Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of music that emerged in late 1977 in the wake of punk rock. Post-punk musicians departed from punk's fundamental elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a broader, more experimental approach that encompassed a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-rock influences. Inspired by punk's energy and do it yourself ethic but determined to break from rock cliches, artists experimented with styles like funk, electronic music, jazz, and dance music; the production techniques of dub and disco; and ideas from art and politics, including critical theory, modernist art, cinema and literature. These communities produced independent record labels, visual art, multimedia performances and fanzines.

The early post-punk vanguard was represented by groups including Siouxsie and the Banshees, Wire, Public Image Ltd., The Pop Group, Magazine, Joy Division, Talking Heads, The Raincoats, Gang of Four, The Cure, and The Fall. The movement was closely related to the development of ancillary genres such as gothic rock, neo-psychedelia, no wave, and industrial music. By the mid-1980s, post-punk had dissipated, but it provided a foundation for the new pop movement and the later alternative and independent genres.

Characteristics
Musically, post-punk is fairly diverse, though there are some important genre identifiers, most of which derive from krautrock, dub reggae, the work of progressive-thinking garage rock groups like The Velvet Underground, Roxy Music, and Hawkwind, and other avant-garde and world musics. Most post-punk features a very prominent bass guitar, some use of electronic instrumentation, jagged, angular guitar work and melodies, highly poetic lyrics, and a generally intellectual attitude towards the proceedings derived from art rock, although none of these are necessarily requirements. Post-punk was largely produced in North America and the British Isles, and key groups from those regions include Pere Ubu, Gang of Four, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Wire, Mission of Burma, and Joy Division, among countless others. There also was a worldwide post-punk following which produced bands like France's Métal Urbain, Australia's The Birthday Party, The Church and Tactics, and Ireland's U2 and the Virgin Prunes.

Bands such as Crass also came within the scope of post-punk, as with several outfits formed in the wake of traditionally punk rock groups: Magazine was formed by a member of Buzzcocks, for instance, and Public Image Ltd. derived from the Sex Pistols. A list of predecessors to the post-punk genre of music might include Television, whose album Marquee Moon, although released in 1977 at the height of the punk movement, is considered by some definitively post-punk in style. Other groups, such as The Clash, remained predominantly punk in nature, yet were inspired by the experimentalism of the post-punk movement, most notably in their album Sandinista!.

1977–1979: early years
Background
During the punk era, a variety of entrepreneurs interested in local punk-influenced music scenes began founding independent record labels, including Rough Trade (founded by record shop owner Geoff Travis), Factory (founded by Manchester-based television personality Tony Wilson), and Fast Product (co-founded by Bob Last and Hilary Morrison). By 1977, groups began pointedly pursuing methods of releasing music independently, an idea disseminated in particular by Buzzcocks' release of their Spiral Scratch EP on their own label as well as the self-released 1977 singles of Desperate Bicycles. These DIY imperatives would help form the production and distribution infrastructure of post-punk and the indie music scene that later blossomed in the mid-1980s.

United Kingdom

United States

1980–1984: further developments
UK scene and commercial ambitions
British post-punk entered the 1980s with support from members of the critical community—American critic Greil Marcus characterised "Britain's postpunk pop avant-garde" in a 1980 Rolling Stone article as "sparked by a tension, humour and sense of paradox plainly unique in present-day pop music"—as well as media figures such as BBC DJ John Peel, while several groups, such as Public Image Ltd. and Joy Division, achieved some success in the popular charts. The network of supportive record labels that included Y Records, Industrial, Fast, E.G., Mute, Axis/4AD, and Glass continued to facilitate a large output of music. By 1980–1981, many British acts, including Maximum Joy, Magazine, Essential Logic, Killing Joke, The Sound, 23 Skidoo, Alternative TV, The Teardrop Explodes, The Psychedelic Furs, Echo & the Bunnymen and The Membranes also became part of these fledgling post-punk scenes, which centered on cities such as London and Manchester.

However, during this period, major figures and artists in the scene began leaning away from underground aesthetics. In the music press, the increasingly esoteric writing of post-punk publications soon began to alienate their readerships; it is estimated that within several years, NME suffered the loss of half its circulation. Writers like Paul Morley began advocating "overground brightness" instead of the experimental sensibilities promoted in the early years. Morley's own musical collaboration with engineer Gary Langan and programmer J. J. Jeczalik, The Art of Noise, would attempt to bring sampled and electronic sounds to the pop mainstream. Post-punk artists such as Scritti Politti's Green Gartside and Josef K's Paul Haig, previously engaged in avant-garde practices, turned away from these approaches and pursued mainstream styles and commercial success. These new developments, in which post-punk artists attempted to bring subversive ideas into the pop mainstream, began to be categorised under the marketing term new pop.

