Albania

While this Scottish group could accurately be called new wave, the kind of new wave they played would have probably happened even if punk had never existed. They favored danceable, lightly funky tunes with arch, eccentric lyrics. The presence of a saxophone in the lineup made it all the more easy to draw comparisons with some of Roxy Music's material; the electro-blip of some of the rhythms were akin to some of David Bowie's work in the latter part of the '70s; and the clipped vocal delivery sounded David Byrne-influenced. But, frankly, Albania weren't nearly as interesting as any of the artists mentioned above. They produced one album and a few singles for the Chiswick label in the early '80s, and did a dance single for Stiff in 1982 before calling it a day.