The Greatest Post-Punk Bands You Never Heard

Pylon . . . with no CD reissues until fairly recently.

They were one of the first of the bands of those on the poll to see a reissue of any of their material, with the nearly quarter century old "Hits" CD (1989), which combined most of their catalog - the best of the two albums and their singles, minus maybe seven songs and some alternate versions.

Actually, based on some quick research, they were THE FIRST of all these bands to see a reissue on CD. The only bands with earlier CDs are And Also The Trees, Asylum Party, For Against, Sad Lovers and Giants, Trisomie 21, Wah! and Wild Swans . . . but technically, those bands were still going when CDs became a thing, and strictly speaking they didn't really have reissues before Pylon, just new releases that came out on CD before any of the other bands saw actual reissues.

For Against, though a tough choice it was.

Nice curveball throwing Second Layer in there, I must say.

Voted for Wild Swans, amongst many worthy options. (But the Chameleons, Comsat Angels and the Sound are among my all-time favorites.)

One of the better legato-n-chorus post-punk riffs, Sad Lovers and Giant's "Clint"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWqBCid_eJ0

And as much as I like and have been involved with post-punk (I've worked with several of the bands and know members of many of them) . . . I have to say that this is a very awkward list.

Some bands not included perhaps should have been . . . like the Sound, who never sold back in the day and were fairly obscure until recently. Others, like Wah! and New Musik actually had chart hits, so why were they included?

Many of the bands I wouldn't call post-punk per se, as they were far more "alternative," with roots in the very pop side of post-punk (like Echo & the Bunnymen, Comsat Angels, even U2) and eschewing much of the real experimentation, politics, philosophy and malaise as what I'd consider 'real' post-punk (name, bands that were only an iteration or two away from actual "punk.") I'm not knocking any of these bands are even mentioning them by name - I like many of the posts by Fastnbulbous and know he digs this sound a lot. And I like some of the bands, too! But some of them owe very little directly to punk *or* post-punk, and more than a couple of them have / had members who would happily admit not liking any of that stuff! A poll with For Against in there with the Fire Engines doesn't make sense, really. A poll with For Against and Win might have. If you see what I'm saying.

I think this mix of some of these bands with UK bands more overtly post-PUNK (those on Rough Trade / New Hormones / and the odd (early) Cherry Red band, plus the Fire Engines, Glaxo Babies, et al) doesn't make much sense. When you toss in disparate American bands like the Embarrassment or Y Pants or the Individuals, things get really confusing. The Sleepers, okay, despite their real lack of recordings. The Embarrassment - yeah, I can hear Marc Riley in stuff like "Death Travels West," and Y Pants may be very vaguely analogous to something like Delta 5, but the Individuals were mediocre watered down version of what became college rock at best (in retrospect) - why bother? Some of these bands barely have any profile today, others only due to the good fortune of being reissued in a relatively high profile way. Some of the bands have had their recorded legacies treated really well on CD (even if they don't deserve it!), others haven't. It's a crime that the Delta 5's "See The Whirl" isn't on CD, and that the Delta 5 collection that did come out suffered from poor sound (as did the Essential Logic collection), though at least Essential Logic and Kleenex will do deservedly well.

The ones here I suspect will be genuinely underrated? The Nightingales, the Blue Orchids, the Embarrassment, Josef K. Maybe Virgin Prunes and Delta 5. I'd have liked to see the Transmitters, Cowboys International and Rip, Rig & Panic included, among many others. This should probably have been three separate polls!

But the biggest thing is that people are (obviously) only going to vote for the bands they've heard, so the greatest one most people haven't heard won't be discovered. Once poll results are in, I'm going to do a voodoo ranking versus actual sales thing (I have a good idea for most of the bands how well they've sold) and post who has the best ratio of poor sales to high reputation in my opinion. Totally unscientific, of course. Because we'll never know for sure.

