New wave can be called the most distinctive style of 1980s music. It was developed in the end of 1970s as an alternative style of punk and pop. With the help of MTV, it became one of the mainstream style in the early 1980s, before quietly died down in the late 1980s. Although the era of new wave was rather short, there were so much of music produced during the period.

The variety of sound was so much, So much that it is impossible to summerise them into a single CD. Hip-O Records tried to grab the whole story with the latest release in their Gold series. This 2-CD collection contained many outstanding new wave stables from the whole era including M's "Pop Muzik", the Vapors' "Turning Japanese ", Toni Basil's "Mickey", Nena's "99 Luftballons", and Men Without Hats' "The Safety Dance". Not only the big hits, this collection also contained several good gems such as Ian Dury & the Blockheads' "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick", Passions' "I'm in Love with a German Film Star", and Altered Images' "I Could Be Happy". Although it is understandable that some big hits were missing because the producer did not want to put dubplicate songs in their series (since many of new wave big hits already showed up on 'Gold: '80s British' collection), Soft Cell's "tainted Love" was (probably) accidentally included in both collection. Furthermore, this collection still missed many hits such as Devo's "Whip It", Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy", and Men at Works' "Who Can It Be Now?".

Nevertheless, this album was pretty well-balance between big hits and rare gems. Anyone who want to dig deep should go for Rhino's 'Just Can't Get Enough' series. But for normal music fans, this album was a good deal.