| New musick | |
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 Sounds magazine's front cover of "New Musick" issue published in November 1977. | |
| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | c. 1977, United Kingdom, United States and Germany |
| Derivative forms | |
| Other topics | |
New musick is a loosely defined style of music and series of articles published in the late 1970s by the British magazineSounds. New musick was originally coined after a meeting organized bySounds editorAlan Lewis involving music journalists Jane Suck, Sandy Robertson andJon Savage in October 1977. The meeting resulted in the group deciding to use "New Musick" as a marketing term for issues in November and December 1977, similar to "new wave", which had previously been used for a series ofSounds articles entitled "Images of the New Wave". The term has been described by Savage as an early label for "post-punk" as well as a subsection of the genre.
New musick was used as a term to describe severalexperimental,avant-garde andprogressive developments being made inpunk rock. Drawing influences fromdisco,dub,reggae,krautrock andelectronic music, particularly the use ofsynthesizers. In November 1977,Sounds published their first issue on new musick which included editorials by Jane Suck and Jon Savage. WritersSimon Reynolds, David Buckley, David Wilkinson, Mimi Haddon and Theo Cateforis retrospectively cited Savage's editorial as the starting point for "post-punk" as a musical genre. The editorial was followed by several new musick articles by otherSounds writers, including Suck, Robertson,Vivien Goldman, Davitt Sigerson, Dave Fudger and Steven Lavers.
The British press quickly adopted the label which sparked ideological conflicts among music critics and the British punk scene regarding new musick undermining theauthenticity of thepunk ideology. Much of the pushback was rooted in the strong hostility the punk scene held toward electronic music, disco,art andprogressive rock, resulting in the scene fracturing into several distinct categories such as "power pop", "mod renewal", "futurist", and "new punk" (or "real punk"). By the end of the decade, new musick was replaced by "new wave" and "post-punk" interchangeably in the UK.
On 26 November 1977,Sounds magazine published an issue entitled "New Musick", the front cover was done by Steven Lavers with editorials by music journalists Jane Suck andJon Savage. Savage wrote a piece on an emerging scene and style of music known as "new musick", suggesting thatpunk rock was becoming stagnant and evolving into new, more experimental forms, which he noted as "post punk projections".[1] His editorial stated "New Musick is too many cigarettes, too much depression and too little heart." Savage then remarked:[2]
It probably all began withJazz or in theBBC Workshop, but I prefer to think it all stemmed from the mesmerisingFarfisa organ sound of? and the Mysterians '96 Tears'. 'That' was pure heartbreak, 'this' —Kraftwerk,Bowie,Eno,Space — is hearts stuck together with sellotape. It's the white equivalent ofdub (obligatory hallucogenic reggae record:Althea & Donna's 'Up Town Top Ranking')
Furthermore, this music’s purportedly “ice cold” character, and [Simon] Reynolds’ references to technology evoke the imagined bleakness that lay beyond theIron Curtain, and reinforces stereotypes about people from Germany and their alleged rigid, robotic disposition. This would also explain the inclusion of the German group Kraftwerk in Savage’s New Musick editorial, alongside Throbbing Gristle and Siouxsie and the Banshees, who were both from the UK. TheNazi iconography used by Siouxsie and the Banshees in particular may too have justified Savage’s decision to include them in the New Musick section.
