The primary blast of New Wave within the late Seventies largely caught to the identical rhythms that rock had revolved round for many years. However by the early 80s, US and UK bands had been discovering a recent really feel by assimilating sounds from Africa, India, Asia, and past. From massive names with a global itch to under-the-radar innovators, the period was awash with worldly new methods to rock.
Jamaica was among the many first nations outdoors the US or UK to impression the New Wave explosion, particularly in England. The galvanizing rhythms of ska had been jacked up with punky vitality for a brand new technology by the burgeoning Two Tone motion, as bands like Insanity, The Specials, The Selecter, and The Beat started releasing information in 1979.
The steady-rolling, deep-down sounds of roots reggae infiltrated British rock even earlier, through the reggae/New Wave collision of The Police. “Playing reggae licks to us is like blues licks, they’re hard to resist,” drummer Stewart Copeland advised Trouser Press’s Jim Inexperienced in 1979. Copeland had come off a stint with prog rockers Curved Air, whereas Sting and Andy Summers had expertise with every thing from jazz to psychedelia. The British punk growth impressed them to discover new territory, although, and buying and selling old-wave concepts like blues rock for a Jamaican affect turned out to be the proper path.
On their 1978 debut LP, Outlandos d’Amour, bottom-heavy reggae grooves drove hits like “So Lonely,” “Can’t Stand Losing You,” and the band’s breakout smash “Roxanne.” However the band took the concept of culture-blending even additional on “Masoko Tanga,” the place Sting sings in a language of his personal devising over a throbbing heartbeat that blends funk, reggae, and Afropop. In years to come back, The Police’s pancultural pop imaginative and prescient would come with every thing from the French lyrics of “Hungry for You” to the African-informed polyrhythms of “Walking in Your Footsteps” and “Miss Gradenko.” By 1979, The Slits had been on the desk too, adapting dub reggae and funk to present post-punk a brand new gait on Reduce.
Throughout the Atlantic, Speaking Heads had been combining a DIY lexicon and African concepts too, on “I Zimbra” from 1979’s Concern of Music. They’d go full-bore on the African influences with 1980’s Stay in Mild.
Again in England, the band fortuitously named Japan was buying and selling its glam-rock roots for sounds evocative of the Far East. On 1980’s Gents Take Polaroids, the affect of Japanese synth-pop pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra got here to the fore, with YMO’s Ryuichi Sakamoto turning as much as pitch in. Drummer Steve Jansen’s pan-ethnic method to rhythm, fretless bassist Mick Karn’s snaky, syncopated traces, and the Asian-tinged synth colours of David Sylvian and Richard Barbieri converge in a smooth, modernist exotica on songs like “Swing” and “My New Career.” Because the tongue-in-cheek imperialism of its title implies, “Taking Islands in Africa” finds area for a delicate African rhythmic undercurrent. The band would convey Asian flavors even additional ahead on 1981’s Tin Drum.
Peter Gabriel’s solo work had come far nearer to New Wave than to the prog pastures of his previous band, Genesis. And the 1980 installment in his string of self-titled albums (the one with the melting-face cowl) discovered him edging slowly towards the globalist method that may ultimately develop into central to his work. The percolating marimba line driving the paranoia of “No Self Control” evokes the interlocking percussive patterns of Balinese gamelan music. And years forward of Paul Simon’s Graceland, the game-changing anti-Apartheid anthem “Biko” excerpts recordings of South African folks songs and finds Gabriel’s previous bandmate Phil Collins approximating African percussion with a Brazilian surdo drum. Gabriel would develop into much more of a cultural magpie on his subsequent, equally untitled album.
