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runciblemoon View Drop Down
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    Posted: April 21 2023 at 03:44
I have a real soft spot for these kinds of albums - established prog bands trying (with varying degrees of desperation and/or success) to reinvent themselves in the early 80's as purveyors of hip, "clever" pop music. A few that immediately spring to mind:
  • King Crimson - Discipline
  • Jethro Tull - A
  • Yes - Drama
  • Renaissance - Camera Camera
  • Gentle Giant - Civilian
Any other examples?



Edited by runciblemoon - April 21 2023 at 03:45
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It won't take long before Abacab and Love Beach are thrown at you! LOL

Well, here's a few for you, although as you can imagine on a site like this, it's all been said before...

BJH: after Woolly's departure; you could feel the stripped down nature of the melodies from 'Eyes' onwards.. (1979)

Greenslade: Time & Tide... Unhappy (1975)

Eloy: Metromania: A much harsher, guitar led sound which for me still worked, but it wasn't really Eloy.. (1984)

Camel: The structural simplicity started with Rain Dances, but had become overwhelming by I Can See You House (1979)

Renaissance: Azure d'Or is the last one I can listen to...

Curved Air: Held it together until Copeland joined...

ELO: Eldorado - good... Face The Music - Pop...


Edited by Jared - April 21 2023 at 04:00
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runciblemoon View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Jared Jared wrote:

It won't take long before Abacab and Love Beach are thrown at you! LOL

I'll give this some thought...

Abacab definitely counts. I've only heard it a couple of times, but I didn't think it was terrible. Couldn't tell you which tracks, if any, stood out to me as decent though.

Love Beach doesn't count IMO. It's a desperate grab for commercial relevance, certainly, but in more of an AOR vein - it's a couple of years too early to jump on the new wave bandwagon. Emerson Lake and Powell is a slightly better fit, but beyond some of Keith's synth choices, that album's pretty much business as usual for an ELP record.
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Originally posted by runciblemoon runciblemoon wrote:

Love Beach doesn't count IMO. It's a desperate grab for commercial relevance, certainly, but in more of an AOR vein - it's a couple of years too early to jump on the new wave bandwagon. Emerson Lake and Powell is a slightly better fit, but beyond some of Keith's synth choices, that album's pretty much business as usual for an ELP record.

Grab for commercial relevance? Really? We know now that the album was a contractual obligation. Emerson especially was miserable during the creation of that album. No one should be surprised of the final result knowing that. 

As for ELPowell, I don't think it's new-wave at all. Confused 


Edited by Cristi - April 21 2023 at 06:14
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runciblemoon View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Cristi Cristi wrote:

Grab for commercial relevance? Really? We know now that the album was a contraction obligation. Emerson especially was miserable during the creation of that album. No one should be surprised of the final result knowing that.


All true, but whether it was coming from within the group or pressure from the label (I think a little of both is probably a fair assessment) the end result is an album that intentionally streamlines their sound to move with the times. It's not terrible either. Not a patch on the classic, but a long way from the trainwreck some people make it out to be.

Originally posted by Cristi Cristi wrote:

As for ELPowell, I don't think it's new-wave at all. Confused 


Agreed. All I was saying was that Keith deploys some harsher 80s synth sounds on that record, so it inches slightly closer to that territory than Love Beach, which isn't New Wave in the slightest. Either way I don't see it as in line with the albums in my original post.
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Robert Fripp's League Of Gentlemen project would be a good contender, although it might be more post-punk than new wave
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Originally posted by Jared Jared wrote:

It won't take long before Abacab and Love Beach are thrown at you! LOL

Well, here's a few for you, although as you can imagine on a site like this, it's all been said before...

BJH: after Woolly's departure; you could feel the stripped down nature of the melodies from 'Eyes' onwards.. (1979)

Greenslade: Time & Tide... Unhappy (1975)

Eloy: Metromania: A much harsher, guitar led sound which for me still worked, but it wasn't really Eloy.. (1984)

Camel: The structural simplicity started with Rain Dances, but had become overwhelming by I Can See You House (1979)

Renaissance: Azure d'Or is the last one I can listen to...

