Just pull out “Bizarre Love Triangle," and bam, like instant dance party
January 25, 2021 1:21 PM Subscribe
How Can I Explain An Incomplete Oral History of Asian Americans and our Ineffable Love of New Wave (Esther Wang, Jezebel)
Also I just skimmed the article and would like to add that CTY/CTD -- Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins Univ; Center for Talent Development at Northwestern Univ -- summer school/nerd camp was a major vector for popularization of the New Wave canon.
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:31 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:31 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Oh my god. Can confirm. I thought it was just my cohort at my university. At one point, a frustrated individual broke an (Asian-Am) dormmate's Pet Shop Boys CD because they couldn't bear the thought of hearing it one more time.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 1:38 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 1:38 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
Haha, I went to those parties in the late 80s with my Korean-American friends. New Order, Erasure, Depeche Mode were on constant rotation but so was Tubular Bells by Book of Love and Enola Gay by OMD. Nell's nightclub in NYC hosted a few events and those were pretty fun.
posted by cazoo at 1:44 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by cazoo at 1:44 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm a little confused - everyone who was a teenager in the 80s loved New Wave, except for the metalheads, who probably just didn't admit it. This is about kids who grew up well after New Wave peaked? (honestly I find it a little hard to tell in the article)
posted by GuyZero at 1:55 PM on January 25, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by GuyZero at 1:55 PM on January 25, 2021 [6 favorites]
> everyone who was a teenager in the 80s loved New Wave, except for the metalheads, who probably just didn't admit it
I, a white person who was not a metalhead, did not! My roommate, a Thai-American, did! Proof!
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:23 PM on January 25, 2021
I, a white person who was not a metalhead, did not! My roommate, a Thai-American, did! Proof!
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:23 PM on January 25, 2021
You know how people talk about feeling "seen"?
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:36 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:36 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Once upon a time, REM performed a bunch of live shows under the name Bingo Hand Job.
They intro’d (iirc) “Fretless” by saying, “This is a cover song. It’s a song by New Order called ‘Bizarre Love Triangle.’”
posted by Mister Moofoo at 3:07 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
They intro’d (iirc) “Fretless” by saying, “This is a cover song. It’s a song by New Order called ‘Bizarre Love Triangle.’”
posted by Mister Moofoo at 3:07 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
everyone who was a teenager in the 80s loved New Wave, except for the metalheads, who probably just didn't admit it.
Oh my no they didn't. At least, not in the way the article describes. Sure, plenty of folks thought Depeche Mode or Duran Duran were fine when (IF) they showed up on the Top 40 station in your area, but besides the out and out metalheads & heshers there was definitely the Classic Rock/AOR contingent and the modern hard rock/hair metal contingent and some hip hop heads and some folks who were all about the R&B and depending on where you grew up maybe a handful of punk rockers and a lot of the New Wave stuff got lumped in with goth/emo weirdos and never percolated out to a wider audience. Hell, I didn't even know New Order existed until I got to college (1986) and I might have heard one or two Depeche Mode songs before that on the late night radio when they let the oddball DJ take over because no one was listening anyway.
Manufactured nostalgia and shorthand cultural signifiers have blurred this over the years - now those first drumbeats of "Blue Monday" make all the middle-agers yell "the 80's!!!! This was my jam!!" but I'd be willing to bet actual money that if I had a TARDIS and went back to the 80's about 50% of them wouldn't have the slightest. Music was way more siloed and harder to find then. We're not actually remembering things, we're having them "remembered" for us by other media.
So if someone's gonna go, "yeah, New Wave was a Serious Thing with Asian-Americans of a certain age", I'm inclined to believe them.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:09 PM on January 25, 2021 [22 favorites]
Oh my no they didn't. At least, not in the way the article describes. Sure, plenty of folks thought Depeche Mode or Duran Duran were fine when (IF) they showed up on the Top 40 station in your area, but besides the out and out metalheads & heshers there was definitely the Classic Rock/AOR contingent and the modern hard rock/hair metal contingent and some hip hop heads and some folks who were all about the R&B and depending on where you grew up maybe a handful of punk rockers and a lot of the New Wave stuff got lumped in with goth/emo weirdos and never percolated out to a wider audience. Hell, I didn't even know New Order existed until I got to college (1986) and I might have heard one or two Depeche Mode songs before that on the late night radio when they let the oddball DJ take over because no one was listening anyway.
Manufactured nostalgia and shorthand cultural signifiers have blurred this over the years - now those first drumbeats of "Blue Monday" make all the middle-agers yell "the 80's!!!! This was my jam!!" but I'd be willing to bet actual money that if I had a TARDIS and went back to the 80's about 50% of them wouldn't have the slightest. Music was way more siloed and harder to find then. We're not actually remembering things, we're having them "remembered" for us by other media.
So if someone's gonna go, "yeah, New Wave was a Serious Thing with Asian-Americans of a certain age", I'm inclined to believe them.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:09 PM on January 25, 2021 [22 favorites]
I'm a little confused - everyone who was a teenager in the 80s loved New Wave, except for the metalheads, who probably just didn't admit it. This is about kids who grew up well after New Wave peaked? (honestly I find it a little hard to tell in the article)
She talks about this being when she was a pre-teen in the mid-nineties. I, a white dude, was a few years older than her in the same region (South Texas) at that time, and while I loved New Wave, for most people I knew, it was a nice enough thing that happened before Grunge. (It's not a coincidence that among my group of friends, I seemed to be the only one with older siblings.)