He described the style as exhibiting "more overtreggae/dub influence", sounding "the same/manufactured in a factory," and characterizedSubway Sect,the Prefects,Siouxsie and the Banshees,the Slits, andWire as exploring "harsh urban scrapings/controlledwhite noise/massively accented drumming".[4] He mentioned acts such asPere Ubu,Throbbing Gristle andDevo, and stated new musick to be thought of as "texture". He clarified "[new] musick isn'tmuzak", while citingRobert Fripp and Brian Eno's "Swastika Girls" (1973).The Velvet Underground along withLou Reed,John Cale andNico were noted as precursors and influences accompanied by a verse from "Gideon's Bible" (1970).[5] He described the movement as "Cleanteen beat groups cleaning up and minting millions from wherethe Groovies' left off and starting wherethe Jam got boring. Synthemescnouveau pop".[2][6]
Music journalistsSimon Reynolds, David Buckley, David Wilkinson,[7] and Theo Cateforis retrospectively cited Savage's editorial as the starting point for post-punk as a musical genre.[8] During the late 1970s, the terms "new musick", "new wave" and "post-punk" would all be used interchangeably by British music publications.[9][10][11] Additionally, the subgenre "cold wave" would also be coined in the November 1977Sounds "New Musick" article, with members of Kraftwerk,Ralf Hütter andFlorian Schneider, being displayed on the front cover.[12]
Writer Mimi Haddon suggested the term "New Musick" may have referred to the division ofGermany intoEast andWest and that the emphasis on "all things German in opposition to “American androck ‘n’ roll,” that Reynolds identifies may also have inspired the quasi-Germanic spelling of “Musick,” which resembles the German wordMusik, as well as the quasi-Germanic capitalization of the words."[13]
Music critic Simon Reynolds regarded "new musick" as denoting its own musical style, which he defined as the "industrial/dystopianscience-fiction side of post-punk".[14] While Savage suggested new musick could be thought of as a subsection of post-punk.[11] Writer Matthew Worley labelled new musick a soundtrack to "the transition from mid-1970s anger to late '70s alienation".[15] Mimi Haddon describes the term as encompassing the early British punk scene’s interest in Europe along with contemporary German music genres and aesthetics,[16] stating:[17]
New Musick in 1977, then, seems to have signified a messy, slightlyxenophobic amalgam of theThird Reich,Eastern Blocchic andKosmische Musik, united under an image of clichéd Germanic severity, austerity, andtechnophilia. Importantly, some of the kinds of associations conjured by the term New Musick have endured and become part of post-punk’s often unspoken criteria, especially those of coldness, harshness, and darkness.
New musick is primarily defined by an emphasis onelectronic music, particularly the use ofsynthesizers.[18][19][20][21] Along with influences lifted from krautrock,[22][23] reggae, dub and disco, as well asGiorgio Moroder,[24] David Bowie'sBerlin Trilogy and Brian Eno's solo albums, both artists who would briefly be labelled "new musick".[11][25][13][26] Buckley stated new musick was "the first wave of music influenced by Kraftwerk", and regarded "The Model" as being "New Musick, music for apost-industrialcomputer age, music for the future".[27][28]
Writers Sean Albiez and David Pattie stated new musick encompassed "the experimenters, avant-garde stylists and post-punk progressives", as well as "Despite the undoubted physicality and emotional content of many New Musick artists,Sounds presented its chosen artists as somehow 'colder' than punk".[25][29] The style was primarily characterized by "cold" and "bleakness".[30][25] In January 1978,Kris Needs ofZigZag magazine interviewedBrian Eno and noted "this new Ice Cold Music of the Future craze inSounds" to describe his music, Eno replied:[31][32]
I know. I didn't agree with that. I didn't think it was ice cold [laughs]. You see, it doesn't derive from that bluesy feel, and people are so used to that, you know, the whole tradition ofThe Stones, that kind of it's-all-felt kind of movement, and I don't drive from that very much but nonetheless I don't think that what results is therefore cold, it doesn't have that particular kind of warmth...
Needs would state "Bowie's lumped in it too, and you've linked with Bowie after the last two albums..." (referring to the Berlin Trilogy), with Eno replying "Yes, I'm a bit fed up of it... I'm a bit annoyed at the moment, well not annoyed, just... I'm fed up with myself a bit, that's what it is really."[31][11] In his 2014 book,Future Days: Krautrock and the Birth of a Revolutionary New Music, writer David Stubbs states:[33]
The New Musick was the stirring of a new aesthetic, a new pop ice age, drawing on the activities of groups who had been around for a few years, such as Kraftwerk andCan in Germany and Throbbing Gristle andCabaret Voltaire in the UK. It also prefigured groups who were only just coming into being, such as Joy Division, who were still at that point barely out of their punk nappies, still trading Warsaw that year
Stubbs further cites David Bowie as "the precursor of all this".[33]
Around the summer of 1977, according to Simon Reynolds, "punk had become a parody of itself".[34] By October, writers and editors atSounds echoed similar sentiments, with Savage noting the release of the Sex Pistols' "Holidays in the Sun" signaled that the "death knells were already there", he stated: "We came up with this idea of doing a couple of issues ofSounds around tribalelectronic synthetic cut-up music. I thinkVivien Goldman had a lot to do with it, and so did Dave Fudger, who were both senior editors onSounds at the time".[35][36] Savage stated, "July/August 1977 was exactly the point when UK punk became over-exposed, assimilated and superseded in real time, so the New Musick issue was an important step in our recognition".[37] He remarked:[38]
In late October, Sounds editorAlan Lewis brought Sandy, Jane and myself into a meeting [...] The result was 'New Musick', two weeks of features at the end of October and the beginning of November 1977. Vivien Goldman wrote about Siouxsie and dub reggae. Davitt Sigerson wrote aboutdisco. Steven Lavers wrote about Kraftwerk. Sandy wrote about Throbbing Gristle. Jane and I wrote the editorials, and I cobbled together a couple of short articles about Devo andThe Residents, mostly taken from Search And Destroy.
