the.com/new wave

means A late-1970s/1980s music genre that took punk's energy and ran it through synthesizers, pop hooks, and art-school irony instead of three power chords.

from The term itself is borrowed — cinema critics used 'nouvelle vague' (French for 'new wave') to describe the French New Wave filmmakers of the late 1950s/60s who broke from tradition. Music writers and record labels recycled the phrase around 1976-77 as a tidier, radio-friendlier label for punk-adjacent bands who were too melodic or synth-happy to call 'punk' outright. It was partly a marketing move: labels wanted a name that wouldn't scare off mainstream radio the way 'punk' did.