Minimal Wave Records

On a more serious note (without any more Fast show references) I have often wondered what the term Wave actually means.

Back in the late 70s/early 80s I rememebr that when the term New Wave started to be used I understoof it to mean this is the next wave following punk, so I didn’t think the word ‘wave’ had anything to do with the music style as such.

Now there seems to be quite a few genres with Wave in them (e.g Minimal Wave, No Wave, dark wave - I have even see just wave used on its own too).

Does anyone have a definition for what the ‘wave’ bit means?

[quote author=“bjorkbjiggler”]
Does anyone have a definition for what the ‘wave’ bit means?

Do I notice a certain inclination towards the complicated here?  :wink:

As you said yourself, the music dish of the day went away and there was a need for a label for the new stuff.

“Strange sounds made by weirdos with bad hairdos” would not have been catchy enough, so people just called it the next big thing = the new wave (of music).

By means of frequent use these rather ordinary words “new wave” then became a label for something special. It’s a bit like “sombrero” which just means “hat” in Spanish while everybody else thinks of a Mexican one when hearing it, or “salsa”, which just means sauce, but people think of hot sauce and even start calling the stuff “salsa sauce”.

Life can be simple at times…..which is nice 8)

That makes perfect sense now you say it.  I guess sometimes one needs to think inside the box.

I must say I think the word ‘wave’ is great for describing music anyway.  I wonder how many music genres their are that include it.  Anyone fancy trying to catalogue and describe them all?  It would make quite an interesting read I think.

Oh well, back to listening to “in the air tonight” by Phil Collins on the jukebox

What are these waves?
They’re coming over me
It must be my destiny…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_KLpI15vvc