I've never known this to be an Asian-American thing, but I know the friend whose musical tastes most match my own in this regard is Chinese-American, so maybe there's something there?
posted by Navelgazer at 3:09 PM on January 25, 2021
She talks about this being when she was a pre-teen in the mid-nineties. I, a white dude, was a few years older than her in the same region (South Texas) at that time, and while I loved New Wave, for most people I knew, it was a nice enough thing that happened before Grunge. (It's not a coincidence that among my group of friends, I seemed to be the only one with older siblings.)
I've never known this to be an Asian-American thing, but I know the friend whose musical tastes most match my own in this regard is Chinese-American, so maybe there's something there?
posted by Navelgazer at 3:09 PM on January 25, 2021
I'm a little confused - everyone who was a teenager in the 80s loved New Wave, except for the metalheads, who probably just didn't admit it. This is about kids who grew up well after New Wave peaked?
Maybe that too, but not only that. I'm from the 80s -- graduated in 1989 from a high school with a substantial Asian-American population. This style of music was absolutely thought of in my school as "music Asian-American kids and specifically Asian-American girls listen to." Some of it, like Depeche Mode, was popular enough that lots of other kids were into it too (but the late 80s hits, not "Just Can't Get Enough.") Some of it, like the Cure, crossed over with goth so the kids in black also listened to it. And other things, like Erasure, were almost 100% listened to only by the Asian-American kids.
The purest example of the form was Alphaville, who aren't mentioned in the piece but appear in the accompanying playlist. Alphaville was as big as Erasure and New Order at my school. I thought they were really famous! Then I went to college and nobody had ever heard of them. But they OWNED late-80s Asian-American Maryland.
posted by escabeche at 3:26 PM on January 25, 2021 [19 favorites]
Maybe that too, but not only that. I'm from the 80s -- graduated in 1989 from a high school with a substantial Asian-American population. This style of music was absolutely thought of in my school as "music Asian-American kids and specifically Asian-American girls listen to." Some of it, like Depeche Mode, was popular enough that lots of other kids were into it too (but the late 80s hits, not "Just Can't Get Enough.") Some of it, like the Cure, crossed over with goth so the kids in black also listened to it. And other things, like Erasure, were almost 100% listened to only by the Asian-American kids.
The purest example of the form was Alphaville, who aren't mentioned in the piece but appear in the accompanying playlist. Alphaville was as big as Erasure and New Order at my school. I thought they were really famous! Then I went to college and nobody had ever heard of them. But they OWNED late-80s Asian-American Maryland.
posted by escabeche at 3:26 PM on January 25, 2021 [19 favorites]
Slightly related, from our TikTok correspondent:
The 'Play this song for your Japanese mom and film what happens' challenge.
posted by bartleby at 3:40 PM on January 25, 2021 [15 favorites]
The 'Play this song for your Japanese mom and film what happens' challenge.
posted by bartleby at 3:40 PM on January 25, 2021 [15 favorites]
This is making me nostalgic for WHFS 99.1 FM. That’s where I heard all of this stuff and more.
And I will admit to having seen Erasure in concert.
posted by needled at 3:56 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
And I will admit to having seen Erasure in concert.
posted by needled at 3:56 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Hua Hsu and Oliver Wang, who are quoted in the article, also did on an episode of the podcast Heat Rocks about Depeche Mode's Violator that goes into this a little.
posted by yasaman at 4:01 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by yasaman at 4:01 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
while I loved New Wave, for most people I knew, it was a nice enough thing that happened before Grunge
Andrew Yang: "Yeah, I really like New Order and Joy Division, of course. They're in the canon. And Erasure too. So that to me was the original arc. And then in the '90s it became more Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden."
posted by kliuless at 4:36 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Andrew Yang: "Yeah, I really like New Order and Joy Division, of course. They're in the canon. And Erasure too. So that to me was the original arc. And then in the '90s it became more Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden."
posted by kliuless at 4:36 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
I hadn’t really thought about this, but it does correspond to my experience. I like the idea of shared alienation between new wave bands and Asian Americans. New wave also drew some (superficial) inspiration from Asia, too. “Hong Kong Garden” the band Japan, the Alphaville song “Big in Japan”, The Cure’s orientalist excursions, etc.
Not exactly on topic, but there is an amazing near-contemporary-to-the-original Chinese Blue Monday.
posted by snofoam at 4:52 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Not exactly on topic, but there is an amazing near-contemporary-to-the-original Chinese Blue Monday.
posted by snofoam at 4:52 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Interesting! This music was just kind of ambient for me in my college life, and I never drew a connection between it and the Asian-American kids I was hanging out with until now.
