If you’re interested in goth music and goth culture, you’ve probably come across the term post punk. What is post punk, you ask? Well, it encompasses a lot of music that appeared in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. These bands would take inspiration from early punk rock, but take their music in a more complex and experimental direction. Post punk is basically goth music’s angsty older brother who dropped out of art school.
Post punk is kind of a nebulous term. It can apply to bands that arose alongside punk’s fist-pumping vanguard in the mid to late ‘70s, as well as current bands that adopt a similar sound. However, there are some common features these bands share. Here’s everything you need to know to get into post punk music:
The Post Punk Sound
The first post punk bands took the stripped-down melodies and bare-minimum song structures of punk rock and shaped them into something darker and more experimental. The sound was built around jagged, repetitive guitar riffs, usually featuring a prominent rhythm section and melodic basslines.
Post punk music is notable for its often “mechanical” quality, creating a sense of distance or alienation. The influence of Jamaican dub and reggae can be heard on a lot of post punk releases as well, especially Cut by The Slits and Gang of Four’s Entertainment!
The First Wave
Television, Marquee Moon (1977)
Music fans love to quibble about origin stories, but this is often cited as the first truly post-punk album. It offers a more melodic take on punk, with chiming guitars and infectious choruses on songs like “See No Evil.” The wavering guitar figures on the epic title track contain the seeds of an entire decade of musical innovation that was to follow. Marquee Moon would be a landmark album in the post punk music genre, expansive and forward-thinking while still being accessible enough for mainstream audiences.
Wire, Chairs Missing (1978)
Wire exploded on the scene with the electrifying art punk album Pink Flag in 1976, but their follow-up offered a darker, more minimal sound. This was the burgeoning heart of the post punk movement; it’s challenging, impressionistic, and wry, offering no easy answers but plenty of brain-invading hooks, like the one on the pummeling “I Am the Fly.”
Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures (1979)
The album that launched a million t-shirts became an icon for a reason. Rock music had never been darker, but the unrelenting despair of singer Ian Curtis’ lyrics on tracks like “Day of the Lords” is (somewhat) alleviated by the danceable grooves on “Disorder” and “Shadowplay.” Martin Hannett’s production infuses the album with ghostly echoes—fitting for one of the most haunting entries in the post punk canon.
The Fall, Live at the Witch Trials (1979)
Famously abrasive frontman Mark E. Smith has cycled through a lot of bandmates over the years (to the point that he once remarked, “If it’s me and yer granny on bongos, it’s The Fall”), but his furious creativity is on full display on the band’s 1979 debut. Cryptic, cheeky, and paranoid by turns, Live at the Witch Trials takes the raw, lo-fi sound of punk and infuses it with a poetic strangeness. Not bad for an album that was recorded in one day!
The Slits, Cut (1979)
Sporting a prickly sound that could best be described as art rock-reggae, this debut by The Slits combines playful vocals and instrumentation with sharp social commentary on songs like “Shoplifting” and “Typical Girls.” Singer Ari Up growls, trills, coughs, and screams her way through one of the most charismatic vocal performances in rock history—in any genre.
The Gun Club, Fire of Love (1981)
This nerve-jangling debut yokes blazing punk rock riffs with surprisingly ambiguous lyrics on tracks like “Ghost on the Highway." It’s often infused with blues and rockabilly, lulling you into a false sense of security before it hits you with the weird rhythmic experimentation on songs like “Promise Me.” Sonically, this fiery record doesn’t have much in common with the chilly post punk coming out of Manchester, but the spirit of pushing the punk envelope is there all the same.
Like these bands? Check out:
The Raincoats
The Stranglers
Magazine
early Talking Heads
Pere Ubu
Mission of Burma
The Mothmen
Overlap with Goth
Post punk and goth share a lot of DNA—they’re both dark and twisted offshoots of punk’s first wave. In some cases, bands that started out with a post punk sensibility later folded themselves into goth’s dark embrace.
Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Scream (1978)
Siouxsie and the Banshees’ debut album is much starker and more angular than their later music would be, as on the track "Jigsaw Feeling." Drummer Budgie, who also played with The Slits, gives the record plenty of momentum, and Siouxsie Sioux’s mystic bellows are already in full force. Later releases would be more ornate, but The Scream has a primal power all its own.
Killing Joke, Killing Joke (1980)
The band that would become renowned for 80s darkwave hits like “Love Like Blood” started out with a spiky post punk drone on tracks like “Requiem.” “Bloodsport” showcases the morose dancefloor beats that would become the band’s stock in trade, while the bone-rattling bass on “Primitive” is enough to wake the dead.
The Cure, Three Imaginary Boys (1979)
Goth’s biggest mainstream success story had already crafted a recognizable sound around Robert Smith’s melancholic warble and jangling guitar on their debut album. However, the jazzy noodling on songs like “Meathook,” “The Weedy Burton,” and “10:15 Saturday Night” showed that the band was still finding its voice. Subsequent records would refine this album’s sonic experiments like "Fire in Cairo" into opulent gothic masterworks.
