Allen’s Weird 80’s New Wave Playlist
*Disclaimer: I was born in 1990. If I get any cultural references wrong, don’t be mad at me. I’m trying.
I have often said that if I grew up in the 80’s, I would’ve totally been a new wave kid. Complete with day-glo, Vision Street Wear, and hair that defied gravity in many ways. With that said, I have a certain affinity for 80’s New Wave music. I’m not sure if it’s nature or nurture; both my parents played some new wave around the house growing up, but I also watched a great deal of VH1 as a kid. I proudly own the Pop-Up Video board game, and can tell you useless tidbids of (Predominately 80’s) music trivia like it was common knowledge. Yet I digress; lately I’ve been really jamming to some new wave classics at work lately, and therefore assembled what I believe to be the best of the genre. Don’t get me wrong, it dabbles into ska and punk at times, and has a large chunk of one-hit wonders, but that’s what new wave seemed to be. It was indie before we called it “indie” or “alternative”. And it was dope.
A couple notes with the playlist. 1) I really wanted this to have a flow to it, but forgot some tracks and added them later, so it’s best to listen to this bad boy on shuffle, and 2) “I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea” by Elvis Costello would ideally be replaced by “The Beat”, but Costello’s “This Year’s Model” album is not on Spotify. 3) “99 Luftballoons” by Nena is intentionally the German version. Listen to the English version and tell me otherwise that it’s better. Now come pogo along with me:
