The poster who said New Wave was in fact and extremely narrow music genre which at it s earliest began around 1979 and at the latest pretty much fizzled top a close by 1986 is simply wrong The term was used 1977 1980 in the UK where the term was coined It was not in use in to the mid 80s at all In America new wave was used well into the 80s to describe anything and everything from UK synth pop Aussie rock like Men at Work and goth rock like Siouxsie the Banshees In other words the US definition is almost meaningless as it s usage was so wide and indiscriminate