Like these bands? Check out:
Josef K
Alien Nation
Breathless
early Swans
The Post Punk Revival (2000s)
In the early 2000s, a rock music scene that incorporated the driving rhythms, disaffected vocals, and jagged guitars of early post punk arose in New York. With a few exceptions, these rockers would shed the Caribbean dub roots, artsy experimentation, and overt politics of the previous generation, creating introspective dance rock that was often heavier on style than substance.
For better or worse, post punk had become radio friendly. The resulting sound would be an influential part of the indie rock boom that spanned the decade.
Le Tigre, Le Tigre (1999)
Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill kept her feminist bona fides firmly in place when she formed the trio Le Tigre. Their 1999 self-titled debut and 2001 follow-up From the Desk of Mr. Lady make heavy use of sampling from sources like news broadcasts to comment on current events. These elements, combined with minimalist drum machine beats, fuzzed-out guitars, and quirky lyricism on tracks like "Deceptacon" create a sense of play-as-resistance right out of the riot grrrl movement Hanna helped to found in the early ‘90s.
Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights (2002)
The influence of first-generation post punk is especially noticeable on Interpol’s debut, a slickly produced ode to Joy Division’s gloomy dance rock. Minimal guitar lines and pulsing drums are joined by swelling violins on “Hands Away” and tapping tambourine on “Leif Erikson”—additions that would have raised a few eyebrows at Factory Records but work like gangbusters in a shiny new millennium.
The National, Alligator (2005)
Prolific rockers The National also took a cue from Manchester’s greatest post punk band on 2005’s Alligator, with vocals delivered in a doom-shrouded baritone reminiscent of Ian Curtis, driving drums, and intricate, melancholy melodies. This band has never shied away from depicting doom and gloom and broken relationships, but “All the Wine” lets in a little light before the elegant, haunting album closer “Mr. November.”
The Walkmen, Bows + Arrows (2004)
The Walkmen’s debut borrows heavily from the ratcheting rhythms and echoing soundscapes of early post punk on tracks like “The Rat.” “138th Street” takes a page from Bob Dylan, and the whole album is wrapped in a blanket of distorted strumming that will make any Velvet Underground fan very happy.
LCD Soundsystem, LCD Soundsystem (2005)
LCD Soundsystem debuted with an ambitious double-length album and a chunky, bass and synth-driven sound vaguely reminiscent of Gang of Four—not to mention a literal list of musical influences a mile long (“Losing My Edge”). Leaning heavily into dance rock, their music is best played under a spinning disco ball.
Like these bands? Check out:
Bloc Party
We Were Promised Jetpacks
Kaiser Chiefs
Franz Ferdinand
Current Post Punk Bands
A new crop of bands that took inspiration from the first wave of post punk arose in the late 2010s, and the sound is still bubbling up from the underground to this day. In an increasingly fragmented rock landscape, post punk has adapted to fit the malaise of a new blank generation.
IDLES, Brutalism (2017)
Bristol quintet IDLES took plenty of inspiration from the first generation of post punk (they even recorded a version of Gang of Four's “Damaged Goods” with the Gang themselves). Nowhere is this more apparent than on their caustic 2017 debut, from the left-wing politics of “Mother” to the blistering bassline of “Faith in the City.” Subsequent releases have experimented with the band’s sound, but the rugged, radical core was there from the beginning.
Fontaines D.C., Dogrel (2019)
This Irish band arrived fully formed with a 21st-century sensibility and a sound that wouldn’t be out of place in 1981—check out the cool spoken word delivery and pavement-scorching bass on “Hurricane Laughter.” The melancholy “Roy’s Tune” offers a rich sonic palette, while bittersweet album closer “Dublin City Sky” takes a page from The Pogues. This is post punk at its most lyrical and affecting.
Dry Cleaning, Stumpwork (2022)
Vocalist Florence Shaw insists things are "gonna be okay" over bubbly guitar strumming on “Kwenchy Kups.” By the time the unsettling title track rolls around, you’re starting to doubt that assertion. With its pleasing blend of chamber pop guitars and stream of consciousness malaise, this London band’s take on modern post punk goes down smooth and leaves a gritty aftertaste.
Protomartyr, Formal Growth in the Desert (2023)
This Detroit band embraces a more expansive, anthemic sound than a lot of their fellow travelers on the majestic album opener “Make Way.” Big, splashy drum work and infectious synth lines make this album easy to love, but like any good post punk band, Protomartyr isn’t short on menacing atmosphere.
Like these bands? Check out:
Squid
shame
Soviet Soviet
Parquet Courts
BODEGA
Heavy Lungs
And there you have it. This overview of the post punk music scene should be enough to inspire your next Spotify playlist. Whether the vibe is alienation and angst or despair you can dance to, post punk always has you covered. Its earliest examples contain the seeds of gothic rock, but each era offers its own unique spin on dark rock music.
Take a listen, and you’ll see why post punk never died.