(spamandkimchi, that comment sent me into a brief CTY dance fugue state, and I spent about ten seconds enumerating songs in my head before remembering that there are probably a half-dozen people who have already obsessively built playlists)
posted by phooky at 4:55 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
(spamandkimchi, that comment sent me into a brief CTY dance fugue state, and I spent about ten seconds enumerating songs in my head before remembering that there are probably a half-dozen people who have already obsessively built playlists)
posted by phooky at 4:55 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
That's weird that Andrew Yang was into Joy Division. Everyone I knew from that scene who loved New Order hated hated hated Joy Division.
posted by cazoo at 5:09 PM on January 25, 2021
posted by cazoo at 5:09 PM on January 25, 2021
phooky, I want your CTY playlist. I had a plan (when I contemplated having kids) of celebrating my 50th birthday with all the songs I got introduced to at nerd camp and horrifying my progeny. Just renting out a banquet hall and having a friend DJ all the classics. EMF's Unbelievable. Violent Femmes' Blister in the Sun. Salt n Pepa's Let's Talk About Sex.
posted by spamandkimchi at 5:15 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by spamandkimchi at 5:15 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
So I should say that it sounds like I'm trying to argue with the thesis of the article and really I am not! I am probably just making my own youth more universal than it really was. I am neither Asian nor American - perhaps the subtle but extensive British influence on Canadian culture made the New Wave movement a lot bigger up north. But I went to university on a steady diet of MuchMusic and CFNY and I don't think I could go an hour listening to the radio without hearing a Depeche Mode song. New Order, Erasure, heck even the deep cuts like Book of Love. I am 100% sincere that I honestly believed up to this moment that everybody listened to and liked Soft Cell and had "Tainted Love" on at least 3 mix tapes. I grew up in a small-ish town that I would consider extremely not cool and yet beyond U2 I would have considered all of the bands mentioned in this article to be in my generation's musical canon. But like I said, maybe I'm just projecting my own tastes onto the world at large it's not normal to be able to sing "The Reflex" from memory.
posted by GuyZero at 5:19 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by GuyZero at 5:19 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
This is making me nostalgic for WHFS 99.1 FM. That’s where I heard all of this stuff and more.
I was just cleaning and uncovered my 'You Klingon Bastard...' WHFS shirt.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:19 PM on January 25, 2021
I was just cleaning and uncovered my 'You Klingon Bastard...' WHFS shirt.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:19 PM on January 25, 2021
Everyone I knew from that scene who loved New Order hated hated hated Joy Division.
The New Order members often mention in interviews that Joy Division fans hated New Order. Which they all found hilarious.
posted by GuyZero at 5:20 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
The New Order members often mention in interviews that Joy Division fans hated New Order. Which they all found hilarious.
posted by GuyZero at 5:20 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
I have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about this topic over the last twenty+ years. I was introduced to the Asian Am song canon in 1993. My Bizarre Love Triangle dance party was in 2000. The Korean American students association parties that invariably played Bizarre Love Triangle were in the late 90s. For my 2014 wedding, we made our own wedding guests pick their favorite New Wave band out of four options: New Order, Depeche Mode, the Cure, and Erasure.
Inducted into the Asian American lesser song canon:
Alphaville Forever Young (per escabeche)
When in Rome, The Promise. (This was the final song played at a friend's wedding reception... in 2019).
Yazoo/Yaz, Only You and Mr. Blue.
posted by spamandkimchi at 5:21 PM on January 25, 2021 [6 favorites]
Inducted into the Asian American lesser song canon:
Alphaville Forever Young (per escabeche)
When in Rome, The Promise. (This was the final song played at a friend's wedding reception... in 2019).
Yazoo/Yaz, Only You and Mr. Blue.
posted by spamandkimchi at 5:21 PM on January 25, 2021 [6 favorites]
damn, now I have to vote for andrew yang at all future opportunities. I feel... potentially represented as a human.
(I kinda loved depeche mode as a high schooler in the 90's. And then went to Budapest for a study abroad year in 2002, where I went to monthly 'Depeche Mode fan club meetings.' These were 10pm-6am depeche mode dance parties with upwards of 300 people that ran every month, focusing on a different album and all known remixes each month. It was fantastic.)
posted by kaibutsu at 5:22 PM on January 25, 2021 [5 favorites]
(I kinda loved depeche mode as a high schooler in the 90's. And then went to Budapest for a study abroad year in 2002, where I went to monthly 'Depeche Mode fan club meetings.' These were 10pm-6am depeche mode dance parties with upwards of 300 people that ran every month, focusing on a different album and all known remixes each month. It was fantastic.)
posted by kaibutsu at 5:22 PM on January 25, 2021 [5 favorites]
And now to nitpick. The illustration has a B-52's poster. I suppose the B-52's could be seen as new wave, but in my part of the world, at least, they were not part of Asian-American teen canon; they are not mentioned in the article nor do they appear on the playlist.
What they are is a CTY canon band ("Rock Lobster") -- I didn't go to CTY and even I know that. But CTY canon and Asian-American teen canon, while having a lot of overlap, are not the same thing!
posted by escabeche at 5:40 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
What they are is a CTY canon band ("Rock Lobster") -- I didn't go to CTY and even I know that. But CTY canon and Asian-American teen canon, while having a lot of overlap, are not the same thing!
posted by escabeche at 5:40 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Oh my god. Can confirm. I thought it was just my cohort at my university. At one point, a frustrated individual broke an (Asian-Am) dormmate's Pet Shop Boys CD because they couldn't bear the thought of hearing it one more time.
