1981 = year of 70s dino rockers w modren/wavo comeback LPs

All those Canadian bands were pretty new wave to begin with, though, probably thanks to their strong Nick Gilder and Streetheart influence.

1979, who cares

Hey at least I didn't post any Kix.

Strange that despite Jeff Lynne being mentioned several times on this thread that ELO's Time hasn't been mentioned yet which is any uneasy mix of newwave synth dystopianism and his Beatles/rock 'n' roll fixation.

Including a couple of blatant Ultravox lifts.

A couple more hasbeen bands up above who I don't think agree went new wave in 1981: The Kinks (who had already gone new wave on Low Budget in 1979) and Hall and Oates (who had already gone new wave on either Along the Red Ledge in 1978 or X-Static in 1979, take your pick).

Strangely, Kim Mitchell of Max Webster did not go new wave until "Go For A Soda" in 1985. (Unless he went earlier and only actual Canadians noticed.)

(Who I don't think I agree. I'm not sure whether the bands agree or not, if they even care.)

include the hall & oatses i mentioned above cuz red ledge and x-static are more tenative, more disco, iirc. then again, it's been a while since i've heard either

And speaking of the Beatles, if Lennon had lived he would surely have moved in a new wave direction based on his work on Yoko Ono's 'Walking on Thin Ice'.

There were a few new wave-ish moments on "Double Fantasy" too. "I'm Losing You", for instance.

i thought conventional wisdom said that if the Doors were a punk/new wave band they'd be the Stranglers? Works in some cases.

Either that or Billy Idol. (Actually, lots of new wave stuff early on sounded Doorsier than the Fixxxx -- esp. in the vocal department. I always figured they were a fairly big inspiration for the genre. Not gonna come up with a list now, though.)

(For the more serious and gloomy and poetically pretentious ends of the genre, at least. Hell, goth singing in general -- maybe even starting with Ian Curtis -- can kind of be traced back to Jimbo.)

My friend called Jim Morrison "the godfather of goth" the other day. I laughed. Morrison seems more like a godfather of punk to me, if anything, but whatever.

iggy = godfather of punk
jim = godfather of nude drunkbeard, unloved 3rd uncle of goth

Why is Lou Reed so often referred to as the Godfather of Punk?

xp Also, obviously, Manzarek did stuff with X, who also covered "Soul Kitchen"; in fact, it's always seemed to me that lots of that decadent early '80s non-hardcore El Lay blues-punk stuff (X, Flesheaters, Gun Club, Alleycats/Zarkons, etc.) was somehow in the Doors lineage.

^ this OTM, esp WR2 the LA blues punk doors hookups. that doors punk angle kinda died of subsequent, tho, didn't it? (punk as gloomy doomy junkie blues thing.)

oh, but wait. what about birthday party and descendents? cave's persona kinda morrison-like. also swans as they rolled along (after the tooth-scraping stuff).

"died off"

Then there's that Echo and the Bunnymen band...

Yeah, it never died, just went further underground (definitely heard Cali bands this decade -- i.e., the Starvations -- that fit in that mold.) And also went Down Under, where the Birthday Party wound up being their own template for scores of bands from the Scientists on (and they also set the template for mid-American pigfuckers like Scatch Acid and Killdozer, a sound that still keeps coming back in incrementally diminished form.) Plus, yeah Goths -- Andrew Eldritch definitely. And Ian Astbury. And etc.

(Though at first I thought you were saying the Doors influenced the Descendants! Kinda doubt that.)

The Doors late-70s resurgence (with Apocalypse Now and the Rolling Stone "He's Sexy He's Dead" cover) coincided with the LA punk years which only fueled more hyperbullshitic nonsense from Manzarek. He would blather on to anyone about how the Doors were the original LA punk band and how if the Doors were still around they would be down with the punks, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

If Jimbo is the godfather of anything, it's late night poetry slam amateur hour at the local hipster cafe.

Still, I like the Doors a lot - mostly because of Kreiger and Densmore.