Awkward--that's the word I was looking for. Exactly. In part, the problem is the all-encompassing vagueness of the term "post-punk," but even by that loose standard it's not as if the Scientists have anything to do with the Visitors (I'm assuming we're talking about the Edinburgh Visitors, not the Dundee one, and certainly not the Aussie, post-Birdman one....) I mean, the Scientists were mod-pop punks who went swamp, while Edinburgh's Visitors were quirky Messtheticians who succumbed to Joy Division damage before being able to get their LP done.

As with Simon Reynolds's book, Australia and Germany get very short shrift here....

The problem with these things is always whether "post punk" refers to a style, or to a period. And since it meant different things in different places, it gets tricky fast.

And yeah, that KIll Rock Stars Delta 5 thing was sonically weak--super noisy--I came up with something better from a ratty copy of the 12" singles comp without even trying. And the LP gets knocked around critically, but mostly because post punk fans have heard the singles and not the album. Needs to get reissued, soon. Weird that it hasn't, with all the lesser things that have seen the light of day of late.

Can I air my grievance here as well?

I've come to hate the term "post-punk."

As very much a second generation kid (now in my early 30's) who didn't know this stuff the first time around and just gravitated to it as something that I liked, I always found the bands I liked (the Chameleons, the Cure, Joy Division/New Order, the Sound, OMD, the Comsats, Echo, etc.) in one of two places in the used record stores: the rock section or the punk section IF —and that's a big if— they even had one.

I mean, the Ramones were called punk AND new wave in the late 70's/early 80's. Same with the Clash. How do we classify those bands now?

(rhetorical question: punk, for the most part)

Further, what is Orange Juice? "post-punk"

And what is Culture Club? "new wave"

Just because one *looks* way cooler in retrospect, it does not merit a new sub-genre tag to delineate "coolness."

I even have a friend who's a decade older than I am that objects to calling bands like For Against or the Chameleons "new wave" in favor of calling them "post-punk" because, in his own words, "new wave is poppier and more produced."

I call bullshit.

Tony Wilson considered the Durutti Column, Spandau Ballet and Joy Division to be "new wave" bands. Because they were inspired by punk, but sounded nothing like it.

If it's good enough for Tony fucking Wilson, it's good enough for me.

Thesis of this post: "post-punk" is a bullshit label created by idiots that wanted say they liked new wave bands without actually saying, "I like this new wave band."

xp Last two bitchfests appeared before I finished this, still thinking on whether to deal with that can of worms...

Nice to see so much activity on a Sunday! Post-punk of course covers a wide area and means different things to different people. I originally was going to stick to the area of proto-"dark wave" that I covered in my piece and accompanying mix, but could already anticipate the complaints about this and that missing, so crammed in everything I could think of. I have to say Rip, Rig + Panic was a total oversight, not sure how I missed that one. I had not heard Transmitters before, and had forgotten about Cowboys International as I didn't have their album, which is being corrected now. Sounds like straight-up synth pop to me, but admittedly they probably have more post-punk credentials than New Musik.

I'm aware that Wah! did have some commercial impact at the time in the UK, but I also know that they've been critical whipping boys compared to peers like the Bunnymen, Teardrops, Psych Furs, Soft Boys, Simple Minds, etc. So now they kind of are under the radar, underheard, underdogs. As a Feelies fan I was pretty excited about the Individuals reissue. Whether or not it measured up to my expectations, I still liked them enough to bother. I may not think they'll win, but that's up to the voters. So you're suggesting I should have done separate polls for the various sub-genres within post-punk? I don't think it would be worth the inevitable arguments about who would go in which poll and the risk of diminishing interest/participation.

But if there are still people passionate enough about these bands to spill some drinks, flip some tables and shout a little, that's a damn pleasant surprise!

xxp I've got a couple great Australian comps. I might have included more bands if I heard some full albums. I figure a candidate for this poll should at least have put out a full length.

So you're suggesting I should have done separate polls for the various sub-genres within post-punk?

I guess my point is —and if I sounded fired up, it was not at you, because you certainly were not the first to start the whole "post-punk" bullshit— that: how can there be sub-genres within a sub-genre that is completely fabricated?

