Badass Sci Fi’s New Wave 101: Don’t Worry, It’s Non Credit-Bearing

Posted On October 26, 2019

But let’s start with a quiz anyway. How many artists represented in the collage can you name? I’ll give it to you straight. Before my latest trip down the rabbit hole, I could name fifteen (I replaced a couple I couldn’t to make myself feel better). If you can name all twenty without cheating, you deserve a gold star! (gold stars not included)

Get the answers at the end of the post.

Anyway, I’m gonna make this short. The following list speaks for itself. I had way too much fun compiling it.

I used the term new wave in the title, but the list encompasses more than that, unless new wave itself encompasses more than that, in which case, it’s a new wave list.

And it’s not an ’80s list, since whatever movement we’re talking about started in the late ’70s and limped into the early ’90s.

One of my biggest regrets growing up in the ’80s; I was never adventurous enough to commit to any one scene. I was a peripheral admirer of punk, new wave, and goth, but stuck mostly to the friendly confines of classic rock and pop.

Call it what you want; new wave, alternative, post-punk, synth-pop, new romantic, goth, or post disco. To me, it’s whatever embodies an off-center mentality, cuts against the grain, or offers a detour from main-street. It’s brave, brazen, and dangerous. It’s a basement club on the Hill in Boulder or Evans and Colorado at one thirty in the morning.

This list, 101 songs by 101 artists, ended up falling into three categories for me:

• Artists I always liked- Men at Work, The Police, David Bowie, Howard Jones, etc.
• Artists for whom I have a new appreciation- Bauhaus, The Jam, The The, The Boomtown Rats, King Crimson, etc.
• And Artists for whom I still don’t like too much but needed to include in any reasonably representative list of this type- The Cure, Spandau Ballet, OMD, etc.

Without further delay, here’s a list created primarily to give one of my characters in Opposable and Spire a backstory.

Kali’s New Wave 101

Until next time, here are the answers!