Talk:List of New Romantics

Article Scope
To solve the continuing problem of vandalism and edit warring to this list I've widened the scope to include all New Romantics. Archivey (talk) 21:52, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I can agree with that, but I don't think it will solve the problem of incorrect artists being added to it.79.66.36.72 (talk) 22:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Echo?
I really don't think that Echo belongs on this list. Their sound and attitude was never New Romantic, they came out of a different school, the Liverpool Neo-Psychedelia movement. I won't remove them myself, but I'd appreciate it if someone who's more wiki-professional would do it for me. Credentials: I'm a New Wave / Post Punk DJ. 128.138.64.29 (talk) 23:51, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You're totally right and I've removed it. Once again, some idiot is just putting every band who had a hit in the early 80s onto the list. 80.47.18.251 (talk) 21:46, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The Associates
could they be included?

also, this could work better as a category.

-86.151.233.194 (talk) 18:40, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Ridiculous rubbish as usual
This list is usually compiled or added to by people who have absolutely no comprehension of what New Romantics were. They continually confuse them with Synthpop bands of the early 1980s when they are not the same thing. This so-called article should be deleted. 88.104.18.248 (talk) 22:17, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I have to agree that this list confuses New Romantic with synthpop. Roughly half this list need to be removed elsewhere. I suggest it is limited to those that have reliable sources for New Romantic in their articles.--''' SabreBD  (talk ) 21:47, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Worthy effort but definitely should be improved
Unfortunately I'm old enough to remember this genre and I can assure you it was definitely a short-lived but valid genre of music. It may have been broadly put under the synthpop umbrella but had its own niche and most of the acts listed as New Romantic deserve to be here (they're vapid and vacuous enough to belong). That's probably the point really - you're looking for bands that were part of that vain, escapist attitude that was kicking back against the remnants of punk (or post-punk), ska etc. Many of the synthpop bands at that time could be regarded as post-punk and not necessarily anti-punk, while the New Romantics were a brazen attempt to either address social consciousness through irony, or - in most cases - not at all. I think that's why a very short list of notable bands joined the genre. Most of the bands at that time were probably appalled by these acts and certainly didn't want to follow suit. It's a weird genre that seemed to quickly gain notoriety with just a few bands, and only continue because of the commercial success of that short list of acts. Australian band Real Life definitely should be in there (they had a Billboard Top 50 hit in 1983 if I remember correctly). There will be more bands, but I guarantee most of them will be one hit wonders. If you want to beef up the list of acts, I'd definitely do some research into single chart successes at the time in Europe and the U.S. Australia will definitely have a couple as well. Jeefunk (talk) 14:14, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It was not a musical genre, it was a fashion movement. Bands who were labelled as "New Romantics" wore make-up and flamboyant clothing that was based on costumes from the European romantic period of the 19th century (which is where the movement got its name). While many of these bands made electronic "Synthpop" music, not all of them did (Boy George/Culture Club for example sounded nothing like Visage). The problem with this list is that is most of the acts on here are not verifiable and are put on here purely because of the (often incorrect) opinions of individual editors. 88.104.26.91 (talk) 11:27, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Queries about the Human League and the Culture Club which are relevant to this article
Were The Human League really a New Romantic group? I always thought that were electronic pop music, along with groups such as Ultravox, Landscape, Orchestral_Manoeuvres_in_the_Dark, Kraftwerk or Tubeway Army. Also, if Boy George is on this list, should we not put Culture Club on this list? Culture_Club were the pop group of which Boy George (real name George O'Dowd) was lead singer, and I would have thought that it if it was OK to put Boy George on the list, it would be OK to put his pop group on this list. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:49, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
 * No, The Human League weren't, and have actually stated this in interviews. Boy George was a New Romantic when he worked at The Blitz club (which is more or less where the movement started), but this was prior to Culture Club. By the time Culture Club were around, Boy George had a different look altogether that seemed more ethnic than New Romantic. 88.104.30.102 (talk) 21:03, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

ABC
ABC were not New Romantics. They never dressed as New Romantics, never wore make-up, and Martin Fry has always stated that they were never New Romantics. In this interview he states this quite clearly. The term "New Romantic" was often misused by the press to tag any early 80s band that used synthesizers (a problem that is even more apparent now), but this is not what the term means. Unless a band actually clearly self-identifies as New Romantics, we shouldn't be including them in this article as we are just propagating this misconception. 88.104.18.169 (talk) 00:55, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

+ Yes and No. This is a ludicrously inadequate and partly wrong list, and would be better deleted. As a list it refers to the NR article which is essentially about music though the NR movement was driven first by fashion and then by pop, one of those major idiosyncrasies associated with British youth culture. A crossref to the Blitz Kids list of names in its own article would suffice. Having said which: post-glam Japan indisputably presaged the whole NR movement in terms of music and fashion, yet they would most certainly have denied being a "New Romantic band". Just as Adam Ant always insisted his band were glam-rock rather than NR (mentioned here in text), Martin Fry is also on record expressing gratitude that his success with ABC was propelled by the association fans made with NR as “a product of the times” (my addition of this quote to this article was rejected long ago by some obviously far wiser American hand!). Any self-respecting encyclopedia entry should have the confidence to state that Spandau Ballet were without doubt "the first NR band", as the house band for the Blitz club, font of the whole phenomenon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.155.200.241 (talk) 00:57, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

poor sources (June 2021)
The New Romantic scene was a fashion phenomenon that started in London nightclubs in the late 1970s. It is not a musical genre. Please do not confuse it with Synthpop.

Wikipedia has determined that "AllMusic" is not a reliable source for genres because the genres tags are often generated elsewhere. See WP:WikiProject_Albums/Sources

The "AV Club" article is about UK Synthpop, not the New Romantic scene. It does mention (briefly) how some artists such as Japan were "lumped in" with New Romantics even though they were never a part of that scene. The band themselves reiterated this time and again (read the New Romantics article for clarification).

The "Treble" article is a list of albums that its author felt (rightly or wrongly) were related to the New Romantic movement. But its list even clearly states that Bowie was not a New Romantic. Of the ten albums chosen, only two of them were actually by bands associated with the New Romantic scene (Visage and Duran). It's an opinion from an article written by an American that is almost a decade old from an online magazine that is not even notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article. It's the very definition of "amateur".

Kookoo Star (talk) 00:50, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

David Bowie and A Flock of Seagulls
Is there a reason why David Bowie isn't on here given the article on New Romantics even credits him with it have a huge influence on it? Similarly, A Flock of Seagulls should be here too given it's in the original article too, yes? Frank0051 (talk) 17:51, 11 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Being an influence on something does not necessarily make you a part of it. 90.241.149.44 (talk) 07:57, 19 February 2023 (UTC)