Savage stated Lewis had requested them to come up with an "Images of the New Wave" part 3, which had been a previous series ofSounds articles that used the term "new wave" as a marketing trend.[11] He cited "Magic Fly" bySpace (1977) and "I Feel Love" byDonna Summer (produced byGiorgio Moroder andPete Bellotte) as singles both him and Jane Suck were "obsessed" with. He stated they "made all of us punk rock snobs say 'Oh, my god, disco is fantastic', you know, electronics are the way forward".[35] Savage noted that "punk was old hat" andSounds writers collectively came up with the idea to celebrate "the new electronic and futuristic music that seemed much more interesting than oldpub rockers banging out three chords".[11][26]
In September 1977, Jon Savage would be attacked by bassistJean-Jacques Burnel ofthe Stranglers following the release of his negative review of the band's studio albumNo More Heroes.[39][40][41] In which Savage wrote, "Oh, you guessed: I don't like the album. I've tried very hard [really: for all the 'right' reasons] but I still think it sucks." He later remarked:[42]
I didn't have much of a sense of mygay identity at the time, nor did Jane, but it dictated our response to the increasedladdism of punk, which we abhorred. There were endless arguments inSounds editorial meetings about their objectification ofDebbie Harry. I hated and still do thebully-boy aspect of punk, which began to emerge later in 1977.The Clash fell victim to it in a big way.
InEngland's Dreaming, Savage writes the UK punk scene was divided into "arties" and "social realists", stating "The arties had a continued interest in experimentation; the social realists talked about building a 'brick wall' and extolled the virtues of Punk's latest sensation, the ur-PunkSham 69".[43] Reynolds' 2005 bookRip It Up and Start Again echoed this sentiment, stating:[44]
[...] the fragile unity that punk had forged betweenworking class kids and arty,middle-class bohemians began to fracture. On the one side were thepopulist 'real punks' (later to evolve into theOi! andhardcore movements) who believed that the music needed to stay accessible and unpretentious... the angry voice of the street. On the other side was the vanguard that came to be known as postpunk, who saw [the early days of punk in] 1977 not as a return to rawrock 'n' roll but as the chance to make a break with tradition.
Writer David Buckley states that synthesizers and electronics were initially seen as "punk rock nightmares", withJoe Strummer of the Clash stating on television that the band had no synthesizers.[35] However, this idea later changed, with Buckley arguing that it was Bowie'sBerlin Trilogy, particularly the albumsLow and"Heroes", that altered the punk scene's negative perception of electronic music. He added, "Sounds was the first British music weekly to realize that punk was exhausted and a dead end".[35] Reynolds argued Bowie's Berlin Trilogy along withIggy Pop'sThe Idiot,[13] "signaled a shift away from America androck 'n' roll toward Europe and a cool, controlled sound modelled on the Teutonic "motorik" rhythms ofKraftwerk andNeu!—a sound in which synthesizers played as much of a role as guitars".[45] He would also describe Brian Eno's solo albums as "proto-New Wave", and that he became "one of the defining producers" of the post-punk era.[46]Reynolds cited punk rock in the UK as splintering into several different subgenres between 1977 and 1978,[44] with writer Matthew Worley stating that the scene had fractured into various "often competing versions of punk’s creation myth and alternate visions of 'where to now.'"[47][48] Followed by, "The music press looked to determine new categorizations, some now all but forgotten: 'new musick,' 'power pop,' 'mod renewal,' 'futurist,' and 'new punk.'"[47] Additionally, he labelled new musick "the transition from mid-1970s anger to late '70s alienation".[15]
At the time, there was a feeling of renewed excitement regarding what "new musick" or "post-punk" would entail, withSounds publishing numerous preemptive editorials on the topic.[14] Bands such asWire would be labelled "New musick",[9] with writer Clinton Heylin retrospectively stating, "They were, for now, England's arch-exponents of New Musick".[49] In March 1978,ZigZag's Kris Needs would interview the band, stating:[30]
WHEN WIRE came out of the Punk No-man's-land with their strikingly different debut albumPink Flag they seemed one of the hottest hopes for lifting rock out of the latrine it was rapidly digging itself into. Rave reviews and predictions for a bright future (with prospects) were very apparent in the Rock Press.
