New York City in the late 1970s was a literal disaster zone. Landlords were burning down tenements for insurance money in the Bronx, the subways looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic fever dream, and the city was basically broke. But in the middle of that decay, something happened that still makes most music critics sweat when they try to describe it. It wasn't punk. It wasn't jazz. It was the No New York album, a record that basically exists to punch your ears in the face and then refuse to apologize for it.
If you’ve ever wondered where the "weird" in indie rock comes from, this is the ground zero.
Honestly, calling it an "album" feels a bit like calling a riot a "meeting." Released in 1978, it was a compilation curated by Brian Eno—yes, the Roxy Music guy who did the Windows startup sound—featuring four bands that nobody outside of a few tiny clubs on the Lower East Side had ever heard of. Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Mars, and DNA. These weren't musicians in the traditional sense. They were more like performance artists who happened to have instruments.
It’s loud. It’s dissonant. It’s No Wave.
Why the No New York Album Was a Middle Finger to CBGB
By 1978, the "first wave" of punk was already getting a bit predictable. The Ramones were playing three-chord pop songs at 200 mph, and Blondie was getting ready to go mainstream. To the kids living in rat-infested lofts on the Bowery, that was boring. They wanted something that reflected the actual chaos of their lives.
Enter the No New York album.
Brian Eno had been hanging out at Artists Space for a five-night underground festival. He was so floored by the sheer abrasive energy of these bands that he decided to document them. But there was a catch. He only picked four bands. This caused a massive rift in the scene because plenty of other groups—like Theoretical Girls or Glenn Branca’s early projects—felt left out. The record essentially "curated" a scene that was much larger and messier than a single vinyl LP could hold.
The sound of the record is claustrophobic. It’s thin. It’s scratchy. There is almost no bass on some of these tracks, and the guitars sound like they’re being played with razor blades instead of picks. If you listen to James Chance (of the Contortions) on the opening tracks, he’s screaming and playing a saxophone that sounds like a dying bird. It’s funky, but it’s a "broken" funk. It’s music for people who hate music.
The Four Pillars of Dissonance
You have to look at the bands individually to get why this record still gets mentioned in the same breath as masterpieces like Pet Sounds, even though they sound nothing alike.
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The Contortions were the "pop" stars of the group, which is hilarious if you actually hear them. James Chance was notorious for jumping into the audience and picking actual fistfights with people. On the No New York album, their tracks like "Dishonor" use these jerky, disco-adjacent rhythms that make you want to dance while simultaneously making you feel like you’re having a panic attack.
Then there’s Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. This was Lydia Lunch’s vehicle. She was barely 19. Her philosophy was basically that a song shouldn’t last longer than 30 seconds if it didn’t have to. Most of her tracks on the record are brief explosions of screeching slide guitar. She didn't want to learn chords. She thought chords were "middle class."
Mars was even weirder. They didn’t even sound like they were playing the same song at the same time. Their contribution to the record, like "Helen Fordsdale," is a murky, distorted soup of sound. It’s incredibly influential on later bands like Sonic Youth, who took that "tuneless" guitar approach and turned it into a career.
Finally, you have DNA. Arto Lindsay, the frontman, played a 12-string guitar that he never tuned. He just hit it. But there was a precision to it. DNA was about the gaps between the notes. It was skeletal.
The Brian Eno Factor: Genius or Saboteur?
There is a long-standing debate among No Wave purists about whether Eno "ruined" the sound of these bands. See, Eno is a producer who loves "space" and "ambience." No Wave was about "noise" and "clutter."
Some people, like critic Byron Coley, have argued that the No New York album is too clean. They think Eno polished the dirt off a scene that needed to stay dirty. But on the flip side, if Eno hadn't put his name on it, would we even be talking about DNA or Mars today? Probably not. He gave a bunch of nihilistic art students a platform on Antilles Records, a subsidiary of Island.
He didn't make them sound "good" in a commercial sense. He just made them sound audible.