Would have voted for Doll by Doll, one of the best live acts I've ever seen, so focused, so cathartic...voted the Embarrassment. They made me spill drinks and flip tables.

Austin, you want to call everything new wave? Really? If I were to do that in the context of this poll, it would open it up to all kinds of more awkwardness and confusion. People would be asking why I didn't include the Buggles, Haircut One Hundred, Visage, Dollar, Naked Eyes, The Vapors, The Kings, Fad Gadget, The Photos, Altered Images, The Suburbs, Yello, The Jags, The Flying Lizards, M, Nick Gilder, The Monochrome Set, Toyah, The Cleaners From Venus, etc. I like many of those bands, but they just wouldn't fit. Post-punk means more than just after punk, no bullshit! Sure, there's a couple bands in the poll that you could debate their relevance to post-punk. But I'm not the first to put any of them in that category.

Aren't all sub-genres fabricated? Look at heavy metal. There's dozens and dozens of bands from the 70s that are now considered "metal," yet none of them self-identified themselves with that label before 1978 except Judas Priest. So is it bullshit? No. The way people consume, organize, talk about and think about bands cannot be controlled by the bands themselves or any singular cultural guardians. Whether a sub-genre name was first brought up by a journalist or musician or fan, it doesn't matter. Some names for sub-genres stick, some don't. If it takes off, there's a reason for it.

And then there's the mind-boggling array of metal sub-genres, many of which are indeed sub-genres of sub-genres! They exist because they're meaningful for enough people. They might annoy people who aren't into the particular music associated with the sub-genres, but those deep into it couldn't give a rat's ass what others think. I have to admit I originally bristled when I first heard terms like "coldwave" and "dark wave." But I'm not sure why. Maybe I assumed it was associated with shitty bands? Usually I just get too preoccupied with tracking down and enjoying great music to care what people are calling it.

Everything that's happened since 1976 or so is "post-punk," and you're right, Michael, it's hard to know whether it's supposed to refer to a style or period, but neither makes much sense. In my opinion, the only way to define it is as music that was largely informed by or derived from punk, without actually "being" punk. It's the only definition that makes consistent sense. The only odd thing about it is "creep" - that is, a lot of what was kind of considered "punk" to many people prior to the early 1980s is considered by many to be post-punk today - the Banshees' "The Scream," the Slits' "Cut," Subway Sect, Public Image Ltd, and so on. Punk kind of got reduced to the Sex Pistols, the first Clash album, the first two or three by the Damned, a ton of lesser bands from the era (Sham 69, Chelsea, 999, the Vibrators, the Boys, etc) and a lot of the more formulaic stuff that followed - Oi!, hardcore. Punk got reduced to something simpler and structurally and musically dumber. Post-punk kind of took the mantle of what punk originally was to many of its first followers - a largely uncommercial music with its roots in originality and self-expression.

By that definition, the polling list is a mess. As I roughly alluded to before, you could look at bands like the battling triplets Wah!, Echo & the Bunnymen and the Teardrop Explodes as post-punk, in that (originally anyhow) they came out of punk, and punk originally had a lot to do with their sound. You'd be forgiven for thinking that if you heard something like the self-titled Echo & the Bunnymen album (their 5th) which, while it has a lot of fine stuff on, no longer has much of anything to do with punk, nor does it really follow a course of individuality. It sounds like they were honing in on the sort of mega-appeal sound that made U2 or the Simple Minds huge bands. Quite a lot of the bands on the list are versions of less commercial exponents of this sort of thing - like Sad Lovers And Giants or For Against, who are really reductions of bands like the Sound or the Comsat Angels, rather than anything informed by punk itself. Consistently more similar sounding than most post-punk bands, shared "textural" guitars, bland vocals, buoyant bass, snappy drums, largely even-tempoed rhythms. It's a sound some people love, but it lacks what made the best post-punk great.

