MUAR 392 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Mick Jagger, Psycho Killer, Andy Summers
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MUAR 392
Lecture 20 — March 9
Post-Pink/ New Wave
What does New Wave and Post-Punk mean?
Post-Punk: reactionary wave of music happening after Punk, although there is an element that
is carried over from traditional punk
New Wave: related to punk but emphasis on the arty, avant-garde, studied and ironic dimension
accompanied the streetwise working-class and vulgar dimension
-The terms punk and new wave were used interchangeably until 1977
Post-Punk: punk was declared dead when the Sex Pistols broke up in 1978, other bands/
approaches tried to fill the void left by punk
Post Punk & New Wave
-Post-Punk has less commercial success
-New Wave was made to be more commercially successful, and easier to digest by listeners
The Police: formed in London in 1977
-Sting (vocals, bass), Andy Summers (guitar) and Steward Copeland (drums)
-Blended éléments of punk, reggae, avant-garde rock and pop
Talking Heads, “Psycho Killer” (1977) — relationship here in sound and image to rock, punk?
-Musically there is a repetitive driving base line, but making fun of opening to an audience by
stating “our next number is…”
-“Psycho killer, qu’est-que , fa fa fa fa fa ….” — bilingual, nonsensical lyrics
DEVO: art school band formed in Ohio
-Robotic
-Awkward
-Masculine
-Inhuman
-Nervous
-Authentic? — Mick Jagger noted that he preferred this version to his own
The B-52s: formed in Athens, Georgia in 1976
-Formed in a college down — reconstruct the sounds and attitudes of post-Sputnik, pre-
Vietnam pop America within a New Wave context
-Drew on themes from the 1960s, both in appearance and sound
“Rock Lobster” (1980)
-Performative, speaking and singing
-Bright colours
Retro-trash
-Pastiche in which signs — musical, sartorial are detached form their historical contexts and
meanings
Generalizations: disparate sounds,images or unified by time period
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