New wave, the genre of music that saw punk attitude collide with pop's commercial instincts, became a phenomenon in both the U.S. and the U.K. in the aftermath of the punk explosion of the mid-1970s.

New wave was the music movement that merged edgy rock and raucous punk with a synth-driven adhesive, uniting all the best elements of the decades that came before into a buoyant, edgy sound. Late ...