New Wave is an inexact term for a musical genre that originated in 1976. The term started as applying to punk rock music, but soon moved to define a different crop of artists that those associated with punk. During the 1980s in the United States New Wave became a catch-all term that applied to new British-style music acts in general and synthpop acts in particular.

New Wave took a start from punk bands but emerged as a movement in its own right by 1979, incorporating aspects of mod subculture, electronic music, disco, and funk. The 1990s and 2000s have seen revivals, and a number of acts that have been influenced by a variety of New Wave styles. The term New Wave itself has been a source of much confusion and controversy.

It was introduced in 1976 in Great Britain by Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren as an alternative label for what was also being called "punk". The term referenced the avant-garde French New Wave film movement of the 1960s. The label was soon picked up by British punk fanzines such as Sniffin' Glue and then the professional music press.

For a period of time in 1976 and 1977 the two terms were interchangeable. By the end of 1977, "New Wave" had replaced "Punk" as the definition for new underground music in the United Kingdom. In the United States, Sire Records needed a term by which it could market its newly signed bands, who had frequently played the club CBGB.

Because radio consultants in the United States had advised their clients that punk rock was a fad (and because many stations that had embraced disco had been hurt by the backlash), they settled on the term "New Wave". Like those film makers, its new artists, such as The Ramones and Talking Heads, were anti-corporate and experimental. At first most American writers exclusively used the term "New Wave" to describe British Punk acts.

Starting in December 1976 The New York Rocker, which was suspicious of the term "Punk" became the first American journal to enthusiastically use the term starting with British acts, and later appropriating it to acts associated with the CBGB scene.

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