I'm kind of wondering if you lived in my dorm, but the individual in my experience went further than that, and he certainly had issues of his own beyond being frustrated by PSB on endless repeat.
posted by LionIndex at 5:41 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm kind of wondering if you lived in my dorm, but the individual in my experience went further than that, and he certainly had issues of his own beyond being frustrated by PSB on endless repeat.
posted by LionIndex at 5:41 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
Bizarre Love Triangle is one of the all-time perfect songs. Great taste, Asian-American kids!
posted by kevinbelt at 5:45 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by kevinbelt at 5:45 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
I am neither Asian nor American - perhaps the subtle but extensive British influence on Canadian culture made the New Wave movement a lot bigger up north
Stereotyped as polite, on the outside looking into mainstream America, comfortable using the metric system to measure things other than weapons or drugs...Asian Americans are basically Canadians inside America's borders.
posted by otherchaz at 5:58 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
Stereotyped as polite, on the outside looking into mainstream America, comfortable using the metric system to measure things other than weapons or drugs...Asian Americans are basically Canadians inside America's borders.
posted by otherchaz at 5:58 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
My God who are these Asian-Americans? :)
Before this meme goes too far, I gotta speak up for at least our little corner of Asian-Canadians.
This is the grand big sample of myself, my sister and my sister's friend.
WE DO NOT LIKE NEW WAVE MUSIC.
We make an exception for The Talking Heads.
We like to sing Barrett's Privateers, yes, waaaay before this recent sea shanty craze. So there.
posted by storybored at 6:00 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Before this meme goes too far, I gotta speak up for at least our little corner of Asian-Canadians.
This is the grand big sample of myself, my sister and my sister's friend.
WE DO NOT LIKE NEW WAVE MUSIC.
We make an exception for The Talking Heads.
We like to sing Barrett's Privateers, yes, waaaay before this recent sea shanty craze. So there.
posted by storybored at 6:00 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
WE DO NOT LIKE NEW WAVE MUSIC.
Bah! New Wave as a genre name is the most ridiculous thing to come out of the 70's/80's. It's a catch all term that encompasses so many styles that it's pointless to even talk about New Wave. I mean, Devo Duran Duran OMD Blondie Talking Heads Elvis Costello The Police New Order The Knack Ramones (!)
Unless you don't like music, you like new wave, you just might not like some bands that have been called New Wave.
Ok, my little rant is over, I'm done telling you what you like and don't like. :)
posted by ashbury at 6:25 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
Bah! New Wave as a genre name is the most ridiculous thing to come out of the 70's/80's. It's a catch all term that encompasses so many styles that it's pointless to even talk about New Wave. I mean, Devo Duran Duran OMD Blondie Talking Heads Elvis Costello The Police New Order The Knack Ramones (!)
Unless you don't like music, you like new wave, you just might not like some bands that have been called New Wave.
Ok, my little rant is over, I'm done telling you what you like and don't like. :)
posted by ashbury at 6:25 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
When I was in middle school my entire group of friends was Asian American. And the house parties were almost wall-to-wall Depeche Mode, New Order, The Cure, Lightning Seeds - it was so fun. Those parties are also where I heard my first house music, because those kids were way cooler than I was.
posted by 1adam12 at 6:26 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by 1adam12 at 6:26 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
This is really interesting, because over here in Asia (Singapore), I'm pretty certain New Wave was very popular in the 90s as well. A lot of New Wave songs are lumped into the "retro music" category, which includes stuff like Rick Astley, Bananarama, and ABBA, and was (and probably still is) a popular genre of dance music.
So maybe there's something deeper to this? Or did Asian-American tastes influence Asian tastes or vice versa?
posted by destrius at 6:28 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
So maybe there's something deeper to this? Or did Asian-American tastes influence Asian tastes or vice versa?
posted by destrius at 6:28 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
Fuk I love 80s new wave
To this day
posted by St. Peepsburg at 6:30 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
To this day
posted by St. Peepsburg at 6:30 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
Slightly related, from our TikTok correspondent:
The 'Play this song for your Japanese mom and film what happens ' challenge.
posted by bartleby
i am not a japanese mom but i really love that song!!!
this metafilter post introduced me to this person on youtube spins records from all over the world -- killer stuff.
japanese city pop caught my eye and i fell in love with it! not just that person's videos but also just as a search query on spotify. and this song is in every single japanese city pop playlist i've enjoyed so far. idk what it's about but it slaps so hard.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:41 PM on January 25, 2021
The 'Play this song for your Japanese mom and film what happens ' challenge.
posted by bartleby
i am not a japanese mom but i really love that song!!!
this metafilter post introduced me to this person on youtube spins records from all over the world -- killer stuff.
japanese city pop caught my eye and i fell in love with it! not just that person's videos but also just as a search query on spotify. and this song is in every single japanese city pop playlist i've enjoyed so far. idk what it's about but it slaps so hard.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:41 PM on January 25, 2021
WE DO NOT LIKE NEW WAVE MUSIC.
