The best new wave songs: 20 singles from 1977 to 1983

The best new wave songs are pop songs that kept punk’s nerve. If you need a quick answer: Heart of Glass (Blondie, 1979), Once in a Lifetime (Talking Heads, 1980), Are ‘Friends’ Electric? (Tubeway Army, 1979), Don’t You Want Me (The Human League, 1981) and Blue Monday (New Order, 1983) mark the main turns in the story. The 20 singles below run from 1977, when new wave was still a polite word for punk, to 1983, when it had become the sound of mainstream radio. We describe each song in our own words and quote no lyrics. For the background on the term itself, read what new wave music is.

How we chose

Every song on the list did one of three things: it moved a band into new territory, it changed what the charts allowed, or it defined a scene outside New York and London. We list one song per act. Chart positions are given where they matter to the story, not as a ranking. Order is roughly chronological so you can hear the sound change.

The list

1. Talking Heads, Psycho Killer (Sire, 1977). The band from CBGB turned a nervous character study into its signature song, with a bass line that people still learn first. It appeared on Talking Heads: 77 and set the tone for the band’s art-school funk.
2. Elvis Costello, Watching the Detectives (Stiff, October 1977). Costello’s first UK hit, a reggae-tinged thriller built on a dark bass and organ. It showed that the Stiff Records crowd could write songs as clever as anything from the singer-songwriter era, with more bite.
3. The Police, Roxanne (A&M, 1978). A reggae rhythm under a rock song, inspired by what Sting saw on the street near the band’s hotel in Paris. It flopped at first and became a hit on re-release in 1979, which is a typical new wave path.
4. The Cars, Just What I Needed (Elektra, 1978). Boston’s answer to the question of how to make new wave sound good on FM radio: tight guitars, a cheap-sounding synth and big production by Roy Thomas Baker.
5. The B-52’s, Rock Lobster (DB Recs, 1978). First pressed by a small label in Atlanta, then re-recorded for the band’s debut album. Surf guitar, organ and party chaos from Athens, Georgia.
6. Blondie, Heart of Glass (Chrysalis, January 1979). The CBGB band went disco and reached number one in Britain and the United States. Some punks called it a sell-out; in hindsight it is the moment the scene took over the charts. We have a full page on Heart of Glass and, for the band’s harder early side, on Rip Her to Shreds.
7. Tubeway Army, Are ‘Friends’ Electric? (Beggars Banquet, May 1979). Gary Numan’s long, cold, synthesizer-led single reached number one in Britain in June 1979. It proved that a record with no conventional chorus could top the charts.
8. XTC, Making Plans for Nigel (Virgin, 1979). Written by bassist Colin Moulding, it is a sharp song about parents planning a son’s life, with a drum part that sounds like it is skipping. Swindon’s best moment in the charts.
9. The Pretenders, Brass in Pocket (Real, late 1979). Chrissie Hynde, an American from Akron living in London, reached number one in Britain in January 1980 with a song of confident swagger. It shows how far new wave had moved from punk’s sneer.
10. Joy Division, Love Will Tear Us Apart (Factory, 1980). Released shortly after the death of Ian Curtis and a UK top 20 hit. It belongs as much to post-punk, but its melody made it the bridge to everything New Order did next.
11. Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime (Sire, 1980). From Remain in Light, produced by Brian Eno. Layered rhythms inspired by West African music and a spoken vocal about suburban life turned into one of the most discussed records of the decade.
12. Devo, Whip It (Warner Bros., 1980). The Akron band’s biggest hit, top 20 in the US, carried by a robotic beat and a video that MTV played heavily from 1981.
13. Ultravox, Vienna (Chrysalis, January 1981). Slow, grand and theatrical. It stalled at number two in Britain behind Joe Dolce’s novelty hit Shaddap You Face, one of the best known near misses in British chart history.
14. Soft Cell, Tainted Love (Some Bizzare, 1981). A northern soul song first recorded by Gloria Jones in 1964, rebuilt by a Leeds duo as cold synth pop. It reached number one in Britain and stayed on the US chart for a very long run.
15. The Human League, Don’t You Want Me (Virgin, November 1981). The Sheffield group’s Christmas number one in Britain and a US number one in 1982. The band had split in 1980; this version, with two teenage singers recruited from a nightclub, was a reinvention that worked.
16. Trio, Da Da Da (Mercury, 1982). From Großenkneten in Lower Saxony, a minimalist track with a cheap Casio rhythm that became an international hit. It is the best known song from the playful side of Neue Deutsche Welle.
17. Nena, 99 Luftballons (CBS, 1983). A Cold War song from West Berlin that reached number one in West Germany and, in its German version, number two in the United States. The English version 99 Red Balloons topped the UK chart in 1984.
18. Eurythmics, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (RCA, 1983). Recorded cheaply in a London attic studio, it reached number one in the US in September 1983 and helped define synth pop’s second wave.
19. New Order, Blue Monday (Factory, March 1983). Issued only as a 12-inch single in a sleeve modelled on a floppy disk. It is often called the best-selling 12-inch single of all time and connected British post-punk with New York club music.
20. Talk Talk, Talk Talk (EMI, 1982). Included because it shows where new wave was heading: away from irony and towards atmosphere. The band would leave pop altogether by the end of the decade.

The songs we left out

Kraftwerk’s The Model and Trans-Europe Express are foundations of synth pop, but Kraftwerk were never part of a new wave scene. The Specials’ Ghost Town is one of the great British singles of the period, but it belongs to 2 Tone and ska. Duran Duran, Tears for Fears and A Flock of Seagulls reached their biggest audiences after 1983 and fit better into the story of eighties pop. For a list ordered by artist rather than by song, see our guide to new wave bands.

Where to start

If you have never listened to new wave on purpose, play songs 1, 6, 7, 11 and 19 in that order. You will hear a CBGB band, a CBGB band going disco, an early synthesizer number one, a rhythm experiment and a dance record from Manchester. That is the arc of the whole style in under half an hour. Then read our page on Blondie, the band that connects the punk clubs and the charts more directly than anyone on this list.