Publish-punk and indie-rock aren’t nostalgic actions. They’re residing ecosystems that refuse to fossilise, always mutating while sustaining their important DNA.
Each few years, a brand new technology discovers Pleasure Division or Gang of 4 and decides to do one thing totally different with those self same uncooked supplies. The outcome? A style that by some means sounds each 1979 and 2024 concurrently.
Right here’s what makes these scenes totally different from different musical actions: they by no means had a business peak to say no from.
While Britpop exploded and imploded, while grunge grew to become a advertising and marketing time period and died, post-punk and indie-rock stored quietly evolving in basements and bedrooms throughout the globe.
No main labels dictated the sound. No MTV rotation decided success. The music stayed underground simply lengthy sufficient to remain sincere.
This record isn’t a historical past lesson. It’s a map of the style’s nervous system, 20 tracks that present how the identical spirit manifests throughout many years.
You’ll discover 1978 sitting comfortably subsequent to 2024 as a result of, in these genres, time operates in a different way. The angular guitars, the emotional rawness, the refusal to play by pop’s guidelines, all of it connects throughout the years like a dialog that by no means fairly ends.
Essentially the most important post-punk music ever recorded. Launched in June 1980, one month after Ian Curtis’s dying, this observe transcended its tragic circumstances to turn out to be the style’s defining second.
Bernard Sumner’s shimmering synths dance in opposition to Peter Hook’s melodic bassline while Curtis delivers lyrics about relationship disintegration with devastating honesty.
The manufacturing, courtesy of Martin Hannett, creates house and ambiance that punk by no means imagined potential.
Each factor works in excellent stress: the upbeat instrumentation contrasts with the melancholic lyrics, creating one thing concurrently danceable and heartbreaking.
Many years later, new listeners nonetheless uncover this observe and surprise how one thing from 1980 can sound so fast, so painfully present.
2. The Remedy – “A Forest“
Robert Smith guides you thru fog and darkness on this 1980 masterpiece from the album Seventeen Seconds.
The observe builds patiently, Lol Tolhurst’s drums sustaining a gradual march while Simon Gallup’s bass prowls beneath Smith’s chiming guitar.
The music’s hypnotic repetition pulls you deeper into its ambiance with every passing minute. Smith’s vocals shift from whispered urgency to determined cries because the narrator loses themselves in an infinite forest.
The prolonged outro, with its swirling guitars and haunting synths, appears like wandering by way of that very same woodland, by no means fairly discovering an exit. That is The Remedy at their most gothic, most atmospheric, and most timeless.
Quick-forward to 2024, and London’s Excessive Vis show post-punk nonetheless has new issues to say. Their album Guided Tour grew to become one of many 12 months’s most talked-about releases, and “Thoughts’s a Lie” showcases precisely why.
The observe blends hardcore punk’s urgency with post-punk’s driving melodies, then throws in surprising home and UK storage influences. It’s a correct anthem.
The type that makes you need to leap round while concurrently making you concentrate on the programs that form our lives.
Vocalist Graham Sayle delivers lyrics about psychological well being and fashionable anxiousness with conviction—by no means preachy however at all times sincere. That is what occurs when post-punk meets 2024 Britain.
4. Siouxsie and the Banshees – “Hong Kong Backyard“
Earlier than there was gothic rock, there was this 1978 single. Siouxsie Sioux’s voice cuts by way of the combination like damaged glass, while John McKay’s guitar creates atmospheres punk by no means thought-about.
The music addresses racism by way of metaphor, impressed by Siouxsie witnessing abuse directed at employees at a Chinese language takeaway close to her dwelling.
Kenny Morris’s drums hit with martial precision, and the Oriental-influenced melody line grew to become genuinely revolutionary for its time.
This observe proved that punk’s vitality could possibly be channelled into one thing extra refined, extra clever, with out shedding its edge. Each gothic band that adopted owes one thing to those three minutes.
5. Interpol – “Impediment 1“
New York in 2002 was determined for guitar music that felt essential once more. Interpol delivered that with Activate the Vibrant Lights, and “Impediment 1” grew to become the calling card.
Sure, Paul Banks feels like Ian Curtis filtered by way of Manhattan angst. Sure, the reverb-drenched guitars recall post-punk’s Eighties heyday.
However dismissing this as mere revivalism misses the purpose totally. The observe captures a selected type of city loneliness-the paradox of feeling remoted in a metropolis of thousands and thousands.
Carlos Dengler’s bass doesn’t simply anchor the music; it drives it ahead with menacing objective. Banks’s lyrics function on dream logic, all impressionistic fragments that by some means coalesce into one thing emotionally coherent.
That is what occurs when People lastly stopped making an attempt to repeat British post-punk and began filtering it by way of their very own anxieties.
9 minutes of gothic post-punk perfection. Launched in 1979, this debut single established Bauhaus as post-punk’s theatrical coronary heart.
David J’s bass supplies the observe’s skeletal body, minimal and menacing. Daniel Ash’s guitar screeches and slides like one thing from a horror movie while Peter Murphy’s vocals shift from spoken phrase to dramatic wails.
The house between sounds issues as a lot because the sounds themselves, creating an environment of decay and decadence.
This isn’t only a music; it’s an expertise, a journey into darkness that influenced everybody from 9 Inch Nails to Marilyn Manson.
7. Comfortable Kill – “Roses All Round”
Portland-via-Chicago’s Comfortable Kill are maybe post-punk’s most emotionally bruised exports of the previous decade.
“Roses All Round,” from their 2020 album Useless Youngsters, R.I.P. Metropolis, doesn’t simply recall Eighties post-punk; it captures that particular model of Pacific Northwest melancholy that makes rain really feel romantic quite than miserable.
Tobias Grave’s vocals carry the burden of somebody who’s survived one thing however isn’t fairly celebrating but.
The guitars shimmer with a Remedy-adjacent glow, however there’s grit beneath – this isn’t nostalgia tourism. The manufacturing walks a line between rawness and sweetness, letting each factor breathe with out shedding the music’s immediacy.
What makes Comfortable Kill compelling is their refusal to easily recreate the previous. They perceive that post-punk was at all times about processing real ache by way of stunning sounds, and that equation works simply as properly within the 2020s because it did in 1982.
Essentially the most danceable Marxist critique you’ll ever hear. Gang of 4 understood one thing most political bands miss: you may’t change minds if folks aren’t listening, and folks gained’t hear if they’ll’t transfer to it.
“Broken Items” assaults client tradition and commodified relationships while Andy Gill’s guitar scratches out funk rhythms that make standing nonetheless unimaginable. Jon King delivers lyrics like educational essays compressed into sneering punk vocals.
The rhythm part locks into grooves that James Brown would respect. What made Gang of 4 genuinely revolutionary wasn’t simply their politics, loads of punk bands had been indignant about capitalism.
It was their realisation that funk’s propulsive rhythms and post-punk’s angular aesthetic might coexist, that you possibly can make folks suppose while making them dance.
LCD Soundsystem, Franz Ferdinand, and numerous others spent the 2000s chasing the template Gang of 4 perfected in 1978.
9. The Nationwide – “Bloodbuzz Ohio”
Matt Berninger’s baritone sounds prefer it’s broadcast from the underside of a properly on this 2010 indie-rock basic. The Nationwide specialize in managed melancholy, and “Bloodbuzz Ohio” captures them at their most interesting.
The observe builds from sparse verses to a surging refrain, strings and guitars swelling with cinematic drama. Berninger’s lyrics paint American life in shades of gray, discovering magnificence in extraordinary disappointments.
The Dessner brothers’ association creates house for each factor while sustaining ahead momentum. That is indie-rock that sounds intimate and epic concurrently.
10. Disintegration – “Hideaway”
Cleveland’s underground retains producing bands that sound like they stepped out of a time machine, and Disintegration are the most recent proof.
The Cleveland band’s album Shiver in a Weak Gentle might have been recorded in 1983 or final Tuesday; the deliberate lo-fi manufacturing makes temporal placement unimaginable.
“Hideaway” thrives on that ambiguity, garage-rock grit colliding with new wave synthesisers in ways in which really feel each nostalgic and fast. The observe’s tough edges aren’t flaws; they’re the purpose.
This feels like music made by individuals who care extra about authenticity than polish, who’d quite report in a basement with mates than in a correct studio with professionals.
There’s one thing genuinely thrilling about bands like this in 2024, teams that reject fashionable manufacturing strategies not out of ignorance however out of conviction. The DIY spirit that birthed post-punk by no means died; it simply stored shifting to totally different cities.
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11. Alex G – “Gretel“
Philadelphia’s Alex Giannascoli constructed a profession importing home-recorded songs to Bandcamp, and even signing with Domino couldn’t make him sound polished. That’s the purpose.
On “Gretel,” from his 2019 album Home of Sugar, his refusal to scrub issues up turns into the music’s biggest power.
The observe swells from light finger-picking into managed chaos, his voice multi-tracked into one thing like a haunted choir.
Nothing follows typical music construction; it appears like stumbling by way of another person’s dream.
That is what occurs when an artist trusts their instincts fully and refuses to sand down the odd edges that make their music distinctive.
In an period of over-produced, algorithm-optimised pop, Alex G’s intentionally tough, bedroom-adjacent strategy feels quietly radical – proof you may transfer to a much bigger indie label and nonetheless sound such as you’re recording at 2am with the lights off.
12. Wire – “12XU“
What occurs when art-school college students determine punk songs are too lengthy? Wire’s 1977 debut Pink Flag solutions that query throughout 21 tracks in 35 minutes.
“12XU” exemplifies their aesthetic: stripped-down, exact, aggressive minimalism. Colin Newman delivers his vocals with zero emotion, itemizing numbers and letters like he’s studying a telephone listing, and by some means it turns into poetry.
The guitars are clipped to the purpose of ache, each observe deliberate, each silence calculated. Nothing right here is unintentional. Wire proved that punk’s vitality didn’t require prolonged jams or blues-based constructions.
Typically essentially the most radical factor you are able to do is cease earlier than anybody expects you to. Generations of bands from Mission of Burma to Elastica to Protomartyr discovered from Wire’s instance: say what that you must say, then shut up.
13. MJ Lenderman – “Rudolph”
There’s a selected pressure of American indie-rock that specialises in chronicling masculine disappointment with wry humour, and MJ Lenderman may be its present grasp.
“Rudolph” from his 2024 album Manning Fireworks captures that specific North Carolina model of melancholy, all slack guitar tones and deadpan vocals that by some means make failure sound interesting.
Lenderman sings like he’s explaining his issues to a bartender who’s heard all of it earlier than, self-deprecating however by no means pathetic.
The manufacturing is intentionally ramshackle, guitar solos that sound like they may disintegrate at any second however by no means fairly do.
What connects Lenderman to predecessors like Neil Younger and Pavement isn’t simply sonic similarity; it’s that understanding that American indie-rock works finest when it stops making an attempt to be essential and simply tells the reality about being a little bit of a multitude.
That is music for individuals who peaked of their twenties and are attempting to determine what comes subsequent.
14. The Remedy – “Simply Like Heaven”
By 1987, The Remedy had perfected their capacity to make unhappiness sound blissful. “Simply Like Heaven” is Robert Smith at his most romantic, writing about his spouse Mary with tender longing.
The guitars chime and sparkle, Simon Gallup’s bassline bounces with pleasure, and but the lyrics describe love as one thing fleeting and fragile.
The music’s outro, with its wordless “present me” chorus, appears like reaching for one thing simply past grasp.
This observe influenced numerous indie bands, exhibiting how guitars might create atmospheres as emotional as any synthesiser.
15. Fontaines D.C. – “I Love You”
Dublin’s Fontaines D.C. convey working-class poetry to fashionable post-punk. Their 2022 album Skinty Fia noticed them increasing past their rawer early sound.
“I Love You” showcases this evolution completely. Grian Chatten’s vocals shift from spoken-word intimacy to cathartic launch because the music builds.
The band creates house and stress, figuring out precisely when to carry again and when to surge ahead. The lyrics look at love and identification with literary precision.
That is post-punk that carries the burden of Irish literary custom while sounding urgently modern.
Essentially the most terrifying factor about “As soon as in a Lifetime” is how precisely it captures middle-class existential dread. David Byrne didn’t simply write a music about mid-life disaster; he channelled the exact second while you go searching at your life and surprise who made all these choices. T
he polyrhythmic groove, constructed from Brian Eno and Byrne’s obsession with African music, creates a hypnotic loop that mirrors the music’s themes of repetition and routine.
Byrne’s vocal efficiency shifts from anxious questioning to one thing approaching non secular ecstasy, like a person having a breakdown which may even be a breakthrough.
The sweetness is how the observe features on a number of ranges concurrently: you may dance to it at a celebration or have a full existential disaster in your automobile.
Publish-punk was by no means alleged to be this accessible, however Speaking Heads proved experimental music might infiltrate the mainstream with out compromising its strangeness.
