new disco music although my favourite period was at the end of the '90s with a lot of great dance music from Europe. This was also when circuit trance came on the scene which brought back the beauty to dance music that had been sorely missing from the late '80s into the next decade (ie. Solar Stone's epic Seven Cities and Sundance's Sundance).

[InvisibleMan]

You are not alone in your appreciation for both genres.

To your other question - Madonna's early music was "freestyle", a genre pioneered by her producer Jelly Bean Benitez.

Read about it here: http://www.freestylemusic.com/Interviews/jellybean.htm[/FONT]

somehow I don't consider Madonna as freestyle. To me it's just pop, with typical 80's funk elements.

Freestyle to me is artists like Shannon, Expose, Stevie B, George Lamond etc....I generally like these more than Madonna, they tend to have more passion and more electro disco vibe to them.

[SandraDee]

That's correct IM, Madonna's 1st LP wasn't freestyle. Jellybean may have been involved in producing one track (Holiday) but that was written by the team behind funky/boogie acts such as Hot Streak & Maxine Singleton. Most of the LP was produced by Reggie Lucas who was also from the school of sophisticated funk. Maybe the track Jellybean did that featured Madonna on vocals 'Sidewalk Talk' was freestyle but none of her own stuff was.

[InvisibleMan]

songs by bands like Kajagoogoo also were heavily influenced by disco/funk, just listen to Too Shy, or Naked Eyes - Promises Promises, another funky 80's wave track

[SandraDee]

songs by bands like Kajagoogoo also were heavily influenced by disco/funk, just listen to Too Shy, or Naked Eyes - Promises Promises, another funky 80's wave track

So much 80s UK pop was funk-influenced it's true - early Culture Club, ABC, Love & Money, Swing Out Sister, Curiosity Killed the Cat, Seona Dancing, Reflex, Scritti Politti, early Wham, some Thompson Twins tracks, Haircut 100 etc etc.

[remicks]

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I never thought of NEW WAVE as being anti anything .... and disco certainly offered open arms to it. Just one more way to entertain a dance floor.

I think the only TRUE anti-disco crowd was the established rockers ... the AOR crowd . For them- disco was a direct threat and they had a lot to lo$$$e when disco seemed to be overtaking them.


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