New Wave

In the opening moments of Stop Making Sense, the iconic 1984 concert film by the Talking Heads, David Byrne walks alone on to a bare, unadorned stage. He carries a boom box in his hand, an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder. Already we know this won’t be a typical rock concert: there are no enormous amplifiers, no complicated banks of lights, no garish sets. Byrne wears an outfit so nondescript and colorless he could be a confused member of the audience who has happened to wander up on stage. When he reaches center stage, he sets the boom box on the ground and says quietly, ‘Hi, I have a tape I want to play for you.’ He reaches down to press play, a prerecorded drum beat begins, and he launches into a version of the Heads’ hit, ‘Psycho Killer.’ Some in the audience that night must surely at that moment have been reconsidering the price of their tickets. You could pay far less to see far more in a coffee house, or see it for nothing at a karaoke bar.

Perhaps nothing better captures the spirit of British new wave music than the phrase, originating in 1984, ‘Frankie Say Relax.’ Emblazoned in tall black letters across oversized white t-shirts, it was a far cry from the Sex Pistols’ call for ‘Anarchy in the U.K.’ just eight years earlier. The Pistols’ anthem, which advocated the wholesale destruction of cultural institutions from council tenancies to traffic lights, made a clear and urgent political statement: ‘Right! Now!’ Johnny Rotten sneers during the opening bars of ‘Anarchy.’ ‘Frankie Say Relax,’ on the other hand, borders on nonsensical (the ‘Say,’ though grammatically correct, seems wrong, helping to undermine the message), an empty set of words with no signification.

The Thompson Twins’ 1983 hit, ‘Hold Me Now, ‘opens with the lines, ‘I have a picture, pinned to my wall/ An image of you and of me and we’re laughing and loving it all.’ Its position in the first line of the song reveals the picture’s importance. The speaker’s relationship in the present is troubled,’ tattered and torn.’ The photograph he holds on to serves as a point of comparison, a reminder of better times. ‘Look at our life now,’ he says (emphasis mine).