Wire Train: ...In A Chamber; Wang Chung: Points On A Curve; China Crisis: Working With Fire And Steel

IT WASN'T too long ago that new wave partisans like myself (and most likely you, too) were sneering at mainstream rock for being predictable, un-threatening and nearly comatose — everything that the music we loved wasn't. Then, when the "new music explosion" shook up corporate hegemony throughout the record industry, it looked as if we had won. Yet turn on the radio today and what you'll hear remains as predictable, unthreatening and comatose as what we railed against before — except that these days, the status quo is being upheld by "new wave" acts instead of the old roster of dinosaurs.