GuitaristGraham Lewis would state, "We've been called a Punk band, a New Wave band, and now we're a New Musick band".[30] On 20 May 1978, writerChris Westwood satirized the growing rise of "new musick" and "cold wave" while reviewing a Wire live concert inRecord Mirror: "All adjectives have grown stale: cold, weird, psychotic, so have the labels – New Musick, New Schmusic. Cold Wave, blah blah blah, etc. In fact, writing about Wire is almost a cliché in itself these days, so let's just say that Wire are Wire and leave it at that, eh?".[50] He later parodies Savage's 1977 "New Musick" editorial in the review.[50] Additionally, American groups such as the Residents, Devo andMX-80 Sound would also be embraced as "new musick".[51][9]
Several other British publications such asSmash Hits,Record Mirror,Melody Maker andNME began to use the term "new musick".[52][53][54][50] Some journalists opted for the term "art punk" to describe artists "too sophisticated" and out of step withpunk's dogma, though it was sometimes used by critics as apejorative.[55] Additionally, there were concerns over the authenticity of such bands in relation to a perceivedpunk ideology.[56]
Between 1978-79, the British punk scene, particularly in London, was divided by ideological conflicts over whether the progressive and artistic influences being explored in new musick would undermine theauthenticity of the punk movement.[57] On 11 February, 1978, British music journalist Chas de Whalley published an article inSounds criticizing the term "new musick". Mimi Haddon notes his article argued that new musick mirrored the elitism of late-1960s and early-1970sprogressive rock, where avoiding commercial songwriting led to rock music that was inaccessible for amateur musicians. De Whalley regarded the "art rock" era as "ten years of snobbery", and offered the term "power pop" as an opposition:[58]
Power Pop is all down to the hooks and the excitement. In that respect even the New Musickites can join the party, providing they promise to leave their library books by the door and laugh and joke with the rest of us lesser mortals at least a time or two. And, you see, it is most ESSENTIAL that they do. No I'm not asking yourMX 80 Sounds, yourDevos,Pere Ubus,Siouxsie and the Banshees,the Pop Group or whoever/whatever to iron out their idiosyncracies, prostitute their art or compromise their ideals particularly. I'm just saying that if they refuse to move near kids, country and the world of hit singles, then they'll only be fostering the same kind-of musical elitism that deprived the people of their own medium of expression back in 1967.And, whether you approve of Power Pop terminology or not, you must agree that ten years of snobbery was ten years too many.
Savage retrospectively stated "Chas was not very happy with me, because I was striving ahead with new musick at the time while he was trying to promote power pop, which I thought was shit, and I also hated The Jam."[59]
Haddon stated that the "New Musick category did not go without rebuff", citingZigZag's Kris Needs stating a few months later that "It was around the time would-be trendsetters were trying to poleaxe Punk/New Wave with a New Musick elbow – a craze which kept its momentum for about a week before the much more accessible Power Pop wimped in".[17][30] Similarly,Sounds writerGarry Bushell argued "New Punk" artists (later known as "Oi!"[60]) such as theAngelic Upstarts had more relevance than any of the "New Musick".[61] Bushell would be an early supporter of Oi! as a reaction to the artistic intellectualization of punk, with "new punk" followers expressing appreciation for his support of "real kids" bands and his refusal to be an "intellectual snob".[60] Labels such as "real punk" would be used interchangeably with "new punk" and later "Oi!".[62][4]
Writers Sean Albiez and David Pattie retrospectively stated that new musick brought into question "enduring critical debates over authenticity and originality" in rock music. They cited the 1960sBritish Invasion as previously having explored similar debates in the media in regards to "originality in presenting a creative response to the blues that did not seek to be 'authentic'".[25]
By the 1980s, "new musick" fell out of prominence and was replaced by the broad umbrella of "new wave" and "post-punk" interchangeably. Subsequently, "post-punk" became differentiated from "new wave" after their styles perceptibly narrowed.[63][64][9]
A Sheffieldfanzine named "New Musickal Excess" (NMX), produced by Martin Russian and established in March 1979, was named as a parody of "new musick" and theNew Musical Express (NME).[65]
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Futurist (also known asfuturist pop) is a style of music originally coined bySounds magazine in the early 1980s to denote artists in the Leeds and Manchester new wave scenes who made use of synthesizers. Artists such asOrchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,Soft Cell andSimple Minds would be labelled "futurist".[66][67] In 1981,Sounds published several top futurist singles charts.[68][66]
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