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It was the late 1970s and early '80s. New York was bankrupt. Akron's tire factories were closing. Regular families were struggling with double-digit inflation. The AIDS epidemic was raging. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan and the US boycotted the Olympics in protest. John Lennon was assassinated. And somewhere in the background, always, that low hum — nuclear warheads, patient at the edge of the light.

Into that America walked Blondie, Talking Heads, Devo, the B-52s, the Cars, and Oingo Boingo. You Might Think you know what they were doing. Quirky! Fun! Great hair!

Here's what they were actually doing: holding a mirror up to everything that was broken and making it danceable. Whether that was a fun house mirror or a regular one — you'll have to decide.

This episode, we find out what New Wave was really made of. And who was really making it.

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Music Featured In This Episode

• Blondie - X Offender
• Blondie - Rip Her to Shreds
• The Stillettos - Anti Disco
• Blondie - One Way or Another
• Blondie - Heart of Glass
• Blondie - Call Me
• Blondie - Rapture
• Blondie - Dreaming
• Talking Heads - Psycho Killer
• Talking Heads - Take Me to the River
• Talking Heads - Life During Wartime
• Talking Heads - I Zimbra
• Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime
• Talking Heads - Burning Down the House
• DEVO - Jocko Homo
• DEVO - Whip It
• DEVO - Wiggly World
• B-52s - Planet Claire
• B-52s - Rock Lobster
• The Cars - My Best Friend's Girl
• The Cars - Just What I Needed
• The Cars - You Might Think
• Oingo Boingo - Capitalism
• Oingo Boingo - Only A Lad
• Oingo Boingo - Private Life
• Oingo Boingo - Dead Man's Party
• Oingo Boingo - Goodbye, Goodbye
• Oingo Boingo - We Close Our Eyes

Interviews With

• Chris Stein
• David Byrne
• Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerry Casale
• Cindy Wilson and Fred Schneider
• John Lennon
• Rick Ocasek and Benjamin Orr
• Brandon Flowers
• Danny Elfman

Continue the American Song journey on Substack!

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There, you'll get more information, video content, and more about the music and personalities covered in all our episodes.

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Five hundred million years ago, ( approximately 1977), something extraordinary happened on the floor of an ancient sea. Life — which had spent billions of years as little more than a few unremarkable blobs drifting in the dark — suddenly exploded into every possible form simultaneously. Claws. Fins. Shells. Eyes. Creatures of impossible elegance and alien strangeness, emerging from the murk and becoming something the world had never seen before. Scientists call it the Cambrian Explosion. It was the moment life stopped playing it safe.

Rock music had its own Cambrian moment. And like the original, it happened in the dark, in conditions nobody would have designed on purpose, among creatures that looked like nothing that had come before.

This is the first episode of American Song: New Wave — a new series tracing the origins, explosions, and enduring legacy of the genre that turned anxiety into an art form, made nervousness a fashion statement, and somehow got America dancing to songs about the end of the world.

In this episode: Kraftwerk emerges from postwar Düsseldorf like something that evolved independently of everything else — precise, alien, and more perfectly adapted to the future than anything sharing its environment. The Ramones reduce rock to its purest possible form and discover that what's left is still everything. Television proves that minimalism and virtuosity are not opposites. And Patti Smith walks into a twelve-foot room on the Bowery and claims the entire territory of rock and poetry for herself, without asking anyone's permission, because it hadn't occurred to her that permission was required.

New Wave didn't descend from the mainstream. It crawled up from somewhere older and stranger and more alive — from musicians too weird, too restless, or too furious to stay in the shallows. This is where it started. This is the murk.

Music In This Episode

• Peter Gabriel: Intruder
• Kraftwerk: Autobahn
• Kraftwerk: Trans Europ Express
• Gary Numan: Cars
• The Feelies: The Boy With the Perpetual Nervousness
• Ramones: I Wanna Be Sedated
• Ramones: Beat on the Brat
• Ramones: I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
• Television: See No Evil
• Television: Marquee Moon
• Patti Smith: Gloria
• Blondie (Rhythm Only): One Way Or Another
• B-52's: Rock Lobster

Interviews

• Ralf Hutter (Kraftwerk)
• Hilly Krystal (CBGB's)
• Marky Ramone (Ramones)
• Tom Verlaine (Television)
• Patti Smith (Patti Smith)

Next episode: Blondie. Talking Heads. Devo. The B-52s. Oingo Boingo. New Wave goes national — and it turns out the whole country had been waiting.

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There, you'll get more information, video content, and more about the music and personalities covered in all our episodes.

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Part 2

Happy New Year, Everybody! (Even if you're reading this in July....)

Across the last five seasons of American Song, we've traveled the arc of American music and listened to some of the greatest songs ever recorded, by some of the best loved artists over a century of thrilling music that changed the world.

But what about all those artists whose music is as good, if not better, than those "giants", who (but for the fickle finger of fate) never got the massive acclaim that those rarified few received? What is it within a songwriter that drives their art and compells them to write, even if they're not filling stadiums, or winning Grammy's (questionnable why some of the folks who do receive them deserved it!).

I've been fortunate to share many road miles with one of these artists for most of my life, and in today's episode, I introduce him to you.

In 1995, LA Time music critic, Mike Boehm, said this about Mark's first album: "The two albums I couldn’t stop listening to in ’95 were a tie for the number-one position in my Top Ten. [One of these was] Mark Davis, “You Came Screaming”. Davis’ first album is graced by superb melodies and hall-of-fame influences. His intensely realized subject is the embattled condition of idealism in a fallen world."

Other music critics have said this:

"Getting at large truths with songs full of human-scale detail and unsentamentalized beauty. - Los Angeles Times

“Davis is truly a master of his craft… able to lift spirits even while supporting the weight of the world.” - Orange County Register

I hope you'll listen closely to this two part episode. I have a special feeling that when you do, you just might come to love this music and appreciate this artistic soul as much as I do.

Learn more about Mark Davis and support his music through these links:

https://songrites.com/mark-davis-and-the-inklings

https://markdavisinklings.bandcamp.com

Join our community and continue your journey through American Song: Visit us on Facebook.

There, you'll get more information, video content, and more about the music and personalities covered in all our episodes.