No Wave

"No Wave" refers to an offshoot of punk rock centered in New York City of the late 1970s and early 1980s that was as much a subgenre of rock music as it was art. It is a tongue-in-cheek term (defying any categorization as "new wave") used to describe bands, like Mars, The Swans and The Static[?], who experimented with excessively loud, droning, and atonal music that was frequently characterized by repetitive drumbeats and explicitly nihilistic lyrics.

No Wave had an important impact on noise and industrial bands who formed after, like Big Black[?], Helmet, and Live Skull[?]. Sonic Youth emerged from this scene by creating music-as-art that eventually reached mass audiences and critical acclaim.

Brian Eno produced No New York album is the best example of this genre, featuring songs by Mars, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks[?] and James Chance[?] among others.

See Also

• Art Rock[?]
• Glenn Branca