"I have excellent news for the world. There is no such thing as new wave. It does not exist. It's a figment of a lame cunt's imagination. There was never any such thing as new wave. It was the polite thing to say when you were trying to explain you were not into the boring old rock 'n' roll but you didn't dare to say punk because you were afraid to get kicked out of the fucking party and they wouldn't give you coke anymore. There's new music, there's new underground sound, there's noise, there's punk, there's power pop, there's ska, there's rockabilly. But new wave doesn't mean shit." - Kickboy Face
(well, someone had to post it...)
posted by gtrwolf at 7:02 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
"I have excellent news for the world. There is no such thing as new wave. It does not exist. It's a figment of a lame cunt's imagination. There was never any such thing as new wave. It was the polite thing to say when you were trying to explain you were not into the boring old rock 'n' roll but you didn't dare to say punk because you were afraid to get kicked out of the fucking party and they wouldn't give you coke anymore. There's new music, there's new underground sound, there's noise, there's punk, there's power pop, there's ska, there's rockabilly. But new wave doesn't mean shit." - Kickboy Face
(well, someone had to post it...)
posted by gtrwolf at 7:02 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
ashbury wrote: "Bah! New Wave as a genre name is the most ridiculous thing to come out of the 70's/80's. It's a catch all term that encompasses so many styles that it's pointless to even talk about New Wave. I mean, Devo Duran Duran OMD Blondie Talking Heads Elvis Costello The Police New Order The Knack Ramones (!)"
YOU ARE CORRECT!!
My bad, I must now re-word my original assertion.
WE DO NOT LIKE THE NEW WAVE BANDS MENTIONED IN THE OPP.
(....because we do like Elvis Costello, The Police and Blondie, also the Ramones if there's no one around).
posted by storybored at 7:03 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
YOU ARE CORRECT!!
My bad, I must now re-word my original assertion.
WE DO NOT LIKE THE NEW WAVE BANDS MENTIONED IN THE OPP.
(....because we do like Elvis Costello, The Police and Blondie, also the Ramones if there's no one around).
posted by storybored at 7:03 PM on January 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
Aussie band Frente did a great cover of BLT..
posted by chmmr at 7:09 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by chmmr at 7:09 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
I grew up in the Philippines then moved Canada and then the US in the mid-90s. My parents were disco kids and my early youth was soundtracked with a lot of Bee Gees and Earth, Wind, and Fire. Manila, at the time, was also going through a metal embargo as The Church believed that metal was all Satan's music, so most of the contemporary Western music that we got was dance pop. Michael Jackson, Boy George, Wham. I remember seeing the video for Depeche Mode's "People are People" in the last year before we fled Manila, and being utterly fascinated.
I think part of the Asian affinity with Western dance pop is tied to the fact you don't need to understand the lyrics to just have fun with it. The beat knows no language, and New Wave came of age in the dawn of the music video, which further transcended the English barrier.
My Canadian high school had a decent number of Hong Kong and Singaporean emigres, and while our tastes included a lot of Boyz II Men and other New Jack Swing, there was also a very healthy appetite for Pet Shop Boys and New Order. I, too, have that memory of being at a high school dance and seeing the floor clear out when "Chains of Love" would get played but it just became an opportunity for my friends and I to bust out the movies we stole from watching fly girls on In Living Colour.
I think the first hint that I had that what we loved was a little weird was going to my first Pet Shop Boys concert and it was all white women, white gay dudes, and Asian Americans. Was my cishet programming inheriting some kind of exception?
My freshman year in university in Massachusetts, I was rather shy and mostly gravitated to the Asian American club in my freshman year, and there was introduced to the whole phenomenon of the Asian-Am student intercollegiate dance party. So much Alphaville. So much Erasure. But, in the end, I didn't stick with that crowd (because of weird Asian-on-Asian racist bs masked up as identity and authentictiy angst) and instead fell in with rave kids. Then goth/industrial. Always circling the event horizon of "Blue Monday"
Some of my favorite friends from my goth/raver days are a Vietnamese-American and Taiwanese-American fellow who get the weird liminal slices of space that we occupy, and the significance that "West End Girls" or "Opportunities" have had in our lives. We'd be at a club and deep in some conversation, and if the DJ put on "Round and Round", we'd just pause, make eye contact, then acknowledge that we'd pick this discussion up later. There was dancing to do.
I get how some people read this and wonder "what's the big deal? New Wave was popular. Asians and Asian Americans don't have a particular monopoly on loving it." But there's a particularly deep love for it that speaks to being outsider and misfit a few times over. Asian Americans aren't special because they enjoy New Wave, but New Wave music resonated with our mixed up and alienated cultural identity in a way that other music did not.
posted by bl1nk at 7:11 PM on January 25, 2021 [13 favorites]
I think part of the Asian affinity with Western dance pop is tied to the fact you don't need to understand the lyrics to just have fun with it. The beat knows no language, and New Wave came of age in the dawn of the music video, which further transcended the English barrier.
My Canadian high school had a decent number of Hong Kong and Singaporean emigres, and while our tastes included a lot of Boyz II Men and other New Jack Swing, there was also a very healthy appetite for Pet Shop Boys and New Order. I, too, have that memory of being at a high school dance and seeing the floor clear out when "Chains of Love" would get played but it just became an opportunity for my friends and I to bust out the movies we stole from watching fly girls on In Living Colour.
I think the first hint that I had that what we loved was a little weird was going to my first Pet Shop Boys concert and it was all white women, white gay dudes, and Asian Americans. Was my cishet programming inheriting some kind of exception?