The production on the record is actually quite dry. There isn't much reverb. It feels like you are standing in a small concrete room with a band that is actively trying to hurt your feelings. That’s the magic of it. It’s an honest document of a specific time in Manhattan when you could rent a massive loft for $200 because the city was a "war zone."
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How the No New York Album Influenced Everything You Hear Today
You might think, "Okay, this sounds like a bunch of noise, who cares?"
Well, David Bowie cared. He was obsessed with this record. He even recruited some of these guys to play on his later albums. Sonic Youth built their entire early aesthetic on the foundation laid by the No New York album. You can hear it in the dissonant tunings and the "un-rock" approach to the drums.
But it goes further than just rock. The whole "Post-Punk" movement in the UK—bands like The Pop Group or Gang of Four—were looking at what was happening in New York and realizing they didn't have to follow the rules of the blues.
- Industrial Music: The harsh, mechanical sounds on the record paved the way for groups like Nine Inch Nails.
- Art Rock: Any band that uses "skronk" sax or non-musical sounds owes a debt to James Chance.
- Modern Indie: The idea that "vibe" is more important than "technical skill" started right here.
Without this record, the 80s and 90s would have been a lot more boring. It gave musicians permission to be "unskilled" as long as they were "interesting."
The Misconception of "Anti-Music"
People often call No Wave "anti-music." That’s a bit of a lazy take.
If you listen closely to DNA’s "Egomaniac" or the Contortions’ "Flip Your Face," there is a massive amount of rhythmic complexity. These people weren't just banging on pots and pans. They were stripping music down to its most basic elements—rhythm and friction—and throwing away the "pretty" parts like melody and harmony. It wasn't that they couldn't play; it's that they chose not to play "correctly."
Lydia Lunch famously said she didn't want to learn how to play guitar because she didn't want to be "polluted" by other people's ideas of how music should sound. That is a radically pure way to look at art. It’s terrifying, but it’s pure.
Looking for the No New York Album Today
Finding an original 1978 pressing of the No New York album on vinyl is going to cost you a small fortune. It’s one of those "holy grail" records for collectors. Thankfully, it’s been reissued several times, most notably by Lilith and later on digital platforms.
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But here’s the thing: you shouldn't listen to it on high-end headphones while sipping lattes. This is "walking through a crowded, dirty street" music. It’s "staring at a blank wall in a dark room" music.
The record is short—only about 34 minutes long. But those 34 minutes are denser than most bands' entire discographies. It leaves you feeling a bit drained, maybe a little annoyed, but definitely different than you felt before you pressed play.
What happened to the bands?
The scene didn't last long. By 1980, most of these bands had broken up or evolved into something else.
James Chance went into more "No Wave Disco" with James White and the Blacks. Lydia Lunch became a spoken-word icon and a queen of the underground. Arto Lindsay of DNA eventually moved toward Brazilian pop music, which is a wild jump from the screeching guitars of 1978.
The scene burned out because you can only maintain that level of aggression for so long before you either go crazy or get bored. But the No New York album remains the perfect time capsule of that explosion.
Practical Steps for the Curious Listener
If you’re ready to dive into this mess, don't just jump into the middle.
- Start with The Contortions. They have the most "groove," so it’s a good gateway.
- Read "No Wave" by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley. It’s a great book that gives the visual context of the scene—the fashion, the clubs, the flyers.
- Watch "Blank City." It’s a documentary about this era of New York filmmaking and music. Seeing the grainy 16mm footage of these bands makes the music make way more sense.
- Listen to the "No New York" album in full. Don't skip tracks. Let the dissonance build. It’s designed to be an experience, not a collection of singles.
- Check out the "missing" bands. Once you've finished the album, look up Glenn Branca or Mars' other work to see what Eno left out.
The No New York album isn't "easy" listening. It’s "essential" listening. It’s a reminder that art doesn't have to be pretty to be important, and sometimes, the best way to create something new is to set everything that came before it on fire. Grab a copy, turn it up way too loud, and wait for the neighbors to complain. That’s exactly how the bands would have wanted it.