New Wave Image is Everything

While punk often receives more scholarly attention, new wave marks an even more important turning point in music history, one that continues to resonate in popular culture today. New Wave: Image is Everything traces the evolution of this often neglected pop genre by focusing on an eclectic collection of artists from Elvis Costello to Cyndi Lauper, Devo to Duran Duran. In addition, it explores a number of important historical moments, such as MTV's first broadcast, and how these moments helped to shape our world. The book also argues that new wave was among the first flowerings of postmodern theory in popular culture, and in doing so it not only provides a history of new wave, but also helps explain the basic principles of postmodernism by putting them in easy to understand terms.

M. King Adkins works primarily in the fields of postmodernism and popular culture. During a postdoctoral fellowship at Georgia Tech, he began seeking ways to connect these research areas to STEM education. Currently he serves as Assistant Professor of Humanities at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota.

1. An Introduction

2. New Wave's Rise in the UK
3. New Wave's Rise in the US
4. Making the Image Everything
5. Pure Images
6. The Return of Meaning
Bibliography
Discography