Post-Punk Essentials

Punk was initially a means to bring the danger back to rock ‘n’ roll, but it wasn’t long before some of its more adventurous adherents embraced the idea that the most punk thing to do was completely dismantle and reformulate rock music. During its 1978-1982 heyday, post-punk was less a defined genre than an expansive umbrella of artists who applied punk’s DIY ethos and anti-establishment attitudes to sounds that existed outside the typical guitar-band lexicon. Gang of Four delivered politicised polemics atop disco rhythms and Wire coloured their art-punk with synth-smeared textures, while ex-Pistol John Lydon’s Public Image Ltd., Bauhaus and Joy Division took dub’s low end to nightmarish new depths, prying open goth’s crypt. But this revolution was as much social as musical—in contrast to punk’s largely white riot, bands like The Slits, ESG and The B-52’s respectively carved out a permanent space for female, Black, and queer voices in the underground.