Permanent Wave
Permanent wave is a Spotify-coined label for music that was new wave when it first came out and that people are still playing decades later.
Glenn McDonald, the data analyst who built Spotify's genre system, made up the name. He has explained it as his term for records that counted as new wave when they were new and still have listeners 30 or 40 years on. The name plays on new wave: a wave that turned out to be permanent. In practice it sits on top of new wave itself, and nobody outside Spotify's genre system uses the name.
- Family
- Alternative & Indie
- On Spotify
- No longer returned by Spotify’s API
- What it is
- A label Spotify coined
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 43%
About 36,000 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have permanent wave among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Permanent Wave artists
Radiohead
Arctic Monkeys
The Smiths
Nirvana
Coldplay
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Green Day
Oasis
Weezer
The Strokes
The permanent wave artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.