And Then There Was New Wave

Our faithful guest blogger Richard says: 

There are already a hundred and one compilation CDs featuring Belgian New Wave from the 1980s, so why another one? To answer that, let me take you back to the beginning of this year, when I saw the two episodes of the En Toen Was Er New Wave (And Then There Was New Wave) special on TV. It was a special I happened to turn on by chance. I couldn’t record it anymore, but I could watch it on demand. Great—pen in hand, I jotted everything down.

What struck me was that all the songs were mixed together seamlessly. It gave the program a sense of unity; it felt very natural. A funny paradox of electronic and synthetic versus organic. Song 1 info → Song 1 mix → Song 2 info → Song 2 mix → Song 3, and so on.

The compiler was Kristof Michiels, a well-known Belgian DJ. The clever part was that he only used songs that already had a video or a lip-sync performance on a music show. What surprised me was that he was able to find about sixty songs from those ten years that were both New Wave and fit within the two concepts. Broadly speaking, those are Electro and Rock, although you shouldn’t take that too strictly.

In addition to those two shows, a triple album was also released, for which Kristof used only a few tracks from those two shows.

I copied the music from those two shows track by track. If you’d like, you can make a similar mix yourself (+8%, for more oomph)

The music? Lots of familiar names—well, they were all well-known from radio and TV back then.

Luc van Acker, Front 242, Klinik, The Weathermen, The Neon Judgement, Poesie Noir, A Split Second, and Snowy Red make up the so-called “cold wave,” while Nacht Und Nebel, 2 Belgen, Lavvi Ebbl, The Names, Luna Twist Kuruki, and Allez Allez bring a bit more lightheartedness.

Besides, no Belgian ’80s compilation is complete without TC Matic. Perhaps the band that has meant the most for raising awareness of Belgian music.

Finally, I’d like to highlight De Brassers. A maligned band from the village of Hamont. A group that transformed the negativity of the early ’80s into astonishing music.

Enjoy!