Forgotten early New Wave...

Marty makes a great point with his geographical perspective. I am from Atlanta and enjoyed a healthy dose of the Athens bands from that era:Guadalcanal Diary, Bill Mallonee and the Vigilantes of Love, Pylon, Love Tractor,Swimming Pool Q's,the Connells, Let's Active, the DB's, Drivn N'Cryn,the Windbreakers (Tim Lee and Bobby Sutliff have great solo projects as well)the B-52's,and of course REM. I also am particularly fond of the paisley underground movement from that era although it is more old fashioned rock and roll as compared to power pop. Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade, Green on Red, Danny and Dusty, etc. The Dream Syndicate is one of my favorite bands. Steve Wynn continues to release great music and the solo work from the various paisley bands is great: Chuck Prophet, Chris Cacavas, Mazzy Star,etc. The German label Blue rose Records is a great source for a lot of these artists.

This era was alot of fun...with even established artists churning out psuedo new wave lps to go with the times...Billy Joel "Glass Houses", J Geils "Love stinks",
even Alice Cooper "Flush the Fashion" haha

"Glass Houses" had some great songs along with the overplayed stuff. For musicians like me who had been playing rock since the 60s the whole "new wave" thing was a nice jolt out of the 70s doldrums and disco thing...as Linda Ronstadt said it was sort of "whitey's last stand".

20/20, a fantastic power pop band from L.A.

http://www.amazon.com/20-Look-Out/dp/B008BBSGI8

The Shoes...almost as good as Cheap Trick...