Several more pop-oriented groups, including ABC, The Associates, Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow (the latter two managed by former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren) emerged in tandem with the development of the New Romantic subcultural scene. Emphasizing glamour, fashion and escapism in distinction to the experimental seriousness of earlier post-punk groups, the club-oriented scene drew some suspicion from denizens of the movement but also achieved commercial success. Artists such as Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, The Human League, Soft Cell, John Foxx and Visage helped pioneer a new synth-pop style that drew more heavily from electronic and synthesizer music and benefited from the rise of MTV.

Downtown Manhattan
In the early 1980s, Downtown Manhattan's no wave scene transitioned from its abrasive origins into a more dance-oriented sound, with compilations such as ZE Records' Mutant Disco (1981) highlighting a newly playful sensibility borne out of the city's clash of hip hop, disco and punk styles, as well as dub reggae and world music influences. Artists such as ESG, Liquid Liquid, The B-52s, Cristina, Arthur Russell, James White and the Blacks, and Lizzy Mercier Descloux pursued a formula described by Lucy Sante as "anything at all + disco bottom". Other no wave-indebted artists such as Swans, Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca, Lydia Lunch, The Lounge Lizards, Bush Tetras, and Sonic Youth instead continued exploring the early scene's forays into noise music's abrasive territory.

Mid-1980s–1990s: decline
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, critically acclaimed but never particularly commercially successful. Bands who began playing post-punk only found mass commercial success once they excised the more difficult elements of their sound in favor of sonic elements associated with pop and dance music. Many post-punk bands, most notably The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees, evolved into gothic rock (formerly a style of the larger post-punk movement) and became identified with the goth subculture. Some shifted to a more commercial New Wave sound (such as Talking Heads), while others were fixtures on American college radio and became early examples of alternative rock (such as U2). Post-punk was immensely influential; its various facets spawning, influencing and inspiring Britain's independent label infrastructure, the goth subculture, massively internationally popular groups like the previously mentioned U2, The Smiths, R.E.M., and Red Hot Chili Peppers, post-punk's own pop-friendly cousin new wave, the post-hardcore music of the late 1980s and 1990s, among other things and styles.

Later developments
2000s: revival
The Strokes debut album Is this It spearheaded what became known as the New York post-punk revival. Which lead to an explosion of bands such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture, Interpol, Liars, The Rogers Sisters, The Fiery Furnaces, Radio 4 and !!!. Following this a new group of bands that played a stripped down and back-to-basics version of guitar rock emerged into the mainstream, such as the UKs Franz Ferdinand, The Futureheads and Maxïmo Park. These bands were variously characterised as part of a post-punk revival/new wave revival. Their music ranged from the atonal tracks of bands like Liars to the melodic pop songs of groups like The Sounds. They shared an emphasis on energetic live performance and used aesthetics (in hair and clothes) closely aligned with their fans, often drawing on fashion of the 1950s and 1960s, with "skinny ties, white belts shag haircuts". There was an emphasis on "rock authenticity" that was seen as a reaction to the commercialism of MTV-oriented nu metal, hip-hop and "bland" post-Britpop groups. Because the bands came from countries around the world, cited diverse influences and adopted differing styles of dress, their unity as a genre has been disputed. By the end of the decade, many of the bands of the movement had broken up, were on hiatus, or had moved on to other musical areas, and very few were making significant impact on the charts

2010s–2020s
Far Out magazine claimed a 2010s revival of the genre as having "claws firmly in the past, with many of the original post-punk bands such as The Fall and Bauhaus hailed as gods". Referring to bands such as Denmark's Iceage, England's Eagulls, Savages and Sleaford Mods, Canada's Ought and Preoccupations, and America's Protomartyr and Parquet Courts. Further stating "This was the perfect time for post-punk to return, against a backdrop of hideous geopolitical happenings such as the financial crash of 2008, the ascendence of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote."

Revival in the UK and Ireland
During the late 2010s and early 2020s, a new wave of UK and Irish post-punk bands gained popularity. Terms such as "crank wave" and "post-Brexit new wave" have been used to describe these bands. The bands Black Country, New Road, Squid, Dry Cleaning, Shame, Sleaford Mods, and Yard Act all had albums that charted in the top ten in the UK, while Idles' Ultra Mono, Fontaines D.C.'s Skinty Fia and Wet Leg's self-titled debut all reached number one on the UK album charts. This scene is rooted in experimental post-punk and often features vocalists who "tend to talk more than they sing, reciting lyrics in an alternately disaffected or tightly wound voice", and "sometimes it's more like post-rock". Several of these bands, including Black Country, New Road, Black Midi and Squid, began their careers by playing at The Windmill, an all-ages music venue in London's Brixton neighbourhood. Many of them have also worked with producer Dan Carey and have released music on his DIY label Speedy Wunderground.

List of bands
An extensive list of post-punk, post-punk influenced and post-punk revival bands can be found here.