Remember the first time you saw Duran Duran’s X-rated “Girls On Film” video? Painted a white stripe across your face like Adam Ant in “Kings of the Wild Frontier”? Cried when they played “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” at graduation? Sang along to “Come On Eileen,” even though you couldn’t make out any of the words apart from the chorus?
This was the New Wave era. New Wave was the defining music movement of the 1980s, encompassing everything from synth pop, new romantic, and goth, to industrial, electronic, and alternative rock.
It began as the brainchild of a bunch of British punks who hated guitars but who were enamored of David Bowie, disco, and the German electronic group Kraftwerk. It exploded all over America with the help of MTV, and lives on via radio, karaoke bars, and remains an influence on today’s hit makers.
Now Weehawken author Lori Majewski and her co-author Jonathan Bernstein have written an authoritative volume on the colorful and popular music that defined a generation. “Mad World” was published in April by Abrams Image.
From the artists themselves
The book is an oral history that celebrates the era through all-new interviews with 35 of the most notable artists of the period, alongside a parade of vintage photographs. The stars of the decade discuss their breakthrough songs, as well as their histories and place in the scene, ultimately painting a vivid picture of this exciting, genre-bending, idiosyncratic time.
Some of the inside stories in “Mad World” include the near-death experience that inspired Gary Numan’s song “Cars”; the classic novel and pop-star crush behind Spandau Ballet’s “True”;
Morrissey’s belief that the other Smiths were embarrassed by his lyrics for “How Soon is Now?”; how Modern English romanticized death by nuclear holocaust in “I Melt With You”;
why Bow Wow Wow’s teenage singer, Annabella Lwin, was fired after “I Want Candy”; and why DJs thought Devo were singing about masturbation in “Whip It.”
Participants include Duran Duran, New Order, Tears for Fears, Adam and the Ants, Depeche Mode, INXS, Howard Jones, Simple Minds, Soft Cell, A-ha, Berlin, Psychedelic Furs, Joy Division, ABC, Echo and the Bunnymen, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, The Waitresses, and more.
Mixtape suggestions and fashion sidebars help fill out the book.
About the authors
A veteran magazine editor and writer, Lori Majewski was a cofounder and editor in chief of Teen People, and an executive editor of Entertainment Weekly and Us Weekly. She has contributed to The Guardian, Women’s Health, Rollingstone.com, and more. Early in her career she was a correspondent for the Hudson Reporter newspapers.
“As I said to the students being inducted into the National Honor Society last month,” Majewski said, “you have to have a dream, and you need to seek out people who can help you make it come true.”
She credited her high school journalism teacher, Anthony Colasurdo –now the principal of Daniel Webster grammar school – as the first person who believed in her as a writer and as a journalist.
“I will always be grateful to him for encouraging me to follow my dream and putting me on the path.”
Jonathan Bernstein is the author of, among other titles, “Pretty in Pink: The Golden Age of Eighties Teenage Movies.” He has contributed to the Guardian, Spin, Rolling Stone, and the Face and is also a screenwriter of the feature films “Just My Luck,” The Spy Next Door,” “Max Keeble’s Big Move,” and “Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector.”
The book also includes a foreword by Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran and an afterword by Moby.
Local recognition
Majewski was recently inducted into the Weehawken Academic Hall of Fame.
“I feel so honored to be recognized by my hometown, first with the Academic Hall of Fame induction and, just recently, with an event at the library for my book,” she said. It brought back fond memories of childhood library activities.
“I grew up here, and I still live here. Why live anywhere else?” Living minutes outside of Manhattan meant she could pop across the river after school to wait outside hotels to meet her favorite musicians: Duran Duran, U2, Depeche Mode. By the time she was in college she was interviewing a lot of them.”
There have been favorable stories and mentions about “Mad World” in People, Us Weekly, Rolling Stone, USA Today, among others. The book was already in its third printing by its third day on sale. One of the best-selling music titles of the last year, “Mad World” was selected by Amazon as one of the site’s Best Books of 2014.