New Wave Albums: 1984

Talk Talk - It's My Life
Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense U2 - The Unforgettable Fire

Sean Trane wrote: Is U2 not considered New Wave?

Heart of the Matter wrote: Boy sounds like New Wave to me. Ocean Rain, on the other hand, I would call it rather a great neo-psychedelic pop album

I bet I'm being stupid as sin, or missing the obvious, or just ignorant as hell. and maybe because I'm not reading through the thread and have barely slept for three nights, but what is Boy? The older I get the more okay I am with being stupid, ignorant, and perhaps senile.

I listed to Ocean Rain in full thanks to this topic, and while it got my vote, I would not have thought of it as New Wave either.

^^ While these polls should be about the albums themselves being New Wave rather than the band per se, I have never thought of U2 as New Wave and looking at RYM (my lazy go to if in doubt), it mainly classifies it as Alternative Rock, Big Music, Pop Rock. As a secondary lesser listing, it says Post-Punk, Ambient Pop, Dream Pop, Art Rock. I often do associate a sort of dreamy pop quality to new Wave, but then the dream pop I listen to often is not classified as New Wave. I mentioned Cocteau Twins in this poll and least (not sure Paul if you know them, but some of the music can be rather Dead Can Dance-y to me) and to me Treasure would have been sort of New Wave related, but I searched google, RYM... and I did not find any reference to it being at all linked to New Wave. Great topic for polls and discussion. I love when we dive into such things even if kind of trivial or maybe because of it. I am always interested to see people's takes on these kinds of things at the forum.

Cool idea for a series Paul, and I hope we can nail down New Wave over the course of these polls. Some New Wave is obvious, but it seems so loose, and yet sometimes not as loose as I would expect. I'm okay being ignorant generally on most things, but I want to be a life-time learner even if hardly on the most important or pressing of issues.

{EDIted for typos and was coming here to say that I just saw Boy in a U2 discography list by coincidence, because in that Radiohead/Springsteen topic Lorenzo brought up U2 and I have been preparing my observations and conclusions based on the data}

Edited by Logan - June 03 2023 at 12:22

^ It is the debut, Cristi, I literally just noticed that when preparing a response to another topic just now which brings up U2 and came here to edit that I found it as I am looking through the RYM U2 ratings right now. Funny that. Needed some editing for typos too, I see. Yuck. I really should read through my posts (or use a word processor) and preview. If they had great content one could perhaps excuse the form and typos.

Edited by Logan - June 03 2023 at 12:18

^ Yep, I will love this. Of course, for any who have paid any attention, I love Twin Peaks, and my avatar references it (I should have asked the one who made that photo for permission methinks). I actually started making a Dream Pop/ Ethereal Wave/ Darkwave series of polls recently in Notepad as a result of being inspired by this topic. I had put quite a lot of time into it, got quite far but then, I had some dissatisfaction with it, and had time-consuming discussions going on at the forum. I've been laid up for quite some time with herpes (not the kind borne of fun of the "Tainted Love" variety) but of the shingles due to the chicken-pox virus kind. Painful but gave me an excuse to devote even more time to the things I enjoy doing, like posting at PA.

Edited by Logan - June 03 2023 at 12:59

Lotsa good ones but Talk Talk wins. That was one of my first CDs and it got a lot of play in that 84-85 period. Still in pretty heavy rotation. Tomorrow Started is my favorite Talk Talk track, the vocal performance gives me chills.

Edited by HolyMoly - June 03 2023 at 14:02

I Love Talk Talk's first three albums, but it's Such a Shame their last two albums didn't live up to my expectations. 

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - June 03 2023 at 14:48

I'm really surprised to see Talking Heads currently leading the poll, although the results of these polls have stopped making sense to me for some time now. 

I really need to listen to some older Ultravox albums - I only know The Collection, U-Vox and Brilliant!

Psychedelic Paul wrote: Sean Trane wrote: Is U2 not considered New Wave? I've seen U2 categorised as Post-Punk, Alternative Rock, or even Pop/Rock, but I've never seen U2 listed as New Wave, not even on their earliest albums.

Here they look pretty convincing as a NW band