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A music and fashion scene which became popular with young people in England in the late 1970s and early 1980s, New Romanticism was all about taking the style and ethos of [[Punk Rock]] [[Up to Eleven|one step further]]. Flamboyance and androgyny were the order of the day as New Romantic club-goers sought to recapture the original excitement and vibrancy of the early punk scene, which some fans believed had grown stagnant and too political after the breakup of the [[Sex Pistols]].
 
The New Romantic was mainly associated with then-popular [[New Wave (Music)|New Wave]] music. While everyone was influenced by punk, many performers who fit the New Romantic label were also influenced heavily by [[Disco]], [[Soul (Music)|Soul]], [[Funk]], [[Synth Pop]] and the simple music and extravagant image of early seventies [[Glam Rock|glam rockers]] like [[Mott the Hoople (Music)|Mott the Hoople]] and [[David Bowie]], as well as the art rock exemplified by [[Roxy Music]] and Bowie's hugely popular Berlin Trilogy. Furthermore, while many punks shunned new technology and recording techniques, New Romantic bands were almost certain to have a keyboard players and often experimented with what could be done on synths. The first band to be described as New Romantics in the music press was [[Spandau Ballet]], whose high energy synth-funk tune "To Cut A Long Story Short" was also the first New Romantic song to become a significant hit when it reached number five in the UK charts. Expensive concept videos soon became the thing most people remember about a lot of these groups and allowed them to export their sound to America through the new MTV channel.
 
The main site of the New Romantic scene was the Blitz club in London, where club owner and doorman [[Meaningful Name|Steve Strange]] ruled with an iron fist. He became noted for refusing entry to any potential patron he believed was not dressed extravagantly enough to suit his standards. Boy George worked here as a cloakroom attendant before he joined [[Culture Club]], although he was eventually sacked by Strange for stealing from patrons.
 
The movement had mostly gone out of style in 1985, by which point many of the original groups had split up or distanced themselves from the New Romantic label. Live Aid turned out to be the movement's peak, after which everyone seemed to burn out; [[Culture Club]] broke up, [[Spandau Ballet]] released a mediocre [[Arena Rock|AOR]] album, [[Duran Duran]] went on hiatus for a year before putting out a string of [[Love It or Hate It]] records. After 1986, music fans were more interested in the likes of [[Prince]], [[Wham!]] and [[Frankie Goes to Hollywood (Music)|Frankie Goes to Hollywood]]. While there was a brief revival in the form of the "Romo" scene, with some groups like Mansun becoming successful, the chances of a serious revival remain highly remote.
 
Bands active in the New Romantic scene included:
 
* [[ABC (Musicband)|ABC]]
* [[Adam And The Ants]]: Probably closer to glam punk, but their look and their style matched the scene.
* [[A Flock of Seagulls]]
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=== Tropes ===
* [[A Good Name for Aa Rock Band]]: Bands took their names from a variety of unusual sources. [[Duran Duran]], for example, took theirs from Professor Durand Durand from [[Barbarella]].
* [[Ambiguous Gender]]: For some people, this was the whole point of the flamboyant costumes.
* [[Anything That Moves]]: Not really the case, but some members didn't do much to dissuade the notion.
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