{"id":911050,"date":"2026-07-04T01:53:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T01:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/911050\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T01:53:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T01:53:19","slug":"3-english-new-wave-acts-you-didnt-know-youve-heard-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/911050\/","title":{"rendered":"3 English New Wave Acts You Didn\u2019t Know You\u2019ve Heard Before"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the late 70s and early 80s, new wave acts from England boldly redefined\u00a0the definition of\u00a0mainstream music. Here are three bands you likely know for a specific song, even though their\u00a0name doesn\u2019t\u00a0necessarily come to mind.<\/p>\n

The Buggles<\/p>\n

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You might not think you know The Buggles<\/a>, but you\u2019ve definitely heard their song \u201cVideo Killed The Radio Star\u201d a time or two. Fun fact: the music video for the song poetically ended up being the first video MTV ever showed. Martha Quinn, who was an original MTV video jockey back in the day, discussed the legacy that this video left.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tVideos by American Songwriter\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026They had no idea that their song was going to launch a generation,\u201d she explained in an interview<\/a>. \u201cThey had no idea, so it\u2019s just really funny how you know that freight train of fate affects people and how you know, Jeff Downs and Trevor Horn [Buggles members] will never, you know, outlive The Buggles. Of all the things that they\u2019ve done you know The Buggles is with them forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Flock of Seagulls<\/p>\n

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A Flock of Seagulls might not ring a bell, but there\u2019s a chance you\u2019re familiar with their song \u201cI Ran (So Far Away)\u201d. The video for this song was also on heavy rotation on MTV during this time.<\/p>\n

Band member Mike Score told\u00a0MTV Ruled the World: The Early Years of Music Video<\/a>:\u00a0\u201c\u2026Videos were not the \u2018mini-movies\u2019 yet. If it\u00a0was\u00a0up to the band, we probably would have just stood there in our wild gear and gone, \u2018OK, we\u2019ll just pretend to play.\u2019 But they wanted a little bit more, a little bit more angular and quirky. It seems to me that all the early videos had to be quirky. I guess nobody was taking them seriously until somebody dropped a million dollars on one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Modern English<\/p>\n

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Modern English has produced several fun hits, including \u00a0\u201cI Melt with You\u201d and \u201cHands Across the Sea\u201d, but the one you\u2019re likely familiar with is \u201cI Melt With You\u201d.\u00a0This\u00a0is the song that really started to make an impact on Modern English\u2019s career, as vocalist Robbie Grey explained in Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone picked up an import from England and started playing it on mainstream radio in America,\u201d he shared. \u201cAnd it just went like wildfire. We used to play to 200 people in\u00a0art college; the next thing we knew, we were in\u00a0Daytona Beach\u00a0playing to 5,000 people who knew all the words [to the song].\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo by: Gilbert TOURTE\/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the late 70s and early 80s, new wave acts from England boldly redefined\u00a0the definition of\u00a0mainstream music. Here…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":911051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,975,42099,4006,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-911050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-wave","tag-pop-music","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116859216240645135","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}