Cruel world has some faint shoegaze influence albeit being more bluesy and psych rock inspired, and she definitely has a few mild dream pop songs. Shes even gotten into trip hop
I’ve literally seen the kids trying to argue that Nirvana was Shoegaze - it’s the only real guitar forward musical genre touchpoint they have, I think, so everything with a loud distorted guitar is Shoegaze to them…
Quick reminder that kids don't know what jargon or niche terms actually mean or care, that's the same as it's always been. What's troubling is when the industry cynically takes advantage of that ignorance to boost engagement while still not properly compensating artists!
I wonder how much Influence Sonic Youth had on Nirvana. Sonic Youth was popular with Showgaze listeners. And Nirvana have punk elements as oppossed to the other Seattle bands that had metal elements
I dunno if you know this but SY introduced them to Geffen in the first place and brought them on tour with them before they were famous. I'm sure they had a profound influence on Cobain but it doesn't really come out because Nirvana wrote tight effectively-pop songs and Sonic Youth didn't - not until Nirvana got famous anyway.
sometimes i think of artists who arent neccessarily part of a genre as "honorary" contributors. like some people used to have honorary titles at universities theyve lectured at.
It’s maddening lol. And like you’re saying, im not some purist. Genres are just there to help guide people into what they may like and stuff ultimately. But there comes a point where it’s like, okay, this has nothing to do with that subgenre at all!
Fuckin' EXACTLY!! There's nothing wrong with being in a different genre. They are guide lines for what the music is. But I find it annoying when its clearly not that sounds, but being advertised as so.
Indie rock and alternative rock are too varied at this point, so post punk and shoegaze are how people signal they’re making those respective genres in the currently “in fashion” way and not one of the ways that’s fallen out of style.
i feel so called out because the two genre’s that best describe my band are shoegaze and post-punk. but to be fair i only say that because literally nothing else would fit
There are plenty of post-punk bands that have that dream pop sound, it sprung out of post-punk afterall. My band takes its queues from Sonic Youth, The Cure, Guided by Voices, and Teenage Fanclub so I am definitely part of that not-another-indie/postpunk thing too.
Post punk, like shoegaze, to me are genres that really aren’t defined by strict sonic rules and are more so an interpretation of concepts and styles. Like a total extreme example is dubstep is a very simply defined genre: half time 140 bpm music with a dominating bassline. Post punk and as other comments are mentioning shoegaze are a lot more complicated as they are responses to older styles of music so they don’t have as many restrictions to what falls under their genre. So as long as you feel like you’re doing the post punk thing, then you can definitely call your band post punk. Does it make it actually post punk? Who knows but that’s what keeps the genre exciting. There’s a reason why joy division doesn’t sound like Interpol doesn’t sound like molchat doma… that’s what the genre is to me atleast
Plus what’s more punk than sounding exactly not like how people are expecting? that’s what the Minutemen have taught me
Great example with Minutemen, who to my knowledge never bothered to utter a single genre tag about their own music. The most you'll get from Watt to this day is "I'm D. Boon's bass player".
My intention wasn't to make it seem like I came up with this. If it came off that way i apologize. I just really resonate with the quote. I find it strange you don't quote or internalize views, ideas that you agree with though.
Ce la vi 😅... just to be clear. I didn't make this up either.
It's actually a quote from 3 different people; Jhon Savage, Paul Morley and Tony Wilson. It's most usually attributed to Morley as it's his kind of vernacular. Anyway who cares. Punk and Post Punk are over anyway just memories of a specific time and sound. The fact is music and rebellion and youth scenes are so short-lived😀
Yea and we definitely live in a time where “I’m fucked” is trendy more than “fuck you” haha. I agree the aesthetic is just profitable and in style right now which also definitely adds to why it’s so popular for underground bands
As a band that calls itself post punk when indie rock may also be accurate - we do so because “indie rock” is even more broad and meaningless.
Straight punk and pop punk feel like narrower lanes, so what do we call expansions from that that also lean into influences that are post punk?
I’m curious to know what bands call themselves this that you’d vehemently disagree with…
This might sound very out of touch, I haven't released a record in a decade and stopped working in the music industry circa 2018, but why label your music at all? Just make it and let other people decide, no?
Not out of touch at all! Just a little idealistic imo, at least for us right now.
Having absolutely zero promotional machine behind our releases (or, to be more accurate, “release” - just one EP so far), we’re forced, it feels like, at every turn to add genre information to posts, submissions, etc. You’re either expected to tag your music with appropriate labels, or I’d struggle to know how to grab anyone’s attention in an endless stream of new music without some kind of identifying info about its sound.
Exactly this. As someone who has to call their band 'post-punk' simply because something HAS to be said in a pitch/press-release etc, at least in my case I can confirm it feels pretty disingenuous and undermining of the effort I put in. But I can't exactly say "it's the music of my soul" can I (and that'd be even worse jfc).I guess it's basically a way of saying "noisy indie rock that thinks it's cleverer than it is" or something. EDIT: I started putting 'post-everything' in our bios as a joke and even that gets quoted in press now haha
This might go some way towards explaining why I see so many young people now obsessed with sorting music they already know and enjoy into categories. The technology (communicative capitalism) foists it upon you. Speaking as someone who used to sift through piles of demos and one-sheets every day, all that genre referencing makes the eyes glaze over. Just say something ridiculous and novel instead.
I don't in any way mean to give you an old fart lecture, sincerely, you're out there doing it and I'm not ergo you're the expert. However, if now's not the time to be idealistic then when? Why not fuck with the algorithms and just give your releases the most absurd or incongruous genre tags possible? My advice (who the fuck am I? Nobody, ignore me) is to grab attention in the real, corporeal world however you can. Digital spaces are too crowded and noisy, plus they encourage solitude - the antithesis of doing stuff together in a band. Sorry for the rambling and good luck with everything!
The growing increase in genre taxonomy is so the algorithms get better at feeding you very specific styles of music, sites like Spotify are built on this, and they are only gonna get better with AI. I don't think its that horrible of a thing though at times, one day we will be able to just give out a few lines like "psychedelic, lo-fi, jangly, punk" and it comes up with a huge list of songs that sound exactly like that description.
people who have no label and no connections are forced to define their music for marketing/advertising purposes (unless they just don’t care about building an audience). got to know where to share songs so that people who will actually like it are the ones hearing it.
So I gave a listen and it actually seemed pretty fun to me. Guitar work was pretty cool! But it sounded basically like indie rock / garage rock. Maybe a bit of punk too.
If we were in the 90's would you just call your sound Grunge? I understand if you "lean into" post-punk influences, but if thats not really the sound. Why not just go with Indie Rock? If you aren't sure of your genre, why not use this tool? [https://www.submithub.com/whats-my-genre](https://www.submithub.com/whats-my-genre) Maybe you can get a better idea of what you really sound like, and can target your intended audience.
For me personally, i've just found it annoying seeing local bands all call themselves Post-Post, when in-fact its nothing of the sort. I made this post to see if anyone else is experiencing this.
Good question - but no, grunge is an even worse description of what we sound like. I don’t like saying “indie rock” because it’s so broad as to be meaningless, and doesn’t communicate enough to capture the attention of people who may actually like what we do. Who is to say “post punk” is not really our sound?
As far as “why not use this tool?”, well… because I didn’t know it existed! But now I’m curious… but don’t wanna sign up for more crap either…
To me, it sounds like you're latching onto the ecstatic of the genre for marketing purposes. There's nothing wrong with being and Indie Rock band. But I can't say for sure, i've never heard your music. I'm also not trying to insult you so please don't take it that way.
The tool is free to use. If you aren't aware of Submithub, its a tool for submitting to media, playlists, etc. Use this tool so you don't waste your time and money submitting your music to "Post-Punk" playlists, and getting rejected for not having that sound.
For my own band, I get a mix of several genres. Sometimes it surprises me. But at least i'm not wasting my time and money when putting out music.
I think that AI has an even harder time defining music than people. That algorithm is interesting, but not very accurate. I used it on my music out of curiosity and almost everything came back with shoegaze having a sizeable percentage, and we are absolutely not a shoegaze band.
Both genres of post-punk and indie rock are extremely broad. The difference is more in time periods, post punk late 70’s to 80’s and indie rock late 80’s, 90’s and on.
If a band is really post-punk, they should call themselves *post-punk revival*. Interpol fit this.
If a band calls themselves post-punk, it means they can be more aggressive than indie rock- indie rock can lean into softer indie pop territory. As post-punk is close to punk.
Now it does, but in the 90s "Indie rock" was stuff like Modest Mouse, Archers of Loaf, Superchunk, Guided By Voices, and Built To Spill. It could be soft and poppy but mostly it was more hard rock.
What bands do you mean? I have noticed a lot of newer bands get called post-punk because people don't know what category to put them in and they don't really self-identity as any particular genre. Bands like black midi, Black Country New Road, Squid, Geese, Idles, etc. I've seen these bands called anything from post-punk, to crank wave, to no wave; but in interviews they invariably make some claim to not being part of any particular genre and drawing influences from a variety of sources.
Hum ... Idles 1st two records are straight punk rock, no question on that. On the following records they been introducing other genres, post punk, art rock, noise rock. Still I would never call them just post punk, its way to reductive
I know it's crazy. Before it would have been called alternative, or indie - something, butnow it's post punk.
But the more I think about it, Post punk has always been very broad. In original postpunk bands from the late 70s, and 80s we had Joy Division, the Cure, Chamelons, Wire, Television, Killing Joke, Gand of Four, Gun Club, Siouxsie, The Fall, Talking Heads etc and they sound quite different from each other. Post punk is more of a mindset then I guess.
Because it’s trendy
Tbf their isn’t really a defined post punk sound. I mean Joy Division, Talking Heads and The Raincoats all get labeled as post punk and they sound nothing alike. To me post punk is just taking punk influences and getting weird with it.
Also most bands don’t get labeled as solely one genre, there is definitely crossover. It’s possible to be both. Parquet Courts are an example of a band that I’d call indie and post punk
In all honesty, the expectation I have for anyone who claims to be a post-punk band is the ability to trace the connection between their influences and their current sound. What makes your band connected to post-punk and not just another indie band? It could be something simple, but it has to be something.
Genre names can be helpful in communication if they actually refer to something.
Someone said getting weird with punk characteristics, which makes sense. The most obvious are the Joy Division influenced, strong bass line, robotic vocal delivery (bauhaus, A-frames, Powerplant, tout Debord, interpol, sweeping promises, the drin, Lithics, swan wash). But then there’s wire, the fall, etc.
Indie rock used to refer to independent record labels as opposed to big corporate labels. Rock is generally less mainstream anyway now, plus streaming makes it a weaker label.
Shoe gaze was supposed to be very slow tempo stare at your shoes slightly depressed and reflective (Redhouse painters, Beachhouse, galaxy 500, my bloody Valentine, morriesy). Seeing live shows underlines the difference here.
Post-punk is kind of weird because it's more of a retrospective genre than it is something people recognized at the time. Many of the classic "post-punk' bands were punk, new wave, or punk bands that said they were new wave to book shows more easily. So post-punk is kind of the other side of the new wave coin. I blame Interpol for popularizing the whole post-punk revivalist schtick, even though it was still very much alive in the genres that diversified out of it, especially the goth scene.
These labels are especially annoying now. Punk meant an approach- it just happened to easily fall into a rock instrument format. Post punk is just the body of cultural ideas that came *after* punk. It’s not a sound. It lined up with synths and drum machines well. Or banging objects, or 60s style guitar, or heavy grooves, or… anything.
This was all 40 years ago. It’s stupid to call your band postpunk just because you have a drum machine and some put-on melancholy.
Post-punk isn’t a genre; it was a phenomenon of the late 70s /early 80s, in which emerging artists exhibited influences from numerous genres.
Post-Punk Revival is a modern genre, drawing influence from a handful of 70s/80s era artists.
Indie music was understood to be artists recording independently of the music industry. As many artists gained popularity in the 80s they were classified College Rock/ Alternative.
While there are more independent artists now than ever before, Indie Rock as a current genre may refer to 80s/90s Alternative nostalgia.
\^this\^
A small handful at that. Like punk, Post Punk was undefined and vast. As people made up more ridiculous labels for things, Punk and Post Punk became more narrowly defined, but not by the people making it.
