New Wave Pop
New wave pop is a label from Spotify's genre system for the pop-leaning, chart-friendly side of new wave music of the late 1970s and 1980s.
New wave itself is a real genre: the lighter, more melodic music that branched off from punk in the mid to late 1970s in the United States and Britain, and that took in styles such as synth-pop and power pop. It peaked commercially from the late 1970s to the mid 1980s, helped by the launch of MTV in 1981. As the name says, the label points to the pop end of that movement.
- Family
- Pop
- On Spotify
- No longer returned by Spotify’s API
- What it is
- A label Spotify coined
- From
- United Kingdom and United States, late 1970s
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 9%
About 7,500 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have new wave pop among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
New Wave Pop artists
George Michael
Tears For Fears
The Sundays
Duran Duran
The Cardigans
Kate Bush
New Order
Blondie
Billy Idol
Wham!
The new wave pop artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources.