New wave/post-punk

‘New wave’ and ‘post-punk’ are terms used and abused with abandon when describing the music that followed the punk rock explosion of the mid-70s. To some people, new wave was the music made by bands who were too traditionally melodic to be classed as punk; bands that believed in good ol’ songwriting, in craft and – shock horror – quite liked the idea of having a hit (step forward The Pretenders, Elvis Costello, The Police etc). To others, new wave music was the futuristic, keyboard-based music made by people inspired as much by Berlin-era Bowie and Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express as by punk itself (Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Ultravox, Gary Numan et al). Then there’s the ‘art punks’ – Wire, Gang Of Four, Pere Ubu, Delta 5, The Raincoats – bands obsessed with the form of their music, of avoiding ‘rockist’ clichés and aiming for something more avant-garde and challenging.

If these three camps