17. Geese – “Fantasies / Survival”
Brooklyn’s Geese are proof that youngsters can nonetheless make genuinely thrilling post-punk. Their 2021 debut Projector arrived absolutely shaped, sounding like a band who’d spent years honing their craft quite than one recent out of faculty.
“Fantasies / Survival” exemplifies their strategy: angular guitars that recall Wire and Gang of 4, however filtered by way of a distinctly Gen Z sensibility.
The observe shifts by way of a number of sections, by no means settling into predictable patterns. Cameron Winter’s vocals carry a nervous vitality that matches the music’s restlessness.
What makes Geese compelling isn’t simply technical capacity, although they’ve clearly studied the post-punk playbook—however their willingness to sound genuinely weak quite than hiding behind cool detachment.
18. Public Picture Ltd – “Public Picture”
John Lydon’s post-Intercourse Pistols undertaking proved punk’s limitations had been self-imposed. Launched in 1978, “Public Picture” options Jah Wobble’s rumbling dub bassline, Keith Levene’s slashing guitar, and Lydon’s venomous vocals attacking his personal pop star picture.
The music feels like nothing else from its period, refusing to suit neatly into punk or post-punk classes. Its affect echoes by way of many years of different music, proving that destruction could possibly be artistic, that tearing down might construct one thing new.
19. Alvvays – “Archie, Marry Me”
Toronto’s Alvvays perceive one thing different indie bands forgot: you might be unhappy and catchy concurrently.
“Archie, Marry Me” sounds prefer it was recorded with deliberately lo-fi manufacturing, and that hazy aesthetic serves the music’s emotional objective completely.
Molly Rankin sings about unrequited love with specificity—she’s not pining for some summary romantic best however for an precise one that’s most likely oblivious.
The jangly guitars recall C86 bands like The Pastels, however filtered by way of Canadian melancholy. There’s one thing deeply satisfying about indie-rock that refuses to decide on between accessibility and authenticity.
This can be a three-minute pop music that additionally occurs to completely seize the particular ache of loving somebody who’ll by no means love you again.
Seaside Fossils and Actual Property had been doing related issues round this time, however Alvvays managed to sound extra emotionally direct, much less involved with being cool.
20. Parquet Courts – “Vast Awake”
Brooklyn’s Parquet Courts shake off apathy with this 2018 name to motion. The observe channels post-punk’s political edge, Gang of 4’s funky angularity filtered by way of Twenty first-century anxiousness.
Andrew Savage’s vocals shift between spoken phrase and shouted urgency while the band locks right into a hypnotic groove.
The manufacturing, courtesy of Hazard Mouse, maintains uncooked vitality while including surprising sonic touches. The lyrics handle political awakening with out resorting to sloganeering. That is post-punk for our present second, proof the style’s confrontational spirit stays important.
Right here’s what connects a 1978 Siouxsie and the Banshees single to a 2024 Excessive Vis observe: each refuse to sound like the rest occurring of their respective moments.
Publish-punk and indie-rock by no means chased developments as a result of they had been too busy creating them. The genres attracted misfits, art-school dropouts, and youngsters who felt alienated by mainstream tradition’s empty guarantees. That hasn’t modified in practically 5 many years.
The music retains regenerating as a result of the sentiments it addresses, alienation, anxiousness, the seek for authenticity in a business world – by no means go away.
Every technology discovers these sounds and recognises one thing true within the angular guitars and emotional rawness. They decide up devices and add their very own anxieties to the dialog.
What makes these 20 tracks important isn’t their technical perfection or business success. It’s their honesty.
From Ian Curtis singing about his failing marriage to MJ Lenderman cataloguing masculine disappointment, these songs work as a result of they inform the reality about being human.
The manufacturing may be lo-fi or hi-fi, the guitars may be jangly or distorted, however the core stays the identical: actual folks making actual music about actual emotions.
So cease studying and begin listening. Put these tracks on shuffle. Let 1979 crash into 2024. Let Pleasure Division’s darkness sit subsequent to Alvvays’s brightness.
That’s how these genres work finest as a dialog throughout time, proof that good music doesn’t expire, it simply finds new ears.
And when “Love Will Tear Us Aside” comes on after “Thoughts’s a Lie,” and also you realise they’re basically saying the identical factor forty-four years aside, you’ll perceive why these genres refuse to die.
As a result of the sentiments they seize – alienation, longing, the seek for one thing actual in a pretend world—these by no means go away. They simply discover new voices.
