In the early and mid 80’s in the USA, the music labeled “new wave” was on the fringes. Nick Rivers hunted it down through John Hughes's films, the cooler US radio stations and the even cooler clubs, like New York’s Danceteria, or Medusa’s in Chicago. Here is his soundtrack.
80s: American Dancefloor: Musique Non-Stop
Words & curation by Nick Rivers, artwork by Mick Clarke, design by Eva Forné (with kind permission from Rubik’s)
In the early and mid 80’s in the USA, the music labeled “new wave” was on the fringes. The sources you could find it were scant but for a small community of aficionados. If you were lucky enough to live in one of a handful of big cities, you had the likes of KROQ in LA, WLIR in New York, 91X in San Diego, and a few other radio stations devoted to ‘Rock of the 80s’ or ‘Modern Rock’, where new wave crept into the fringes of what they played.
Then there was the nightclubs like New York’s Danceteria, or Medusa’s in Chicago - they became portals of discovery - back in an era without Shazam or mobile phones, connecting what you heard to artists was only possible when hanging out near the DJ booth or spending massive amounts of time crate digging in the independent record stores the next day.
By 1984 and 1985, the biggest artists that were producing New Wave: The Cure, Depeche Mode and a few others, began to have hits on Top 40 radio in the US and quite a few tracks were finding high profile placements in John Hughes films iconic films of the era - The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off et. al. Even so, these tunes were still the exception rather than the rule (the rule very much being AOR, MOR and most other forms of rock).
There was a vast tapestry of songs that lived below those New Wave hits however: way more interesting. As a teenager, I spent my free time (all of it) consuming as much as I could find, with an emphasis on a specific slice of New Wave that I gravitated to. It was the synth-heavy electronic music that surfaced in those clubs. Some of the songs were rooted in the darker sounds of goth and post-punk that were imported from the UK at the time. And the darker still music that followed - Ministry, Laibach and Nitzer Ebb for example - laid the groundwork for a wave of ‘Industrial Music’ that pulsed through the club scene, from the likes of SPK, Front 242, Meat Beat Manifesto, and ultimately Nine inch Nails.
In parallel to this movement, other artists were referencing electronic predecessors from the disco era, taking simple beats and pop melodies and adding heavy synths. Songs like the Tom Tom Club’s Wordy Rappinghood and Magazine 60’s Don Quichotte epitomized this quirky brand of dancefloor pop, while others took the blending of genres even further, like Time Zone’s World Destruction. What can I tell you, it was more than exciting. It was electric.
TRACK BY TRACK
Clan of Xymox – Stranger (Remix)
Along with Cocteau Twins, Clan of Xymox acted as a gateway drug for me. Both pulled me into a decades-long love affair with 4AD records. This remix is actually shorter than the nearly eight minute version that appears on the album, but it gets right to it. It’s a remix by John Fryer, a specialist in the dark arts with a long history of production work for Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails and others. Clan of Xymox would generally pivot between score-like sparseness and driving percussive beats in everything they did. For the remix, John Fryer built it solely around the latter, laying a collage of synth sounds and vocals on top. It’s made for the dance floor.
Section 25 – Looking from A Hilltop
Section 25’s first records were straight-up post punk experiments and with this, the band was taking a hard turn into something properly electronic. I love this single, but I listen to it now and I’m shocked that it was the club hit that it was, especially in the city where I was exposed to it: Dallas. It comes off like a dark cousin of Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, but it was a standard at the Starck Club in Dallas, the nexus of club culture and ecstasy in the mid-eighties (when ecstasy was actually legal and very prevalent). It’s a trip to a particularly dimly lit eighties American dancefloor.
Heaven 17 – Let Me Go
It was my exposure to this single on MTV that had me dashing out to buy Heaven 17’s first American album. Technically it wasn’t a proper album, but a US compilation built on songs from Penthouse and Pavement and The Luxury Gap (including this track). The song has become a much bigger record in the US since its release, but it was a slow, slow build, breaking in the clubs first. It was one of the first high profile uses of a Roland TB-303, the synth that powered the Acid House sounds that emerged from Chicago and the UK in the years that followed. In a word, cool.
Pink Industry – Don’t Let Go
I bought this single in 1987 after hearing it in a record store. Totally Captivating. Jayne Casey’s meandering, reverb-washed vocals are nestled in amongst waves of guitar riffs and big synth ‘drops’. Years later I learned that Jayne resided elsewhere in my collection, as the vocalist for Big In Japan alongside Holly Johnson, Budgie, Bill Drummond, Ian Broudie and Dave Balfe, before they all left to see success elsewhere (namely Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Siouxsie and The Banshees, The KLF, The Lightning Seeds and the Teardrop Explodes). Excellent pedigree here then.
Colourbox – The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme
Another 4AD artist of note, the first Colourbox album was my first purchase on CD in 1985. I was sucked in by the Vaughan Oliver cover art, but mesmerized by the music…a smorgasbord of film samples, synthpop and sixties soul. By the time this was released as a standalone single in 1986 I was buying everything they – and the label – had put out. It’s grandiose, loud and immediate, and as good as it was, it was completely overshadowed by their next release in 1987 as MARRS (this was Pump Up The Volume).
And there you go, much more treasures besides...now dim the lights, and dance!
Nick Rivers is a nom de plume and may be Val Kilmer’s first ever acting role. You can be rest assured your curator knows the music, use your ears friends!