(I'm not making a judgment here; post-punk lacked a lot of what made other genres great. I'm just saying, it's a different genre! But I do think it's the "sound" that people like - generally speaking, the songs aren't really there, these are mood pieces instead. Even bands like Essential Logic or the Raincoats or the Gist, with songs widely considered at the time to be highly unusual structure-wise, are now seen to have been fairly ace songwriters with a decent understanding of "pop," even if that's not what they were going for. I wasn't surprised when even members of two of those bands went on to help create big-selling chart hits.)

Other bands I noticed were missing, who really should have been there: the sadly underrated Laughing Clowns, Savage Republic, Human Hands, Three Johns, Microdisney. Originals all!

Okay, I just read a couple of responses I shall respond to:

Austin: I was there during the original punk explosion, and know many of the protagonists from then and beyond. By which I mean to say, I've watched all this stuff go down in real time. "Post-punk" makes pretty good sense to those of us who were there. Another way I'd define it would be those bands that had the spirit of punk, without actually sounding that punk. So to quantify your examples: the Ramones were a punk band who kind of lapsed into self-parody. The Clash started out as a punk band, and became a weird hybrid of a post-punk band (much of "Sandinista!" and even a lot of "Combat Rock") and a simple rock band (most of the hits.) Orange Juice were clearly a post-punk band. Why? They were a total piss-take! (I know two of the members.) Always a laugh. Even at their commercial peak, they were quoting the Buzzcocks, covering Vic Godard, funding other artists, having Jim "Foetus" Thirwell guest on records and hysterically putting words like "discourteously" into songs just to see if anyone would notice. They couldn't sell out if they'd wanted to; their sense of perversity was just too great. (The original band split up because some of them wanted to sound more like Can and Throbbing Gristle.) Edwyn is still like this 30+ years and two strokes later - despite his two career hits. The band that you really should compare them too is Haircut 100, who stole their look, superficial aspects of their sound and general marketing sense . . . but left out all the residue from punk. And had bigger hits and a better career. The Culture Club (and to some extent) Spandau Ballet were more opportunistic. They were a reaction against punk. Like Madonna, they grabbed a few commercial things (largely visual) from the post-punk era, often watered them down, wrote commercial songs (sometimes good, sometimes awful) and played the game correctly, for the most part. To me, they didn't even sound like they were having fun.

"New wave" was purely a marketing term. I never knew anyone involved with any of the good music associated with it as anything more than a marketing term, at least not for long. And that includes Tony Wilson, who would most assuredly be describing the situation differently today, were he around to ask. (Durutti Column and Joy Division were clearly post-punk; I suspect that when he mentioned Spandau Ballet it was when they still made allusion to outré subject matter (first couple of singles? I didn't follow them closely.) Later, it was obvious that that wasn't what they were about, in essence. "New wave" was *always* considered a marketing term by anyone around these bands and the bands themselves, and despite my ardent love of the most popular examples of "new wave" artists - I love Devo, Nick Lowe, stuff like the Flying Lizards "Money," and I think the first Lene Lovich album is a masterpiece, I see early Devo (anything up to including "Duty Now For The Future") and the Flying Lizards as clearly post-punk (late Devo is just pop to me) and Nick Lowe and Lene Lovich (and many of the early Stiff bands, come to think of it) as just solid pop music. New wave doesn't enter into it; it never did.

But the idea that the "sub-genre" is completely fabricated is silly. I have a Rough Trade catalog from 1978 that talks about what it means, long before nearly all of the bands on the poll existed.

Fastnbulbous: Don't take any of this as personal; I like that you made the list. But I'd have made three: UK postpunk commercial unknowns, ditto for the US and what you call your proto-"dark wave." But now that I say that, the US version would be tough, things were very fragmented when most of the bands one would include were around, and some managed to survive long enough to build a lasting legacy (like the Feelies or Mission of Burma) and many didn't and were only seen by people for a short time in a small region, so I don't know how you'd ever get an accurate vote out of it.

