Andrew Ford dives into Dylan Jones’s book, Sweet Dreams: The Story of the New Romantics to unpack the question, who exactly were the New Romantics? Ford suggests that it is often easier to say what the movement was not, however at the same time it often borrowed from these various genres. For example, the New Romantics was not punk, but definitely borrowed the posing part:
The clothes might have been brighter, cleaner and less torn, the pose more a sulk than a sneer, but New Romanticism was as much an attitude as punk ever was.
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In many respects, the catalyst for the new romantics were Roxy Music and David Bowie.
Peter York, one of Jones’s talking heads, says of Roxy Music’s “Virginia Plain” that Ferry’s voice was “the natural antithesis of Joe Cocker.” Here was “a singer whose whole approach said, ‘I’m not singing, I’m being a singer.’”
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Ford also spoke with Jones about the book on The Music Show:
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