My freshman year in university in Massachusetts, I was rather shy and mostly gravitated to the Asian American club in my freshman year, and there was introduced to the whole phenomenon of the Asian-Am student intercollegiate dance party. So much Alphaville. So much Erasure. But, in the end, I didn't stick with that crowd (because of weird Asian-on-Asian racist bs masked up as identity and authentictiy angst) and instead fell in with rave kids. Then goth/industrial. Always circling the event horizon of "Blue Monday"
Some of my favorite friends from my goth/raver days are a Vietnamese-American and Taiwanese-American fellow who get the weird liminal slices of space that we occupy, and the significance that "West End Girls" or "Opportunities" have had in our lives. We'd be at a club and deep in some conversation, and if the DJ put on "Round and Round", we'd just pause, make eye contact, then acknowledge that we'd pick this discussion up later. There was dancing to do.
I get how some people read this and wonder "what's the big deal? New Wave was popular. Asians and Asian Americans don't have a particular monopoly on loving it." But there's a particularly deep love for it that speaks to being outsider and misfit a few times over. Asian Americans aren't special because they enjoy New Wave, but New Wave music resonated with our mixed up and alienated cultural identity in a way that other music did not.
posted by bl1nk at 7:11 PM on January 25, 2021 [13 favorites]
Aussie band Frente did a great cover of BLT.
This Msian ex-teen can absolutely confirm THIS version is part of the soundscape of my youth.
posted by cendawanita at 7:34 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
This Msian ex-teen can absolutely confirm THIS version is part of the soundscape of my youth.
posted by cendawanita at 7:34 PM on January 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm having a surprising amount of feelings about this article.
Like I grew up in a reasonably sized Korean American community, but as far as I knew, most kids listened to hip hop or first generation kpop (just typing that makes me feel old). And yeah I listened to the same, but I also listened to a lot of new wave and some of that was dismissed as old/weird and I already didn't feel like I fit in the community.
And now I'm reading had I only been born a few years earlier, there's a chance I wouldn't have felt so weird and alienated? WHAT.
Also why did I never think of Blue Monday as a noraebang song? Oh I cannot wait...
Anyway brb working through some stuff.
posted by later, paladudes at 7:37 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
Like I grew up in a reasonably sized Korean American community, but as far as I knew, most kids listened to hip hop or first generation kpop (just typing that makes me feel old). And yeah I listened to the same, but I also listened to a lot of new wave and some of that was dismissed as old/weird and I already didn't feel like I fit in the community.
And now I'm reading had I only been born a few years earlier, there's a chance I wouldn't have felt so weird and alienated? WHAT.
Also why did I never think of Blue Monday as a noraebang song? Oh I cannot wait...
Anyway brb working through some stuff.
posted by later, paladudes at 7:37 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
Aussie band Frente did a great cover of BLT.
This Msian ex-teen can absolutely confirm THIS version is part of the soundscape of my youth.
Same here, and for whatever reason it was one of the few English songs they would regularly play on Chinese radio stations. I have no idea why.
posted by destrius at 9:05 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
This Msian ex-teen can absolutely confirm THIS version is part of the soundscape of my youth.
Same here, and for whatever reason it was one of the few English songs they would regularly play on Chinese radio stations. I have no idea why.
posted by destrius at 9:05 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
later paladudes, when did you graduate high school?
guyzero, it's definitely the fact that this new wave love persisted way after the popularity peaked. Bizarre Love Triangle was released as a single in 1986. It became my favorite song in 1994. It was a staple of college parties in 1999. I incited an a capella 40-person sing-along at a party in 2004.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:06 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
guyzero, it's definitely the fact that this new wave love persisted way after the popularity peaked. Bizarre Love Triangle was released as a single in 1986. It became my favorite song in 1994. It was a staple of college parties in 1999. I incited an a capella 40-person sing-along at a party in 2004.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:06 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
storybored, I see you! I also grew up in an Asian family in Canada and didn't experience music the way the author or her interviewees did. I'm closer to the author's age than her interviewees, though, and I'm curious if my older cousins would relate to this piece more.
(At the risk of being shouted off someone's lawn, none of the embedded songs in the article were familiar to me. My friends and I were into whatever was on the radio at the time: this was R&B and boyband pop and some singer-songwriter stuff.)
Oh! And if you were curious, as I was, about the "song that Japanese moms know," it's "Mayonaka no DOA/Stay with me" by Miki Matsubara.
posted by invokeuse at 9:22 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
(At the risk of being shouted off someone's lawn, none of the embedded songs in the article were familiar to me. My friends and I were into whatever was on the radio at the time: this was R&B and boyband pop and some singer-songwriter stuff.)
Oh! And if you were curious, as I was, about the "song that Japanese moms know," it's "Mayonaka no DOA/Stay with me" by Miki Matsubara.
posted by invokeuse at 9:22 PM on January 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
it was one of the few English songs they would regularly play on Chinese radio stations. I have no idea why.
I don't really listen to Chinese pop, but vocally it strikes me to very like a lot of Chinese female vocalists, maybe? Of course, my main interaction with Chinese pop around that time is Faye Wong's cover of Dreams (and uh, Beyond, but that's another genre entirely). In any case, I enjoy many of the bands named in the FPP though not enough to build an identity around it (obviously because it's not my context). That said tho:
I think part of the Asian affinity with Western dance pop is tied to the fact you don't need to understand the lyrics to just have fun with it.
The typical 19th/20th c-wave of Asian migrants (esp from the SEA side) would have no problems vibing with dancey, poppy tunes without understanding the lyrics, ime. That's normal. Even within the non-Indian languages speaking parts of Asia, Indian cinema discography would not have the massive amount of mainstream success otherwise.
posted by cendawanita at 9:27 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
I don't really listen to Chinese pop, but vocally it strikes me to very like a lot of Chinese female vocalists, maybe? Of course, my main interaction with Chinese pop around that time is Faye Wong's cover of Dreams (and uh, Beyond, but that's another genre entirely). In any case, I enjoy many of the bands named in the FPP though not enough to build an identity around it (obviously because it's not my context). That said tho:
I think part of the Asian affinity with Western dance pop is tied to the fact you don't need to understand the lyrics to just have fun with it.
The typical 19th/20th c-wave of Asian migrants (esp from the SEA side) would have no problems vibing with dancey, poppy tunes without understanding the lyrics, ime. That's normal. Even within the non-Indian languages speaking parts of Asia, Indian cinema discography would not have the massive amount of mainstream success otherwise.
posted by cendawanita at 9:27 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
I don't really listen to Chinese pop, but vocally it strikes me to very like a lot of Chinese female vocalists, maybe?
Yeah, and I think it's the whole beautiful voice plus acoustic guitar thing, like how another song that's often played is "More Than Words"... It might be that it's similar in form to the indigenous xinyao of the 80s.
On that note, I was wondering if perhaps something about the structure or sonic composition of new wave had similarities to music coming out of Asia in the 60s... Such that maybe Asian American kids were drawn to it because it subconsciously reminded them of music they may have heard their parents listen to when they were really young?
posted by destrius at 9:44 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
Yeah, and I think it's the whole beautiful voice plus acoustic guitar thing, like how another song that's often played is "More Than Words"... It might be that it's similar in form to the indigenous xinyao of the 80s.
On that note, I was wondering if perhaps something about the structure or sonic composition of new wave had similarities to music coming out of Asia in the 60s... Such that maybe Asian American kids were drawn to it because it subconsciously reminded them of music they may have heard their parents listen to when they were really young?
posted by destrius at 9:44 PM on January 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
I was a little bit too young for the new wave heyday but Commercial Breakup's Bizarre Love Triangle hit my little wannabe raver's heart even harder.
(Also the Even As We Speak version is great too albeit quite a different genre)
posted by wyndham at 3:00 AM on January 26, 2021
(Also the Even As We Speak version is great too albeit quite a different genre)
posted by wyndham at 3:00 AM on January 26, 2021
Frente's cover of BLT was so everywhere during my pre-teen years (early 90s) that I didn't know for YEARS that it was a cover. I still love that song, and Frente in general.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 4:44 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 4:44 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
An entire thread discussing the music that I listened to when I was in university in the early 1980s. (I'm a middle-aged Canadian.) Thank you, Metafilter!
The New Order members often mention in interviews that Joy Division fans hated New Order. Which they all found hilarious.
I was at a New Order concert in Toronto in 1981, shortly after New Order had emerged from the remnants of Joy Division. Everybody in the crowd was expecting New Order to be Joy Division II, and were somewhat surprised to hear disco music being played during intermissions.
New Order hadn't quite figured out their new sound yet, and the show was plagued by sound problems, so it was a disappointment to 21-year-old me.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 6:53 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
The New Order members often mention in interviews that Joy Division fans hated New Order. Which they all found hilarious.
I was at a New Order concert in Toronto in 1981, shortly after New Order had emerged from the remnants of Joy Division. Everybody in the crowd was expecting New Order to be Joy Division II, and were somewhat surprised to hear disco music being played during intermissions.
New Order hadn't quite figured out their new sound yet, and the show was plagued by sound problems, so it was a disappointment to 21-year-old me.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 6:53 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Hell, I didn't even know New Order existed until I got to college (1986) and I might have heard one or two Depeche Mode songs before that on the late night radio when they let the oddball DJ take over because no one was listening anyway.
Music was more siloed, but New Order and Depeche Mode had legit hits that were played on Top 40 radio. Depeche Mode's biggest album was from 1990, and Enjoy the Silence was a top 10. New Order performed well enough through the '80s that Regret got to #1 on the dance charts in the 1990s. You heard these songs on regular top 40 radio.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:49 AM on January 26, 2021
Music was more siloed, but New Order and Depeche Mode had legit hits that were played on Top 40 radio. Depeche Mode's biggest album was from 1990, and Enjoy the Silence was a top 10. New Order performed well enough through the '80s that Regret got to #1 on the dance charts in the 1990s. You heard these songs on regular top 40 radio.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:49 AM on January 26, 2021
My first thought was of the Chicano love for Morrissey and how much his music means to many in that culture. I grew up with New Wave in the 80s and thinking back to my Asian schoolmates I can think of many that identified with our scene and music than I can think of Asian heavy metal fans. If you are a New Order fan and want to see them live I recommend checking out Peter Hook & The Light when they are on tour. I've seen New Order three times in the past Decade and Peter Hook the same amount and the Peter Hook shows were my favorite. They tend to be in much smaller venues and are reminiscent of those early 80's New Wave shows.
posted by ShakeyJake at 8:57 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by ShakeyJake at 8:57 AM on January 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
Sorry if I missed it, but the thing about New Wave was the electronics. Synths, drum machines, sequencers. Who was making that stuff in the '80s/90s? Asia. The beauty of New Wave was it was one of the first styles a person could conceivably do alone. You don't need a guitar, nor a drum set, you don't need to know how to play and instrument. It was a clear break between the full live physical multi person multi instrument practice practice practice. That's the bonus part for live shows or whatnot and that's what the metal heads and rockers didn't like.
