Roztrhej to a začni znovu - Postpunk 1978-1984 – Reynolds Simon (2021)

The book explores the wild adventurous music created after punk. Renowned music journalist Simon Reynolds celebrates the futuristic spirit of Joy Division, Gang of Four, Talking Heads, Devo, and other bands, which led to endless innovations in music, lyrics, performances, and style, continuing into the early eighties with video – for example, the clever synth pop of Human League, Depeche Mode, and Soft Cell, whose success coincided with the rise of MTV. A common thread throughout the book is the theme of continuity from the already silenced punk explosion at that time. However, it is not so much about the legacy of punk as a musical style; much more important is its established ethos, the effort to escape the traps of the established music business with a DIY approach – musically, it was more about where to go after the punk era. At one point, we considered replacing the term post-punk with the term new wave, which is more familiar to Czech contemporaries. It is true that this phrase was used for a long time here, and the term post-punk took hold later than elsewhere. However, we soon encountered two significant buts. Firstly, it is hard to classify industrial bands or, for example, the Residents or Birthday Party as new wave. And what about the New York bands that used the term no wave against new…