Earlier than 1980 was out, even bands greatest often called straight-up rockers had been onboarding worldwide influences. XTC’s inventory in commerce as much as that point had been a hurtling power-pop/New Wave assault, however drummer Terry Chambers at all times had idiosyncratic concepts about breaking apart the beat. And on Black Sea tracks like “Living Through Another Cuba” and “Burning with Optimism’s Flames” he pushes issues together with what appears like a mashup of rock, African, and Latin American rhythms. Subsequent time round, on the eclectic double LP English Settlement, XTC would enterprise additional afield, with the crazy, Latin really feel of “Melt the Guns” and the sub-Saharan shimmy of “Snowman” and the aptly titled “It’s Nearly Africa.”
Talking of African affect, the tip of 1980 additionally noticed a turf battle over the usage of Burundi drumming in a post-punk pop setting. It started when Adam & The Ants went by way of a lineup change and a method shift from punk to an unprecedented mix of New Wave, glam, Ennio Morricone-isms, and people bustling Burundi-style drums. When Adam disconnected from former Intercourse Pistols svengali Malcolm McLaren, the latter responded by luring the band away from him and pairing them with Burmese-English teen singer Anabella Lwin within the rhythmically related Bow Wow Wow. Adam and his new Ants’ Kings of the Wild Frontier retained the sting, however their rivals’ debut single, “C30 C60 C90 Go,” a celebration of taping music off the radio, stays a righteous banger.
By 1981, danceability was an growing demand for brand new UK bands, and imported influences had been de rigueur. Alongside the acres of post-punk funkateers, the British charts sported the salsa-saturated sounds of Blue Rondo a la Turk and Trendy Romance skirting the New Romantic scene, the Latin/African/jazz-funk amalgam of Pigbag, and many extra. In the meantime, English/American partnerships just like the revamped, Gamelan-savvy King Crimson and the Center Jap- and African-sampling David Byrne and Brian Eno had been breaking brainy-but-funky new floor.
India began getting its licks in on the British scene proper across the time Punabi folk-pop was changing into a UK phenomenon with the likes of the band Alaap. Synth-poppers Blancmange had their largest UK hit with 1982’s “Living on the Ceiling,” powered by a seemingly bhangra-inspired riff. Monsoon, fronted by Indian-English singer Sheila Chandra, scored a British hit with their bewitching debut single, “Ever So Lonely.” Their debut album, Third Eye is a heady-but-propulsive mix of Indian pop, raga, New Wave, and a splash of psychedelia. Monsoon introduced issues full circle by shining a distinct mild on considered one of British rock’s earliest Indian-influenced milestones, The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.”
Even America was getting in on the motion, typically with assist from a transplanted Brit. After relocating to New York Metropolis, the mercurial Joe Jackson discovered recent inspiration within the native Latin music scene. He funneled that vitality into a complete retooling of his sound, abandoning guitars fully and making Latin piano vamps and salsa percussionist Sue Hadjopoulos an integral a part of his new type.
“There’s current music which isn’t rock ‘n’ roll,” Jackson reminded Musician’s David Gans in 1983, “all the great jazz, Latin music, and funk that’s going on in New York. Who needs rock ‘n’ roll?” Night time and Day grew to become Jackson’s largest album. The fusion of Nuyorican and British musical mindsets shines brightly on the transcendent “Another World,” the place Hadjopoulos’s timbales and Jackson’s piano distinction with dreamlike lyrics for one of the vital affecting items within the singer’s catalog.
Tim McGovern, guitarist for The Motels, was looking for one thing new too, having left the band earlier than their ascent to stardom. In Los Angeles, he shaped Burning Sensations, placing collectively a potent cocktail of Latin, African, and Caribbean components, New Wave, and psychedelia. Their island-breezy single “Belly of the Whale” obtained some consideration however they solely lasted lengthy sufficient for an EP and one album.
Sadly for Burning Sensations and different adventurous Yanks, worldbeat influences weren’t absolutely embraced within the US mainstream till a minimum of the mid-’80s. However earlier within the decade, rockers liberated by punk discovered new paths to freedom by opening their ears to the remainder of the globe. It made for some unbelievable music.
On the lookout for extra? Learn how prog went pop within the Nineteen Eighties.