Curved Air: Held it together until Copeland joined...

ELO: Eldorado - good... Face The Music - Pop...

Out of these I think that only Metromania fits well, as New Wave is really not soft pop. I'd expect New Wave influenced things to have a certain edge. Discipline has that for sure, Camera Camera has it, too, but in a strange, very "un-new wavish" manner (similarly A; Under Wraps is much more New Wave), Azure D'Or doesn't have it at all, neither the Camel nor BJH material at the time. Drama maybe less than 90125, but these are interesting cases. Abacab is debatable, too. Eloy had changed their sound already to some extent for Colours, then once more for Performance, but only taking up very faint hints at New Wave. 

Animals and The Wall are, by the way, quite a bit more gritty than WYWH and DSOTM, and may fit here, too.


Edited by Lewian - April 21 2023 at 06:56
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Talking Heads - Fear Of Music. Released in 1979, it was a huge influence on KC's Discipline. Fripp is on this track and there is no question it sounds like music on Discipline.
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New wave and the mix of new wave and prog seems to date back as far as 1971 with the duo Sparks (then Halfnelson). As prog waned and catchier post-punk with pop hooks emerged many prog bands joined suit. In addition to the examples already presented were:

Cos - Swiß Chalet (1979)
Confusional Quartet - s/t (1980)
The Edge - Square 1 (1980)
Machiavel - New Lines (1980)
Merlin - s/t (1980)
Super Freego - Pourquoi es-tu si méchant? (1982)

In addition Rush's synthpop albums like "Signals" are considered prog new wave as well as the trilogy of KC albums. Keep in mind new wave was the pop cousin of post-punk so i agree that soft rock and just pop doesn't qualify. Many bands like Banco, Renaissance, Yes and countless others flirted with new wave for an album or two. Some were more successful than others.


Edited by siLLy puPPy - April 21 2023 at 07:28

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I think 

Kaipa

 HÄNDER fits here, not a bad album at all IMO. The next one though from 1982 is unlistenable though (IMO obviously). 
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While King Crimson's Discipline was a vast departure from their previous releases (you have to consider the new line up), I would hardly call it "...hip, "clever" pop music".
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Originally posted by wiz_d_kidd wiz_d_kidd wrote:

While King Crimson's Discipline was a vast departure from their previous releases (you have to consider the new line up), I would hardly call it "...hip, "clever" pop music".


I don't think it's that much of a stretch, personally. Discipline is heavily inspired by Talking Heads, who are often classed as art rock/art pop. 80's King Crimson, as groundbreaking as they were in many ways, were still also following trends to a reasonable extent. This isn't me talking down Discipline, by the way, (which I consider to be a bona fide masterpiece). But I don't think it detracts from the music to consider it in this context.
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Mid-70s Kraan
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No mention of Rush? Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures were much more streamlined and in line with New Wave ideas as they moved away from heavy concept based albums that came before. They took a lot from The Police especially as is well known.

EDIT - sorry obviously didn't stop to read the posts carefully enough!


Edited by richardh - April 21 2023 at 10:50
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Perhaps better fitting is Bill Nelson's Red Noise although some will say that he was always that way inclined (ie New Wave more than Prog). I also consider that The Tubes debut album was prog and they made a definite move towards New Wave by the time of Remote Control.
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This thread caused me to obsess over new wave prog so i just made a list of every possible candidate i could find!

Check it out :)

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Originally posted by richardh richardh wrote:

Perhaps better fitting is Bill Nelson's Red Noise although some will say that he was always that way inclined (ie New Wave more than Prog). I also consider that The Tubes debut album was prog and they made a definite move towards New Wave by the time of Remote Control.

I second these suggestions!
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Mmmaaybe... I mean 'New wave' is an interesting way of framing that period for Prog, and yeah in a way Discipline, A, Drama and the others mentioned have a suggestion of NW to the extent that it was a definable genre (which it wasn't really).   "New World" is closer to what prog artists faced in the '80s , and some handled it better than others.
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King Crimson were more prog than new wave and Talking Heads were more new wave than prog. 
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The entire discography of Brian Eno. 
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