Vladimir Machan

No Wave in Popular Music: the Significance of "No Wave" As a Post-war Popular Music Genre Vladimir Machan

Popular music is an exceptionally complex and broad field that has developed into a large amount of genres. Not all of them are still successful but none disappeared completely. They left some traces and were influential for the subsequent artists. No Wave is one of them. In the book, No Wave is explained from the point of view of culture and music. It was part of the punk subculture, which is described in the first section. The second section deals with its approach to music and it is here where the originality of No Wave shows itself most strikingly. Examples of particular musicians that contributed to the development of No Wave are given. In the concluding section the traces of No Wave in contemporary music are looked for and the most important aspects of No Wave and its most important contributions to the development of popular music are defined. As the book accentuates a specific musical genre fairly unknown to wide audiences and identifies its potential of influence, it might be useful both to musicologists dealing with popular music and to fans of rock music. Its first section contributes to the widespread discussion concerning youth subcultures and music.