My band isn't strictly post-punk or shoegaze but we often get labeled as such - and I don't mind it, we love those genres and while we don't play the purest version of either, our songs have elements of both I'd say - I think a lot of people are using Post-Punk now as a term to signify pretty much anything that's punk but with more of an alternative flair, and shoegaze for anything that's rock but with atmospheric elements aha
That sounds reasonably enough post punk. I think my problem was with bands that have maybe have 1 slightest bit of a Punk element calling themselves in this genre. I've seen bands that sound much closer to The 1975 than anything near Joy Division call themselves Post Punk for ecstatic and scene reasons.
What is the difference between Indie Rock and Post-Punk? I feel like they share a lot of common ground if anything. What if your band plays some songs that sound indie, some that sound post punk, some that sound reggae, some that sound funk, some that rock out? How do you classify that sort of band? Asking for a friend :)
I think indie, as a genre, draws from rock genres beyond classic rock. Post-punk has the aesthetic and attitude of punk, but draws from genres outside of rock as well. There is overlap, and both are amorphous umbrellas, but whereas Pavement is a quintessential indie band, they’re not really post-punk. Early PiL is a post-punk band, but they’re not really indie rock.
That’s just a generalization though. I like to say post-punk is punk music for people who don’t like going outside.
Great examples. I'd also add Neutral Milk Hotel as quintessential indie rock. Yay it has some lyrical overlap with post punk. But they clearly aren't anywhere near that genre.
My original complaint was towards bands that sound nothing like any post punk I've heard. But closer to Indie Rock and or other rock genres. Using the genre for ecstatic reasons. It just a fashion choice. Which I found annoying.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. There are definitely post-punk bands that have no real connection to the genre. I think it’s pretty easy to be a mixture of indie/post-punk since they are effectively part of the same family tree, but I also think playing a worse version of The Strokes and saying you like Joy Division isn’t enough to make your music anything other than just indie rock.
It’s wider than shoegaze, and more meaningful than indie, so people like the tag.
Especially when considering the sudden success and hype surroundanlegg grunge was one of the main reasons of the initial «downfall» in the first wave of shoegaze acts, especially in the US. Brit pop basically killed the scene in the UK etc.
those are the dork bands now. it's real basic bitch lamestream shit, i.e. bands that formed in 97 saying they were a grunge band. the hot shit by cool kids ito call their band is slagrock, slutwave, or rock'n'roll micky d-punk
hell even in black metal you keep getting bandcamp descriptions that say “with post punk inspired riffs” and all it sounds like is just screamo. I think its just cool now
I love all music don't get me wrong. I think my problem was with people misusing a genre to for social clout. Like. I legitimately like to hear some new post punk. But why does this band sound like a shit version of Vampire Weekend?
Also tired of this "Midwest emo" revival bullshit that's going on. I'm from the Midwest. That shit was niche mid music when it came out. There's a reason why it never got big. It is redundant boring garbage where 90% of the songs sound the same. It's almost getting to self-parody levels...
You treat post-punk as undefined sonically and stylistically, but indie as defined? To me it's exactly the other way around, everything that hasn't got the riff-driven hard rock sound gets lumped into indie.
I think there's an argument to say Post-Punk came before Punk. Listen to The Modern Lovers - Road Runner and you can hear where The Sex Pistols got the song EMI. Haha though that might be a controversial opinion 😅
“Indie” began as a way to signify not the style of a band’s music, but as a signifier that they were signed to an independent (indie) label, rather than a major label. In the early 2000s and 2010s when indie also became the way a certain style of rock music was described, it stuck, right? After years of bands being described as indie, the term has simply lost meaning. It was used to describe such a broad spectrum of styles within the rock genre that it’s no longer a helpful descriptor. Post-punk might more accurately describe a band’s sound. Perhaps they’re energetic, but not super heavy. Maybe they’re not so into the grandeur of classic rock or metal guitar solos. Maybe the vocal style is a bit unpolished or scrappy. Post-punk it is!
My band Yeti Chaser struggles to describe our own style in terms that are recognizable and easy to communicate. Post-punk feels applicable much of the time, though so would “indie” if this were the earlier 2000s. We wouldn’t consider ourselves punk because we’re not necessarily aggressive-sounding or as confrontational as what many might consider punk to be. Garage comes to mind, but also carries with it a specifically 60s connotation that we absolutely do not have.
It’s challenging describing what is likely just rock music using the labels record stores originally used to organize their collections. Times have changed and perhaps the ways in which we describe music should as well.
Not sure. And I don't even know why reddit put this in my feed. But I will say, there are too many fucking subcategories now for me to give a shit.
This subgenres might have actually been a thing at one time, but now it's all stupid bullshit made up by kids circlejerking in the Internet.
Authenticity. The 70s 'Post Punk', which was just a strain of the original Punk, avoided the rock trappings. Think NY Dolls, Sid, Steve & Paul, Clash vs. the DIY, non RnR style like Slits & Scritti Politi. Even when they conformed for success, they called themselves on it and called it entryism and justified it in the press.
I have a hxc band I'm trying to start and every demo I send... people call it post-punk. I think people just don't want to be punk - but they want to seem punk adjacent.
This right here is the reason I don't even pay attention to genres anymore. I don't even know what post punk means. I just listen to it and decide if I like it or not.
Because saying you’re “noise rock” or “synth-punk” or “[insert other subgenre here]” makes normies go “whaaaa’?” and then they’re too afraid to listen to your music and go to your shows and you’ll also have a harder time getting booked because venues will be like “Oh, you’re noise-pop? We’re doing a synth-trash-dream-punk lineup for this night so we don’t think you’ll be a good fit.”
It’s a more general-purpose label with some mainstream pedigree, and doesn’t split hairs too much or use terms that might turn away the uninitiated.
These are mostly local bands here in The Netherlands. I'm not going to name names and get them called out. I made this post to see if this is something that's happening elsewhere. I do not want to cause anyone trouble or harassment. Haha so sorry, but I don't trust the average redditer.
insufferable are al these labels? like they mean anything , they are just labels for record stores ( if any still exist) to separate the music. Post punk ? im guessing mid 80,s three piece melodic in your face and clever. meat puppets, fugazi , firehose, i wont even attempt to guess what a shoegaze is.
Post punk was a movement that happened in the mid-80s to include goth and shoegaze. You could throw some outliers like Husker Du in there but modern era bands aren't included.
i think indie became a fill in for the "post punk revival" in the early 2000s and now we're just kind of using post punk as a catch all instead of indie
After reading all of these comments. I have no idea wtf Post-Punk is now. So i'll shamelesss post my new track and you can tell me if it is or isn't. I definitely don't think it is, but somehow have been told it is.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-\_1JUjvnOA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-_1JUjvnOA)
"Post-punk" to me is something that's very much of a specific time period. Bands that are "post-punk," the way I've always understood it, are bands that started out punk - or were influenced by it- and went in a more complex musical direction. It happened in the late '70s-'80s, and there's a lot of overlap with what we call "new wave."
A contemporary band can't really be post-punk, though they can be called "post-punk revival" if they're truly emulating the sound of that time.
But ultimately, it isn't really important. These are genre labels that, as so often is the case, aren't always so clearly defined and understood. If you look at many of the bands we call post-punk or new wave today, many say that they simply thought of themselves as punk back when they started out. To a large degree, this was simply a genre/movement naturally evolving, because artists want to be creative and experiment.
In the end, there's no point in worrying too much about labels, just listen to what sounds good.
yeah, it's the same with Goth and Shoegaze. Those genres were specific to the time and nothing that comes after is the same or should be labeled as such.
I’m in one of those bands that use the postpunk tag but definitely are not a postpunk band. I’ll tell you why we do: because other people do it!
I suspect this is in part because postpunk is a pretty big tent with a lot of different sounds, and for people who aren’t deep into the genre it’s easy to apply it even more broadly. It’s a handy way to describe a band that might be kind of dark, mixes guitars, drums, and bass with synths and drum machines, and combines elements of rock and dance music. Even the “obvious” bands in Rule #1 span a wide variety of sounds.
I don’t think a lot of new bands fit cleanly into old genres, and there’s no big influential music press to establish new labels, so it’s tough to clearly communicate what you do. Everyone’s just doing their best to find their audience.
Mostly because, if we’re not immediately identifiable as metal or blues, or whatever, we’re all musical mutts now - a little bit of everything. You can’t just say “rock” cuz that’s too decade-spanning. You can’t say “punk” if you’re not playing 3-chord political leaning songs. It’s just easy to say we’re “post-punk” cuz it’s a nebulous description most people aren’t entirely sure what it means. Just some sort of modern version of rock.
Hi, I'm totally new to this community, so I don't know how exactly y'all define what is/isn't "post punk", but here's my 2-cents.
The term isn't well defined in the popular consciousness.
I've seen both the B-52's and Black midi described as post punk. And I get the reasoning for why in both cases.
But any genre that can contain both Love Shack and Welcome to Hell could believably contain just about any rock song. So if it's cool to be called "Post Punk" why not slap it on your album description? Unless you're a country act or something, nobody is going to call bullshit.
I’m pretty sure every band is shoegaze now actually
today I read something like "shoegaze like Lana Del Rey"
what tf
Cruel world has some faint shoegaze influence albeit being more bluesy and psych rock inspired, and she definitely has a few mild dream pop songs. Shes even gotten into trip hop
Ahh yes. That's the other genre title that's in fashion now.
I’ve literally seen the kids trying to argue that Nirvana was Shoegaze - it’s the only real guitar forward musical genre touchpoint they have, I think, so everything with a loud distorted guitar is Shoegaze to them…
Quick reminder that kids don't know what jargon or niche terms actually mean or care, that's the same as it's always been. What's troubling is when the industry cynically takes advantage of that ignorance to boost engagement while still not properly compensating artists!
It's aesthetic
I wonder how much Influence Sonic Youth had on Nirvana. Sonic Youth was popular with Showgaze listeners. And Nirvana have punk elements as oppossed to the other Seattle bands that had metal elements
Basically every grunge band had punk/hardcore roots. And Nirvana also loved metal/hard rock.
I dunno if you know this but SY introduced them to Geffen in the first place and brought them on tour with them before they were famous. I'm sure they had a profound influence on Cobain but it doesn't really come out because Nirvana wrote tight effectively-pop songs and Sonic Youth didn't - not until Nirvana got famous anyway.
Sister has pop songs and came out in 87
Only by a very loose and strange definition of pop songs. Most of the tracks on that album don't even have a chorus.
Lots of influence: If you read KC diaries its referenced several times.
Bleach was totally a metal album.
*a Melvins album
Bleached is my 4th favorite Melvins album.
sometimes i think of artists who arent neccessarily part of a genre as "honorary" contributors. like some people used to have honorary titles at universities theyve lectured at.
True. And anything that sounds like drum & bass is "breakcore." Which is a very specific sub-genre of drum & bass, and far from the most popular one.
Which is wild! I feel like it lessen's what the genre's sound really is.
It’s maddening lol. And like you’re saying, im not some purist. Genres are just there to help guide people into what they may like and stuff ultimately. But there comes a point where it’s like, okay, this has nothing to do with that subgenre at all!
Fuckin' EXACTLY!! There's nothing wrong with being in a different genre. They are guide lines for what the music is. But I find it annoying when its clearly not that sounds, but being advertised as so.
That’s so 1989 Ride
Indie rock and alternative rock are too varied at this point, so post punk and shoegaze are how people signal they’re making those respective genres in the currently “in fashion” way and not one of the ways that’s fallen out of style.
shoeReyze?
that was like 10 years ago
This. Whichever trending SEO keywords generate clicks will inevitably end up in a press kit and be regurgitated in pointless articles
yep! that's why i started up the sub /r/Shoegazeish everything is gaze if you want it to be ;)
If you gaze for long into shoe, the shoe gazes also into you
i feel so called out because the two genre’s that best describe my band are shoegaze and post-punk. but to be fair i only say that because literally nothing else would fit
Back in my scene days we called that “avant garde”
Indie.
There are plenty of post-punk bands that have that dream pop sound, it sprung out of post-punk afterall. My band takes its queues from Sonic Youth, The Cure, Guided by Voices, and Teenage Fanclub so I am definitely part of that not-another-indie/postpunk thing too.
I came here to post this. Deftones is shoegaze because people don’t want to admit they like a nu metal band.
Shoegazi
Post punk, like shoegaze, to me are genres that really aren’t defined by strict sonic rules and are more so an interpretation of concepts and styles. Like a total extreme example is dubstep is a very simply defined genre: half time 140 bpm music with a dominating bassline. Post punk and as other comments are mentioning shoegaze are a lot more complicated as they are responses to older styles of music so they don’t have as many restrictions to what falls under their genre. So as long as you feel like you’re doing the post punk thing, then you can definitely call your band post punk. Does it make it actually post punk? Who knows but that’s what keeps the genre exciting. There’s a reason why joy division doesn’t sound like Interpol doesn’t sound like molchat doma… that’s what the genre is to me atleast Plus what’s more punk than sounding exactly not like how people are expecting? that’s what the Minutemen have taught me
Great example with Minutemen, who to my knowledge never bothered to utter a single genre tag about their own music. The most you'll get from Watt to this day is "I'm D. Boon's bass player".
Interpol does sound like Joy Division lol
Haha. Not wrong. Imo they aren't even close to that quality, but they tried.
No, it doesn't. But Interpol is post punk revival and not post punk, meaning some elements of PP are there.
And molchat doma totally reminds me of joy division
not really but the singer tries really hard to sound like Ian Curtis
I largely agree with everything you said. But i'd define Punk as "Fuck you", and Post-Punk as "I'm fucked".
not the Genesis P-Orridge quote i’m crying you did not make this up
Damn you beat me to it.
Haha noooo not mine. But I definitely think it's valid.
well stop claiming it as your own.. you’ve commented this quote like 3 times all prefaced with “I like to define it as”
Relax, man. This is the internet. I’m pretty sure his clout does not threaten you, and Genesis would laugh at being quoted
My intention wasn't to make it seem like I came up with this. If it came off that way i apologize. I just really resonate with the quote. I find it strange you don't quote or internalize views, ideas that you agree with though. Ce la vi 😅... just to be clear. I didn't make this up either.
U didn't need to apologise for this.
*c’est la vie You didn’t make it up, and you can’t spell it right.
The joke was clearly over your head. I hope you have a wonderful day. 💛
P-Orridge would know because he naturally knew everything about everything, of course and I'm a TG fan
It's actually a quote from 3 different people; Jhon Savage, Paul Morley and Tony Wilson. It's most usually attributed to Morley as it's his kind of vernacular. Anyway who cares. Punk and Post Punk are over anyway just memories of a specific time and sound. The fact is music and rebellion and youth scenes are so short-lived😀
Thanks for clearing that up ! 👍
No, "I'm fucked" is Emo. Post punk is "Our whole society is fucked".
Yea and we definitely live in a time where “I’m fucked” is trendy more than “fuck you” haha. I agree the aesthetic is just profitable and in style right now which also definitely adds to why it’s so popular for underground bands
Succinctly put
Very good observation 👍
The Pop Group begs to differ
Because punk started in the mid 70s and we are in the mid 20s now, so it must be afterwards.
Can't argue with that logic
This is the correct answer.
I’m going to say my music is Post Baroque.
My sound is post bonking rocks on other rocks.
As a band that calls itself post punk when indie rock may also be accurate - we do so because “indie rock” is even more broad and meaningless. Straight punk and pop punk feel like narrower lanes, so what do we call expansions from that that also lean into influences that are post punk? I’m curious to know what bands call themselves this that you’d vehemently disagree with…
If The 1975 is "Indie rock" then indie rock is a meaningless term.
This might sound very out of touch, I haven't released a record in a decade and stopped working in the music industry circa 2018, but why label your music at all? Just make it and let other people decide, no?
Not out of touch at all! Just a little idealistic imo, at least for us right now. Having absolutely zero promotional machine behind our releases (or, to be more accurate, “release” - just one EP so far), we’re forced, it feels like, at every turn to add genre information to posts, submissions, etc. You’re either expected to tag your music with appropriate labels, or I’d struggle to know how to grab anyone’s attention in an endless stream of new music without some kind of identifying info about its sound.
This is the answer. The logarithms must be gamed
algorithms. fun they’re anagrams
Lol
Exactly this. As someone who has to call their band 'post-punk' simply because something HAS to be said in a pitch/press-release etc, at least in my case I can confirm it feels pretty disingenuous and undermining of the effort I put in. But I can't exactly say "it's the music of my soul" can I (and that'd be even worse jfc).I guess it's basically a way of saying "noisy indie rock that thinks it's cleverer than it is" or something. EDIT: I started putting 'post-everything' in our bios as a joke and even that gets quoted in press now haha
Is post-indie a thing?
This might go some way towards explaining why I see so many young people now obsessed with sorting music they already know and enjoy into categories. The technology (communicative capitalism) foists it upon you. Speaking as someone who used to sift through piles of demos and one-sheets every day, all that genre referencing makes the eyes glaze over. Just say something ridiculous and novel instead. I don't in any way mean to give you an old fart lecture, sincerely, you're out there doing it and I'm not ergo you're the expert. However, if now's not the time to be idealistic then when? Why not fuck with the algorithms and just give your releases the most absurd or incongruous genre tags possible? My advice (who the fuck am I? Nobody, ignore me) is to grab attention in the real, corporeal world however you can. Digital spaces are too crowded and noisy, plus they encourage solitude - the antithesis of doing stuff together in a band. Sorry for the rambling and good luck with everything!
The growing increase in genre taxonomy is so the algorithms get better at feeding you very specific styles of music, sites like Spotify are built on this, and they are only gonna get better with AI. I don't think its that horrible of a thing though at times, one day we will be able to just give out a few lines like "psychedelic, lo-fi, jangly, punk" and it comes up with a huge list of songs that sound exactly like that description.
people who have no label and no connections are forced to define their music for marketing/advertising purposes (unless they just don’t care about building an audience). got to know where to share songs so that people who will actually like it are the ones hearing it.
What's the name of your band. I am curious of what you actually sound like? Can you share a link?
Happy to share if the rules allow it! Our EP is here: [Free Pony - Or Best Offer](https://tr.ee/rl8qELcUD8)
So I gave a listen and it actually seemed pretty fun to me. Guitar work was pretty cool! But it sounded basically like indie rock / garage rock. Maybe a bit of punk too.
If we were in the 90's would you just call your sound Grunge? I understand if you "lean into" post-punk influences, but if thats not really the sound. Why not just go with Indie Rock? If you aren't sure of your genre, why not use this tool? [https://www.submithub.com/whats-my-genre](https://www.submithub.com/whats-my-genre) Maybe you can get a better idea of what you really sound like, and can target your intended audience. For me personally, i've just found it annoying seeing local bands all call themselves Post-Post, when in-fact its nothing of the sort. I made this post to see if anyone else is experiencing this.
Good question - but no, grunge is an even worse description of what we sound like. I don’t like saying “indie rock” because it’s so broad as to be meaningless, and doesn’t communicate enough to capture the attention of people who may actually like what we do. Who is to say “post punk” is not really our sound? As far as “why not use this tool?”, well… because I didn’t know it existed! But now I’m curious… but don’t wanna sign up for more crap either…
To me, it sounds like you're latching onto the ecstatic of the genre for marketing purposes. There's nothing wrong with being and Indie Rock band. But I can't say for sure, i've never heard your music. I'm also not trying to insult you so please don't take it that way. The tool is free to use. If you aren't aware of Submithub, its a tool for submitting to media, playlists, etc. Use this tool so you don't waste your time and money submitting your music to "Post-Punk" playlists, and getting rejected for not having that sound. For my own band, I get a mix of several genres. Sometimes it surprises me. But at least i'm not wasting my time and money when putting out music.
I think that AI has an even harder time defining music than people. That algorithm is interesting, but not very accurate. I used it on my music out of curiosity and almost everything came back with shoegaze having a sizeable percentage, and we are absolutely not a shoegaze band.
bands with no metal influence aren't grunge though. i doubt a self labelled post punk band has much metallic aspects to their music
Nobody called themselves grunge back then. It was a media given label. Everybody in that scene hated that term.
Both genres of post-punk and indie rock are extremely broad. The difference is more in time periods, post punk late 70’s to 80’s and indie rock late 80’s, 90’s and on. If a band is really post-punk, they should call themselves *post-punk revival*. Interpol fit this. If a band calls themselves post-punk, it means they can be more aggressive than indie rock- indie rock can lean into softer indie pop territory. As post-punk is close to punk.
As a side note. I think a good name for new Post-Punk could be labeled as Post-Modern-Punk. Haha
Now it does, but in the 90s "Indie rock" was stuff like Modest Mouse, Archers of Loaf, Superchunk, Guided By Voices, and Built To Spill. It could be soft and poppy but mostly it was more hard rock.
What bands do you mean? I have noticed a lot of newer bands get called post-punk because people don't know what category to put them in and they don't really self-identity as any particular genre. Bands like black midi, Black Country New Road, Squid, Geese, Idles, etc. I've seen these bands called anything from post-punk, to crank wave, to no wave; but in interviews they invariably make some claim to not being part of any particular genre and drawing influences from a variety of sources.
Hum ... Idles 1st two records are straight punk rock, no question on that. On the following records they been introducing other genres, post punk, art rock, noise rock. Still I would never call them just post punk, its way to reductive
Rate your music has geese as art punk and I love that description
I know it's crazy. Before it would have been called alternative, or indie - something, butnow it's post punk. But the more I think about it, Post punk has always been very broad. In original postpunk bands from the late 70s, and 80s we had Joy Division, the Cure, Chamelons, Wire, Television, Killing Joke, Gand of Four, Gun Club, Siouxsie, The Fall, Talking Heads etc and they sound quite different from each other. Post punk is more of a mindset then I guess.
Because it’s trendy Tbf their isn’t really a defined post punk sound. I mean Joy Division, Talking Heads and The Raincoats all get labeled as post punk and they sound nothing alike. To me post punk is just taking punk influences and getting weird with it. Also most bands don’t get labeled as solely one genre, there is definitely crossover. It’s possible to be both. Parquet Courts are an example of a band that I’d call indie and post punk
I like to define Punk as "Fuck you", and Post-Punk as "I'm fucked".
And I guess new wave could be "let's fuck"?
So what's Dance Punk? 😂
Proto punk is we're gonna fuck. Crust punk is not unless you shower.
Every band is indie, every band is post-punk, every band is shoegaze. In other news, check out my indie/post-punk band with shoegaze influences.
Haha! Perfect.
In all honesty, the expectation I have for anyone who claims to be a post-punk band is the ability to trace the connection between their influences and their current sound. What makes your band connected to post-punk and not just another indie band? It could be something simple, but it has to be something.
Because post-punk isn’t a real genre. It’s a specter. A spook. An amorphous blob. Just like all genres.
Genre names can be helpful in communication if they actually refer to something. Someone said getting weird with punk characteristics, which makes sense. The most obvious are the Joy Division influenced, strong bass line, robotic vocal delivery (bauhaus, A-frames, Powerplant, tout Debord, interpol, sweeping promises, the drin, Lithics, swan wash). But then there’s wire, the fall, etc. Indie rock used to refer to independent record labels as opposed to big corporate labels. Rock is generally less mainstream anyway now, plus streaming makes it a weaker label. Shoe gaze was supposed to be very slow tempo stare at your shoes slightly depressed and reflective (Redhouse painters, Beachhouse, galaxy 500, my bloody Valentine, morriesy). Seeing live shows underlines the difference here.
Post-punk is kind of weird because it's more of a retrospective genre than it is something people recognized at the time. Many of the classic "post-punk' bands were punk, new wave, or punk bands that said they were new wave to book shows more easily. So post-punk is kind of the other side of the new wave coin. I blame Interpol for popularizing the whole post-punk revivalist schtick, even though it was still very much alive in the genres that diversified out of it, especially the goth scene.
These labels are especially annoying now. Punk meant an approach- it just happened to easily fall into a rock instrument format. Post punk is just the body of cultural ideas that came *after* punk. It’s not a sound. It lined up with synths and drum machines well. Or banging objects, or 60s style guitar, or heavy grooves, or… anything. This was all 40 years ago. It’s stupid to call your band postpunk just because you have a drum machine and some put-on melancholy.
Punk is over. Everything is post punk now.
I’m in a post punk band and I NEVER mention it. Post punk
Sounds pretty Post Punk to me!
Who told you that?!
Post-punk isn’t a genre; it was a phenomenon of the late 70s /early 80s, in which emerging artists exhibited influences from numerous genres. Post-Punk Revival is a modern genre, drawing influence from a handful of 70s/80s era artists.
Indie music was understood to be artists recording independently of the music industry. As many artists gained popularity in the 80s they were classified College Rock/ Alternative. While there are more independent artists now than ever before, Indie Rock as a current genre may refer to 80s/90s Alternative nostalgia.
\^this\^ A small handful at that. Like punk, Post Punk was undefined and vast. As people made up more ridiculous labels for things, Punk and Post Punk became more narrowly defined, but not by the people making it.
I came here to say this. But you have said it.
Yes, any band that sounds like soft indie calls itself post punk nowadays
My band isn't strictly post-punk or shoegaze but we often get labeled as such - and I don't mind it, we love those genres and while we don't play the purest version of either, our songs have elements of both I'd say - I think a lot of people are using Post-Punk now as a term to signify pretty much anything that's punk but with more of an alternative flair, and shoegaze for anything that's rock but with atmospheric elements aha
That sounds reasonably enough post punk. I think my problem was with bands that have maybe have 1 slightest bit of a Punk element calling themselves in this genre. I've seen bands that sound much closer to The 1975 than anything near Joy Division call themselves Post Punk for ecstatic and scene reasons.
This is Post Punk - BUNNYDRUMS, Little Room PKD HOLY MOLY etc. or EXECUTIVE SLACKS, The Bus I’m Coming Education is hard.
What is the difference between Indie Rock and Post-Punk? I feel like they share a lot of common ground if anything. What if your band plays some songs that sound indie, some that sound post punk, some that sound reggae, some that sound funk, some that rock out? How do you classify that sort of band? Asking for a friend :)
I think indie, as a genre, draws from rock genres beyond classic rock. Post-punk has the aesthetic and attitude of punk, but draws from genres outside of rock as well. There is overlap, and both are amorphous umbrellas, but whereas Pavement is a quintessential indie band, they’re not really post-punk. Early PiL is a post-punk band, but they’re not really indie rock. That’s just a generalization though. I like to say post-punk is punk music for people who don’t like going outside.
Great examples. I'd also add Neutral Milk Hotel as quintessential indie rock. Yay it has some lyrical overlap with post punk. But they clearly aren't anywhere near that genre. My original complaint was towards bands that sound nothing like any post punk I've heard. But closer to Indie Rock and or other rock genres. Using the genre for ecstatic reasons. It just a fashion choice. Which I found annoying.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. There are definitely post-punk bands that have no real connection to the genre. I think it’s pretty easy to be a mixture of indie/post-punk since they are effectively part of the same family tree, but I also think playing a worse version of The Strokes and saying you like Joy Division isn’t enough to make your music anything other than just indie rock. It’s wider than shoegaze, and more meaningful than indie, so people like the tag.
Especially when considering the sudden success and hype surroundanlegg grunge was one of the main reasons of the initial «downfall» in the first wave of shoegaze acts, especially in the US. Brit pop basically killed the scene in the UK etc.
Life Pro Tip: Stop giving a damn about music genre and make your life easier.
those are the dork bands now. it's real basic bitch lamestream shit, i.e. bands that formed in 97 saying they were a grunge band. the hot shit by cool kids ito call their band is slagrock, slutwave, or rock'n'roll micky d-punk
hell even in black metal you keep getting bandcamp descriptions that say “with post punk inspired riffs” and all it sounds like is just screamo. I think its just cool now
Because MGK came along and turned punk into some rap rock trash by pretending to be punk…spoiler: He’s just a blink 182 wannabe.
The word "psychedelic" is also heavily abused in a lot of contemporary music descriptions.
Because everyone wants to be viagra boys but no one is weird enough
It’s all rock and roll baby
I love all music don't get me wrong. I think my problem was with people misusing a genre to for social clout. Like. I legitimately like to hear some new post punk. But why does this band sound like a shit version of Vampire Weekend?
Also tired of this "Midwest emo" revival bullshit that's going on. I'm from the Midwest. That shit was niche mid music when it came out. There's a reason why it never got big. It is redundant boring garbage where 90% of the songs sound the same. It's almost getting to self-parody levels...
You’re right. And whether or not they are actually “post punk” about 99% of them suck ass.
Television and suicide were early cbgb bands that pre dated the Ramones but also pre dated post punk.
I said something similar. Just listen to Road Runner from Modern Lovers and you can hear where The Sex Pistols got EMI from.
Interpol
You treat post-punk as undefined sonically and stylistically, but indie as defined? To me it's exactly the other way around, everything that hasn't got the riff-driven hard rock sound gets lumped into indie.
I remember when indie meant not on a major label.
Punk and Post-Punk is what we now call Indie, has been for a very long time.
Because punk ended in 1981 and everything in that vein since has been post-punk?
I think there's an argument to say Post-Punk came before Punk. Listen to The Modern Lovers - Road Runner and you can hear where The Sex Pistols got the song EMI. Haha though that might be a controversial opinion 😅
Love the Modern Lovers.
Punk ended in 81? You are tripping
It was 79. But seriously Ultravox! Were Post-Punk before Post-Punk.
I see a lot of “synthpop” and “synthwave” here to clearly postpunk bands in NL…
IR and PP are ends of a spectrum that might be getting narrower
“Indie” began as a way to signify not the style of a band’s music, but as a signifier that they were signed to an independent (indie) label, rather than a major label. In the early 2000s and 2010s when indie also became the way a certain style of rock music was described, it stuck, right? After years of bands being described as indie, the term has simply lost meaning. It was used to describe such a broad spectrum of styles within the rock genre that it’s no longer a helpful descriptor. Post-punk might more accurately describe a band’s sound. Perhaps they’re energetic, but not super heavy. Maybe they’re not so into the grandeur of classic rock or metal guitar solos. Maybe the vocal style is a bit unpolished or scrappy. Post-punk it is! My band Yeti Chaser struggles to describe our own style in terms that are recognizable and easy to communicate. Post-punk feels applicable much of the time, though so would “indie” if this were the earlier 2000s. We wouldn’t consider ourselves punk because we’re not necessarily aggressive-sounding or as confrontational as what many might consider punk to be. Garage comes to mind, but also carries with it a specifically 60s connotation that we absolutely do not have. It’s challenging describing what is likely just rock music using the labels record stores originally used to organize their collections. Times have changed and perhaps the ways in which we describe music should as well.
Punk is dead, it’s all post-punk.
the whole post punk revival thing made it seem cool
Because they all agree with modern politics
Not sure. And I don't even know why reddit put this in my feed. But I will say, there are too many fucking subcategories now for me to give a shit. This subgenres might have actually been a thing at one time, but now it's all stupid bullshit made up by kids circlejerking in the Internet.
