Post-punk

Post-punk
Stylistic origins	Punk rock experimental rock krautrock dub electronic funk avant-garde music art rock disco glam rock
Cultural origins	Mid-to-late 1970s; United Kingdom, United States, and Australia
Derivative forms	New wave synthpop dark wave industrial music alternative rock dance-punk noise rock post-rock house
Subgenres
Gothic rock jangle pop
Fusion genres
Post-hardcore post-punk revival
Regional scenes
Netherlands Germany France Perú
Other topics
No wave dance-rock art punk

Post-punk is a type of rock music that emerged from the punk rock movement of the 1970s. The term refers to music that draws inspiration from elements of punk (such as its provocation, musical urgency, or DIY approach) while moving beyond its sonic and conceptual boundaries, preoccupations, and affiliations. Though varying across regions and artists, common characteristics of post-punk music included the rejection of aesthetics perceived of as traditionalist, hegemonic, or rockist in favor of experimentation with production techniques and non-rock musical styles such as funk, dub reggae, electronic music, disco, and the avant-garde; the appropriation of ideas from modernist art, literature, politics, and critical theory into musical and pop cultural contexts; and in some locations (most notably Northern England and Lower Manhattan), the development of efficacious subcultures, which played important roles in the production of art, multimedia festivals, fanzines, and independent labels related to the music.

Early post-punk acts included Siouxsie and the Banshees, Public Image Ltd, Pere Ubu, Joy Division, Gang of Four, Devo and Talking Heads. With its greatest period of growth in the late 1970s and early 1980s, post-punk music was closely related to the development of genres such as gothic rock and industrial music, and would eventually provide the impetus for much subsequent alternative and independent music. In subsequent decades, the style has occasionally been the subject of renewed popularity and musical revivals.

Origins of term

The term "post-punk" was first used by journalists in the late 1970s to describe groups moving beyond punk's sonic template into disparate areas, though retrospective critical developments have effected some changes in its usage. Alex Ogg of The Quietus has pointed out that many groups now categorized as post-punk were initially subsumed under the broad umbrella of punk or new wave music, only becoming differentiated as the terms came to signify more narrow styles. Additionally, the accuracy of the term's temporal prefix "post" has been disputed, as various groups commonly labeled post-punk, such as Television and Cabaret Voltaire, in fact predate the punk rock movement.

Some critics, such as AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine, have employed the term to denote "a more adventurous and arty form of punk," while others have suggested it pertains to a set of artistic sensibilities and approaches rather than any unifying style. Music journalist and post-punk scholar Simon Reynolds has advocated that post-punk be conceived as "less a genre of music than a space of possibility," suggesting that "what unites all this activity is a set of open-ended imperatives: innovation; willful oddness; the willful jettisoning of all things precedented or 'rock'n'roll.'"

History

1977–79

In November and December 1977, writers for Sounds used the terms "New Musick" and "post punk" for music acts which Jon Savage described as sounding like "harsh urban scrapings/controlled white noise/massively accented drumming". The term came to signify artists such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, whose sounds, lyrics and aesthetics differed significantly from their punk contemporaries, and soon became applied to other British musicians, including Wire, Magazine, Public Image Ltd, Bauhaus, Joy Division, The Fall, Alternative TV, the Cure, Echo & The Bunnymen, Gang of Four, This Heat, the Sound, Scritti Politti and the Pop Group.

Although American bands such as Talking Heads, Television, Pere Ubu, Devo and Suicide had been pioneering a style of music with qualities similar to post-punk since the early 1970s, New York's no wave scene, including Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Mars, DNA and James Chance and the Contortions emerged contemporaneously with the British scene. A short-lived New York City scene existed, focusing more on performance art than actual coherent musical structure. The Brian Eno-produced No New York compilation is considered the quintessential testament to the history of no wave. Similarly, a pioneering punk scene in Australia during the mid-1970s also fostered influential post-punk acts like the Birthday Party.

Despite existing since the inception of the early punk rock movement, bands such as Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, as well as other bands on the experimental rock trajectory such as Chrome, were associated with the post-punk genre. These bands pioneered the emergence of industrial music from the post-punk movement.

1980s

British post-punk entered the 1980s with a champion in late-night BBC DJ John Peel; bands such as Gang of Four, Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Echo & the Bunnymen, Bauhaus, the Teardrop Explodes, the Raincoats, the Psychedelic Furs and Killing Joke; and a network of supportive record labels like Rough Trade, Industrial, Fast, Factory, Cherry Red, Mute, Zoo, Postcard, Axis/4AD and Glass.

In 1980, critic Greil Marcus characterised "Britain's postpunk pop avant-garde" – in a Rolling Stone article (referring to bands including Gang of Four, the Raincoats and Essential Logic) – as "sparked by a tension, humour and sense of paradox plainly unique in present day pop music."

While not labeled post-punk as such in the U.S., prominent U.S. groups adopting similar sounds included the Replacements, Minutemen, Mission of Burma, the Lounge Lizards, Bush Tetras, Theoretical Girls, Swans and Sonic Youth.

In Brazil, the post-punk scene grew after the opening of the music club Madame Satã in São Paulo, with acts like Cabine C, Titãs, Patife Band, Fellini and Mercenárias, as documented on compilations like The Sexual Life of the Savages and the Não Wave/Não São Paulo series, released in the UK, Germany and Brazil, respectively.

In Australia, other influential acts to emerge included Primitive Calculators, Tactics, the Triffids, Laughing Clowns, the Moodists, Severed Heads, Whirlywirld and Crime & the City Solution.

The original post-punk movement ended as the bands associated with the movement turned away from its aesthetics, just as post-punk bands had originally left punk rock behind in favor of new sounds. Some shifted to a more commercial new wave sound (such as Gang of Four), while others were fixtures on American college radio and became early examples of alternative rock. In the United States, driven by MTV and modern rock radio stations, a number of post-punk acts had an influence on or became part of the Second British Invasion of "New Music" there. Perhaps the most successful band to emerge from post-punk was U2, who combined elements of religious imagery together with political commentary into their often anthemic music.

Influence

Post-punk led to the development of many musical genres, including new wave, dance-rock, industrial music, synthpop, post-hardcore, neo-psychedelia and, most prominently, alternative rock.

Bands such as Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus and the Cure played in a darker, more morose style of post-punk that lead to the development of the gothic rock genre.

Post-punk revival

See also: Post-punk revival

At the turn of the 21st century, a post-punk revival developed in British and American alternative and indie rock, which soon started appearing in other countries, as well. The earliest sign of a revival was the emergence of various underground bands in the mid-'90s. However, the first commercially successful bands – the Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Neils Children and Editors – surfaced in the late 1990s to early 2000s. Additionally, some darker post-punk bands similar in style to Joy Division and the Cure began to appear in the indie music scene in the 2010s, including Cold Cave, She Wants Revenge, the Soft Moon, She Past Away and Light Asylum, who were also affiliated with the darkwave revival, as well as A Place to Bury Strangers, who combined early post-punk and shoegaze. These bands tend to draw a fanbase who are a combination of the indie subculture, older post-punk fans and the current goth subculture.

See also

• List of post-punk bands

External links

• Post-punk at AllMusic
• Post-punk essay and sampler by Julian Cope