New wave, from the outside in. Each step is a genre and the single record this encyclopedia would put on first. Play them in this order and the last one should sound like a next step rather than a wall.
- 1 The way in
Rock 1954
The whole family: guitar, bass, drums and a beat borrowed from blues and rhythm and blues. Every branch below grows out of this trunk, metal included.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
The Beatles - Revolver, if you want to understand why everything branched so fast.
The Beatles, Revolver (1966) - 2 Then
Punk rock 1974
Three chords, two minutes and zero patience for solos. A full reset of rock, and the second major source of extreme metal.
Shouted. Barked or chanted, and you can still make out the words.
Put on
Ramones - Ramones. Fourteen songs in twenty-nine minutes, not a wasted note.
Ramones, Ramones (1976) - 3 Then
Post-punk 1978
Punk asking what comes next: melodic bass up front, dry guitar, space and cold. Possibly the most fertile branch in all of rock.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures. Martin Hannett's production is half the record.
Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures (1979) - 4 What you asked about
New wave 1978
Post-punk's commercial face: synthesizers, hooks and jerky rhythms. Punk without the rage, but with the same ideas.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
- 5 Where to go next
Beat / British Invasion 1963
The British took American rock and roll, added vocal harmony and shipped it back across the Atlantic. Both hard rock and pop-rock start here.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
The Kinks - You Really Got Me. The first genuinely distorted riff on record.
The Kinks, Kinks (1964)
Assembled from the tree: every genre New wave descends from, in order. New wave has no subgenres, so the last step is the genre that rates closest to it by sound.