In July 2019, I posted a page titled “The church of weird and wonderful”, about the British subculture of the New Romantics, born in late 70’s and not strictly about music, but fundamental in influencing synth pop and new wave, two prominent genres for the dance music of the 80’s. I report a short summary of the cited page: “The authentic, original New Romantics were 4 or 5 hundreds of young Londoners, defined by experts as “misfit kids”, and “talented rebels”. They chiefly were student fashion designers, frequenting two art colleges near the mythic Blitz Club in Covent Garden, the St. Martin’s School, and the Central School. The New Romantic people also was a post-punk generation, bored with nihilism, voyeur, and made of night owls. … The New Romantic dancing nights were held every Tuesday, and took only place at two venues in London: Billy’s Club, downstairs at the historic private club named the Gargoyle, address 69 Dean Street; and the Blitz Club in Covent Garden. The distance between the two old venues was about 1 km. The dancing Tuesdays started in late 1978 at the Billy’s, and in 1979 at the Blitz Club; the two initiatives respectively ended in 1982, and in 1981. The promoters were two musicians, Steve Strange of the Visage, and the drummer Rusty Egan, who became the DJ of the Blitz Club. As it seems, at the Billy’s Club, the DJ was an unknown “local girl””. Well, I have decided to update the page, and to focalize my attention towards the music of the Blitz Club, that still has a lot of fans.
First, I want to propose a short definition of the essence of Romanticism, that historically had its peak approximately from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism consists of an individualist reaction against Illuminism and other rationalist philosophies. The term comes from Romance language, intended as a prevalence of vernacular language over formal Latin. Every system of thought, prevalently based on rational faculties, inevitably leads towards massification, and the rule of technologies over humanism. Differently, Romantic minds valorize emotion as a source of beauty and ethics, passion and intuition as the vehicles of freedom of expression, the inspirational force of traditional values, and conformity to nature as the best link to well-being. Heroism and sublime are seen as the favorable consequences of following the described philosophy. Of course, New Romantics are modern appliers of the philosophy itself. For instance, a certain hostility towards artificial intelligence might be rooted inside new forms of Romanticism. On the other hand, the fascination of mystery and supernatural comes from the protagonism of emotion and intuition.
Second, after the definition of the essence of Romanticism, I’d like to say how much of it there’s into New Romantics movements, comprehensive of the British New Romantics, and of other New Romantics of today. Honestly, I consider the cited new movements more elastic, and more superficial. With other words, not all the elements of the essence of Romanticism are present. In effect, the New Romantics of the dancing nights at the Blitz Club showed some contradictions, such as musical tastes similar to the ones of the legendary radio DJ Mr. John Peel. More precisely, love for synthetic and electric sounds, and great admiration for the electronic music imported from Germany. The mix of the page is a practical demonstration of the conclusion of the above, a mixture of weird individualism and technologic tunes.
File name “a Blitz Club shaped by DJ John Peel, by Max Look DJ (Nov 2025)”, about 1 hour and 21’ of the top tunes of the legendary Blitz Club, London, loved by a small crowd of New Romantics. Maybe, I’ve mixed too much, but my intention was chiefly to insert some more tracks.
The musical tastes of DJ John Peel emerge from the playlist:
Intro: A Clockwork Orange theme (1972)
The The – giant (1983)
Riechmann – wunderbar (1978)
David Bowie – D.J. (1979)
Yello – I.T. splash (1980)
Lou Reed – vicious (1972)
Marianne Faithfull – broken English 12” (1979)
Roxy Music – both ends burning (1975)
Simple Minds – I travel 12” (1980)
Lori & the Chameleons – touch (1979)
Tubeway Army – me! I disconnect from you (1979)
Human League – empire state human (1979)
Pete Shelley – homosapien (1981)
La Dusseldorf – Geld (1978)
Nina Hagen – TV-Glotzer (white punks on dope) (1982)
Magazine – definitive gaze (1978)
Space – tender force 12” (1981)
Vice Versa – new girls/neutrons (1980)
Mathematiques Modernes – disco rough (1980)
Brian Eno – king’s lead hat (1977)