If Jimbo is the godfather of anything...

http://photos.posh24.com/p/243342/l/joaquin_phoenix/joaquin_phoenix_says_bye_good_to_acting.jpg

There's a great bit in a Mike Nelson piece in his movie review collection talking about the horribleness of Val Kilmer -- his role as Jimbo comes up, Mike takes the time to note that Mr. Morrison is one of his least favorite people in history and then comes up with this, which I can't get out of my head now:

...you can't deny that his voice is very much like any given dad's voice singing clumsily from the shower as he soaps his beefy arms. Just stop for a moment and imagine Morrison's ham-fisted baritone shouting out his idiotic free verse "Break on through to the other side," and now imagine your own father in his tiled stall mindlessly singing the same verse. See? They're indistinguishable!

^ v. klosterman

Pretty good one, from a couple years later: DNA (a/k/a Rick Derringer and Carmine Appice), Party Tested, 1983. Wrote a little more about it here:

Rolling Past Expiry Hard Rock 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQDcNzD3s6k

Sir Douglas Quintet - Border Wave (1981 Takoma) it's got a colorful cover and skinny ties. Craig Leon produced. The music is the same Tex/Mex roots rock Doug Sahm worked his whole life, but the 96 Tears keyboards are emphasized and the tunes are extra bouncy and catchy. Kinks and 13 Floor Elevators covers. Someone probably gave them a budget thinking they could be as big as Joe King Carrasco.

This is a case where linking the sounds of original garage rock with the New Wave made perfect sense.

Here's a clip of the SDQ doing "Mendocino" and two cuts from Border Wave on the notorious "Andy Kaufman quits" ep of "Fridays".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6PoOT44zUo

see also womble-creator mike batt's jaw-dropping synthpop (and avant-orchestral operetta zero zero from '82, soundtrack to a musical TV special produced for australian television. he'd flirted with synthpop sounds on his previous waves and six days in berlin, but here he goes all in. scott seward started an excellent but little-visited thread about it a while back. kind of horrible, kind of amazing. selections:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wse5A0RO53k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3doI9Le35nQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ahqp_vBv8s

the Heavy Metal soundtrack is right in the center of this, dinos going new wave or modern w/ DEVO thrown in for street cred

more synthed-up Cheap Trick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s1Jsz1lj1Y

in my xpost, add an end-parens after "orchestral," iyp. recommended to anyone with fond memories of peter schilling's error in the system.

I've been into Judas Priest - Point Of Entry lately. I didn't like it much at the time, and while it was predictive of stuff like Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone," it holds up. Way better than Turbo. I also have a soft spot for the albums by Saga and The Fixx from that period, Rupert Hine produced electro AOR prog wave!

Pretty Things on '80's Cross Talk fits right in here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tU3OgZT0DI

I had no idea that Andy Fraser of Free did this totally-80s song/video until today. The dance moves!

This is 1984, not 1981, and not exactly new wave but rather that dance-rock with gated drums and synths that was ubiquitous in the 80s. (Think Robert Palmer.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soE63vWxZnE

Civilian by Gentle Giant (1980) - strong Duke/Abacab vibes and sounds better now than it did then.

I feel like their previous two albums were their attempts at "punk" or new wave, and Civilian was more or less straight AOR with some prog trappings left over.

Alan Parsons Project - Pyramania (from the album Pyramid, 1978!)

No, really!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWTJmrPa5TQ

The only mention of Nick Lowe in this thread is Dave "Edmunds always worked closely with new wave acts such as Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello...," forgetting that Lowe was essentially a country/pub rocker for the previous 10 years.

Godley & Creme - Babies (1981)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQlieiOnui0

and my personal favourite.

Alvin Stardust - Luxury
B-side of I Feel Like Buddy Holly.
Released in 1984 but sounds like it was recorded a couple of years earlier. Would love to have a whole LP of this style

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7UBQ8uQSTM

Tangentially related note: were there any big 60s or 70s stars who continued through the 80s doing the exact same style they became famous for? There must be some but I can't think of any. Seems like pretty much none of them took that path.

maybe The Kinks?

James Brown, perhaps?

James Taylor?

Just reading some debate about Jim Morrison as either being godfather of goth or godfather of punk up thread.
On one side black leather and gloomy portentous/pretentious lyricism on the other what could be more punk than presciently getting your Dad to start the Vietnam war so you could have more of a counterculture audience to be an icon to and then claiming your parents were dead to disown them.

Tangentially related note: were there any big 60s or 70s stars who continued through the 80s doing the exact same style they became famous for? There must be some but I can't think of any. Seems like pretty much none of them took that path.

good call imo