But yeah, 80s-90s are such youth, new music came from a weird friend into this band you've never heard of, or a fan of that band from that movie. It wasn't on the local radio anywhere. Maybe MTV if you catch the random time/show that it was there. I really found it in like '86 and only because I spent a summer in LA listening to The World Famous KROQ. But it took going back to LA for university in '87 to really start getting all into New Wave (and Techno) but really after New Wave there was lots of music styles that you could do 90% not having to learn any instrument and round up 5 other people to play live. You could produce music in your bedroom (if you could sing).
posted by zengargoyle at 10:20 PM on January 26, 2021
But yeah, 80s-90s are such youth, new music came from a weird friend into this band you've never heard of, or a fan of that band from that movie. It wasn't on the local radio anywhere. Maybe MTV if you catch the random time/show that it was there. I really found it in like '86 and only because I spent a summer in LA listening to The World Famous KROQ. But it took going back to LA for university in '87 to really start getting all into New Wave (and Techno) but really after New Wave there was lots of music styles that you could do 90% not having to learn any instrument and round up 5 other people to play live. You could produce music in your bedroom (if you could sing).
posted by zengargoyle at 10:20 PM on January 26, 2021
The beauty of New Wave was it was one of the first styles a person could conceivably do alone.
That is an odd point. First, solo artists with guitars go waaaaay back. (Bob Dylan, forgotten, hangs house head.)
But, acknowledging that, there is a certain return to minimalism in music that happens from time to time. And a corresponding long line of artists who realize a great new sounds by essentially just forgoing the 'reversion to the mean' that playing with a band might entail. So there's still an interesting point here.
But THAT said, it's interesting that none of the big 80s western synth pop bands were solo artists! The pet shop boys and the buggles come to mind as two groups that were basically entirely studio projects, but even they were duos. New Order became New Order by losing their auteur. Why is this? (And, most importantly, which solo 80s synth pop act am I forgetting?) Three possible reasons behind to mind... I think the tech probably still wasn't polished enough in the 80s to really allow a great solo sound. There's also still a decent amount of guitar in 80s synth pop, which can't really be automated. And finally, if you're going to be famous for having a goofy haircut, it helps to have three other people with the same goofy hair to make it look like a trend, instead of a mistake.
posted by kaibutsu at 11:49 PM on January 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
That is an odd point. First, solo artists with guitars go waaaaay back. (Bob Dylan, forgotten, hangs house head.)
But, acknowledging that, there is a certain return to minimalism in music that happens from time to time. And a corresponding long line of artists who realize a great new sounds by essentially just forgoing the 'reversion to the mean' that playing with a band might entail. So there's still an interesting point here.
But THAT said, it's interesting that none of the big 80s western synth pop bands were solo artists! The pet shop boys and the buggles come to mind as two groups that were basically entirely studio projects, but even they were duos. New Order became New Order by losing their auteur. Why is this? (And, most importantly, which solo 80s synth pop act am I forgetting?) Three possible reasons behind to mind... I think the tech probably still wasn't polished enough in the 80s to really allow a great solo sound. There's also still a decent amount of guitar in 80s synth pop, which can't really be automated. And finally, if you're going to be famous for having a goofy haircut, it helps to have three other people with the same goofy hair to make it look like a trend, instead of a mistake.
posted by kaibutsu at 11:49 PM on January 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
“ which solo 80s synth pop act am I forgetting?”
Howard Jones? Thomas Dolby? Which is to say, you’re not forgetting much. I guess you could make a case for Madonna as a solo artist whose music was synth-y, but that’s a pretty big tent.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:13 AM on January 27, 2021
Howard Jones? Thomas Dolby? Which is to say, you’re not forgetting much. I guess you could make a case for Madonna as a solo artist whose music was synth-y, but that’s a pretty big tent.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:13 AM on January 27, 2021
omg, I didn't even know this was a thing, but I was the only Asian-American in most of my social circles in middle- and high-school, and also the biggest (probably only) Erasure fan. Just like the author, one of my first two CDs was an Erasure album. Coincidence???
Also, spamandkimchi, I was once at a house party where Bizarre Love Triangle was on the playlist at least three or four times, to the dismay and bafflement of many guests.
posted by mbrubeck at 8:06 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Also, spamandkimchi, I was once at a house party where Bizarre Love Triangle was on the playlist at least three or four times, to the dismay and bafflement of many guests.
posted by mbrubeck at 8:06 AM on January 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by spamandkimchi at 1:24 PM on January 25, 2021 [14 favorites]