Site Talk: The Blitz Kids

A simple blog post this time, pointing out an incredible site devoted to the New Romantic scene, both original and the new vanguard. It is surprising in depth and complexity, covering the musical artists, important clubs, fashion designers, and general hangers-on associated with the all-too-brief (largely) British tribal scene. Though virtually all of the action happened overseas, there also existed a tiny following here in the U.S. at around the time of the scene's first sproutings. There was even one American NuRo band called Combo Audio that had a minor hit, "Romanticide". (More about them as time progresses, I'm sure.) And some of New Romanticism's foremost musical artists gained popular ground Stateside as they moved toward a more conventional "New Pop" sound, most notably Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet.

Unfortunately, as was the case with disco, this bright, shimmering light in the world of popular music was snuffed out here in the States by people who were too scared and closed-minded to embrace the new and the exciting. American music journalists were all too keen to sneer at the New Pop "posers" while they continued to get behind old fogies such as Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger, and they encouraged John Cougar Mellencamp as a reactionary force against those young artists who dared to embrace synth and dance and makeup and fun. As a result, music in America stagnated while the British and Australians continued to make revolutionary steps in the world of music.

The impact from this was very much felt in the "alternative" '90s. While U.S. teens were continually being exposed to '70s throwbacks Neil Young and Pearl Jam, British teens got to be enthralled by the win-win competitive situation between the glorious pop of Blur and the swirling glam rock of Oasis. While American music listeners had to put up with endless Matchbox 20 and Deep Blue Something song repeats, British music listeners were rewarded with everything from Mansun to Massive Attack to Orbital, certainly not the same thing sonically. The evidence was clear: One decade after the vaguely homophobic and overtly anti-popist standpoints that prominent U.S. music reviewers such as Greil Marcus held killed '80s New Pop's chances to gain serious footing in America, their reactionary viewpoints continued to create a stranglehold environment for American music listeners while their counterparts across the Atlantic, which had only enacted a "Tall Poppy Syndrome"-style ego deflation of the most popular of the New Popsters, were able to nurture an environment where true musical progress could be made.

It has only been very recently, in the wake of contemporary indie artists' unearthing of New Romantic/New Pop gems and an easing of the anti-synth, anti-dance bias here in the States, that people have been waking up to the disservice that the old guard, many of whom were of the Woodstock generation, did to American music. It is their insistence that every musical artist be like the ones who played during the so-called "Summer Of Love" that has left many Americans with a bitter taste in their mouth about anything associated with "rock" music. This left a vacuum in the musical lives of teenagers by the late '90s, which was filled by Svengalis who created assembly line, prepackaged teen pop stars, and by hip-hoppers, who were left to be the only alternative to that truly plastic world. It is not too late for New Romantic/New Pop to be the saviors of the American musical world. The above site can be a handy introduction to the artists who gave teenagers something organic AND fun to indulge in.