Post-punk explained

Post-punk is the experimental music that followed punk between about 1977 and 1984. Its bands kept punk’s independence, its small labels and its refusal of stardom, but they threw out the rock and roll that punk had brought back. In its place came heavy dub bass, scratchy funk guitar, drum machines, noise, synthesizers and lyrics about politics, work, consumer culture and isolation. Where punk said anyone can play, post-punk asked what else could be played.

The term was coined after the fact, but the music was recognised at the time. Critics in the British weeklies wrote about it in 1978 and 1979 as the most adventurous thing happening in rock. The writer Simon Reynolds later gave it its standard history in his book Rip It Up and Start Again, which dates the period from 1978 to 1984.

How post-punk sounds

Very different bands are filed under the same name, but most share a few audible features:

1. The bass leads. Peter Hook in Joy Division, Jah Wobble in Public Image Ltd and Dave Allen in Gang of Four play melodic, high or dub heavy bass lines that carry the song.
2. Guitars as rhythm and noise. Thin, trebly, chopped chords or sheets of feedback instead of riffs and solos.
3. Space. Producers such as Martin Hannett and Dennis Bovell used echo, silence and separation taken from reggae and dub.
4. Machines. Drum machines, cheap synthesizers and tape loops, especially in Sheffield, Düsseldorf and Berlin.
5. Lyrics that think. Gang of Four on leisure and labour, Joy Division on alienation, The Fall on English everyday life, The Slits on women’s freedom.

The first records, 1977 to 1979

Wire’s Pink Flag, released at the end of 1977, already showed the direction: 21 songs, several under a minute, cut down to the bare idea. In 1978 John Lydon, formerly Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, formed Public Image Ltd. Their single Public Image and the album First Issue were a clear break with his old band. Metal Box in 1979, first released as three twelve inch records in a film tin, became the model for dub based rock.

The same year brought Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures on Factory in June, produced by Martin Hannett, Gang of Four’s Entertainment! in September and The Slits’ Cut, produced by the reggae producer Dennis Bovell, also in September. In America, Pere Ubu from Cleveland had released The Modern Dance in 1978, and Talking Heads moved towards post-punk with Fear of Music in 1979.

Cities and labels

Post-punk was a regional music, and its labels were often run from a single flat or shop.

1. Manchester. Factory Records, founded in 1978 by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus, released Joy Division, A Certain Ratio and Durutti Column. Buzzcocks, Magazine and The Fall came from the same city.
2. London. Rough Trade opened as a shop in 1976 and began releasing records in 1978: The Raincoats, Cabaret Voltaire’s early singles, Stiff Little Fingers. Mute Records, founded by Daniel Miller in 1978, became the home of electronic post-punk.
3. Leeds. Gang of Four, The Mekons and Delta 5 came out of the university and art school scene.
4. Sheffield. Cabaret Voltaire and the early Human League built their music from tape machines and synthesizers.
5. Glasgow and Edinburgh. Postcard Records with Orange Juice and Josef K, Fast Product with the early Gang of Four and Human League singles.
6. Liverpool. Echo and the Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes, with the club Eric’s as their base.

Outside Britain, the German scene in Düsseldorf and West Berlin developed a close relative of post-punk, which fed into the Neue Deutsche Welle. In New York the no wave bands pushed the same ideas towards pure noise.

Joy Division and the dark side

Joy Division became the defining band of post-punk, partly because of their music and partly because of their story. They formed in Salford and Manchester in 1976, released Unknown Pleasures in 1979 and were about to tour the United States when singer Ian Curtis died on 18 May 1980. Closer appeared two months later, and the remaining members continued as New Order. The cold, spacious sound of their records shaped gothic rock and much of the music of the eighties.

From post-punk to the eighties

From about 1981 the movement spread out in several directions. Some bands embraced pop and electronics and became part of the second phase of new wave, The Human League and New Order among them. Others went towards gothic rock, from Bauhaus to The Cure. Others again founded what was later called indie, with The Smiths, whose debut album appeared in February 1984, as the clearest example.

Where to start

Listen to Unknown Pleasures, Entertainment! and Cut one after another. They are three completely different answers to the question of what comes after punk: one cold and melancholy, one political and funky, one playful and built on reggae. Then go on to our selection of post-punk bands you should know. If you want to understand what post-punk reacted to, our history of punk rock gives the background, and our article on punk fanzines shows how these bands were first written about.