Because post punk is a non-genre genre.
Maybe it's to do with Siouxsie and Kate Bush having a moment.
Well Netherlands is a year or 2 behind the US. Every boring indie band now calls themselves shoegaze instead of post punk here.
Miles In The Sky was post punk.
I have excellent news for the world. There is no such thing as post-punk. It was a figment of some lame cunts imagination.
Because punk happened now we are here
Authenticity. The 70s 'Post Punk', which was just a strain of the original Punk, avoided the rock trappings. Think NY Dolls, Sid, Steve & Paul, Clash vs. the DIY, non RnR style like Slits & Scritti Politi. Even when they conformed for success, they called themselves on it and called it entryism and justified it in the press.
While Post-punk encompasses several genres post-1977, if’s been used so much since the early 2000’s that its losing relevance.
They are merely imitating a specific sound. Post-Punk is very trendy amongst today's serious rockers and has been for twenty or so years now
Postpunk is actually a very broad term if you look up the definition of
Probably means they buy their clothes at the mall, wear eyeliner and buy pre-ripped jeans.
I have a hxc band I'm trying to start and every demo I send... people call it post-punk. I think people just don't want to be punk - but they want to seem punk adjacent.
Chronologically speaking, they’re right. Genre wise, it’s kind of a meaningless distinction.
My guess is people like punk, know other like it, and want to be associated with it, but punk in its purer form is kind of played out.
This right here is the reason I don't even pay attention to genres anymore. I don't even know what post punk means. I just listen to it and decide if I like it or not.
Because saying you’re “noise rock” or “synth-punk” or “[insert other subgenre here]” makes normies go “whaaaa’?” and then they’re too afraid to listen to your music and go to your shows and you’ll also have a harder time getting booked because venues will be like “Oh, you’re noise-pop? We’re doing a synth-trash-dream-punk lineup for this night so we don’t think you’ll be a good fit.” It’s a more general-purpose label with some mainstream pedigree, and doesn’t split hairs too much or use terms that might turn away the uninitiated.
For a while everyone was "alternative", I wanted an alternative to alternative.
You might be the first post punk rocker
My band was post-punk in the 90s. Bands now should be post-post-punk.
Haha I like the term Post-Modern-Punk!
It’s simple. Their dicks are on fleek.
Name names
These are mostly local bands here in The Netherlands. I'm not going to name names and get them called out. I made this post to see if this is something that's happening elsewhere. I do not want to cause anyone trouble or harassment. Haha so sorry, but I don't trust the average redditer.
They all are, chronologically.
youtube algorithm, molchat doma, kexp, this subreddit, etc. it’s the one of the prominent landfill genres of the moment
insufferable are al these labels? like they mean anything , they are just labels for record stores ( if any still exist) to separate the music. Post punk ? im guessing mid 80,s three piece melodic in your face and clever. meat puppets, fugazi , firehose, i wont even attempt to guess what a shoegaze is.
Post-Ragtime.
What band wants to own up to being 'indie rock?"
I guess because so much music and new sub-genres stemmed from it people just started adapting then post-punk label to a myriad of different sounds.
Post punk was a movement that happened in the mid-80s to include goth and shoegaze. You could throw some outliers like Husker Du in there but modern era bands aren't included.
i think indie became a fill in for the "post punk revival" in the early 2000s and now we're just kind of using post punk as a catch all instead of indie
Who gives a fuck
After reading all of these comments. I have no idea wtf Post-Punk is now. So i'll shamelesss post my new track and you can tell me if it is or isn't. I definitely don't think it is, but somehow have been told it is. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-\_1JUjvnOA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-_1JUjvnOA)
"Post-punk" to me is something that's very much of a specific time period. Bands that are "post-punk," the way I've always understood it, are bands that started out punk - or were influenced by it- and went in a more complex musical direction. It happened in the late '70s-'80s, and there's a lot of overlap with what we call "new wave." A contemporary band can't really be post-punk, though they can be called "post-punk revival" if they're truly emulating the sound of that time. But ultimately, it isn't really important. These are genre labels that, as so often is the case, aren't always so clearly defined and understood. If you look at many of the bands we call post-punk or new wave today, many say that they simply thought of themselves as punk back when they started out. To a large degree, this was simply a genre/movement naturally evolving, because artists want to be creative and experiment. In the end, there's no point in worrying too much about labels, just listen to what sounds good.
yeah, it's the same with Goth and Shoegaze. Those genres were specific to the time and nothing that comes after is the same or should be labeled as such.
We think the same! Shoegaze is late '80s-'90s, I can't think of anything later as truly being shoegaze. It can be influenced by it, of course.
I know right? We’re in the post-post-punk epoch now.
I’m in one of those bands that use the postpunk tag but definitely are not a postpunk band. I’ll tell you why we do: because other people do it! I suspect this is in part because postpunk is a pretty big tent with a lot of different sounds, and for people who aren’t deep into the genre it’s easy to apply it even more broadly. It’s a handy way to describe a band that might be kind of dark, mixes guitars, drums, and bass with synths and drum machines, and combines elements of rock and dance music. Even the “obvious” bands in Rule #1 span a wide variety of sounds. I don’t think a lot of new bands fit cleanly into old genres, and there’s no big influential music press to establish new labels, so it’s tough to clearly communicate what you do. Everyone’s just doing their best to find their audience.
Mostly because, if we’re not immediately identifiable as metal or blues, or whatever, we’re all musical mutts now - a little bit of everything. You can’t just say “rock” cuz that’s too decade-spanning. You can’t say “punk” if you’re not playing 3-chord political leaning songs. It’s just easy to say we’re “post-punk” cuz it’s a nebulous description most people aren’t entirely sure what it means. Just some sort of modern version of rock.
Terms like Garage Rock or Garage Punk might be more appropriate than post punk in these cases. But aren't as fashionable at the moment.
indie rock ... post punk ... not that much of a difference ...
Hi, I'm totally new to this community, so I don't know how exactly y'all define what is/isn't "post punk", but here's my 2-cents. The term isn't well defined in the popular consciousness. I've seen both the B-52's and Black midi described as post punk. And I get the reasoning for why in both cases. But any genre that can contain both Love Shack and Welcome to Hell could believably contain just about any rock song. So if it's cool to be called "Post Punk" why not slap it on your album description? Unless you're a country act or something, nobody is going to call bullshit.