The Transmitters were great. They had a 12" on Mark Perry's Step Forward label (as did Marco Pironni's band The Models, Sham 69, Chelsea, the Fall and the Lemon Kittens) which was great, but their real masterpiece was on Bristol's Heartbeat label. Entitled "And We Call this Leisure Time," it's similar to the Glaxo Babies, i'd guess, or the Pop Group with a bit more structure. They do a lyrically-altered version of Sonny & Cher's "The Beat Goes On" which is actually up there with the Gang of Four or Pop Group in terms of social commentary. I have it on CD, which had three bonus tracks from who knows where.

Cowboys International is synth pop that owes a lot to Bowie's Berlin albums, "Low," Lodger" and "Heroes," but with some unexpected odd sounds, a personnel that includes former (or then-current) members of everyone from Duran Duran to the Clash to Public Image, Ltd. (Main guy Ken Lockie was in PiL during part of the "Metal Box" era and plays, uncredited, on the album.) It is the EXACT halfway point between post-punk ("Metal Box") and new pop ("Hungry Like The Wolf") in every way, save commercial success. Hugely underrated. Dig that Keith Levine guitar on "Wish!"

No, again, I'm not calling YOU out. You're just working within established ideas.

I'm saying that those established ideas suck.

And, to your initial question, I answer with another question: why shouldn't Haircut 100, Romeo Void, Aztec Camera, Josef K and Orange Juice belong in the same section?

And further, don't those records just seem to "fit" next to the Cure, Siouxsie and the Cocteaus?

xpost, obviously.

Anyone else rep for Breathless? Voted for them on the strength of their great 90s albums Between Happiness & Heartache and Blue Moon. Haven't heard the new one yet.

"New wave" was purely a marketing term. I never knew anyone involved with any of the good music associated with it as anything more than a marketing term, at least not for long. And that includes Tony Wilson, who would most assuredly be describing the situation differently today, were he around to ask.

But, I mean, that's pretty crap, my friend.

Speaking for a dead man and whathaveyou.

Vini clearly said at the time that he hated rock and roll, but loved the new wave.

Really not trying to get fired up over this, but the revisionist mindset really gets me going (in a bad way).

So what next? Jandek is post-punk?

For Against is post-punk revival, I guess?

Not seeing it, from any angle.

People would be asking why I didn't include the Buggles, Haircut One Hundred, Visage, Dollar, Naked Eyes, The Vapors, The Kings, Fad Gadget, The Photos, Altered Images, The Suburbs, Yello, The Jags, The Flying Lizards, M, Nick Gilder, The Monochrome Set, Toyah, The Cleaners From Venus, etc.

I guess we should consider "new wave" the opportunistic cousin to post-punk! I'd exclude The Cleaners From Venus from this list, as they entered public consciousness a bit later and are part of a totally different English tradition, really. The Monochrome Set were legitimately "post-punk" for a while, before becoming more accessible (if still commercially failed) and making still decent oddball pop. The Flying Lizards reputation rests too largely on "Money" and "Summertime Blues" (both commercial but great) than what they sounded like most of the time, which was quite different. Viv Goldman, Patti Palladin (Snatch) and Viv Albertine (the Slits) perform on their records, as well as experimental musicians like David Toop, Steve Beresford and Michael Nyman. The main guy in the band, David Cunningham, also produced and released the first This Heat album, which bears some heavy resemblance to the Flying Lizard's debut, in places. The second album is even less commercial than the first. The third (and last) album is sort of an attempt to score again with the "Money" formula, but still pretty weird. If you haven't heard their full records, you should check out the deluxe reissue of the first two albums (plus bonus tracks) on a 2xCD from Cherry Red. Pretty experimental and not all that pop.

But the rest of those artists, yeah - opportunistic versions of post-punk, in one way or the other. Some have a little more cred than others (Fad Gadget at first, and Dieter Meier of Yello did some odder stuff earlier on), but Toyah, the Vapors, the Buggles, Nick Gilder and so on, for all their charms, really had nothing much to do with punk or post-punk or anything genuinely like it. (Though the Photos did form out of the very punk Satan's Rats!) Still, you can't deny "Hot Child In The City," can you?

Well, I guess all I can say in this case is, "good for you."

I'm not taking anything personally, though I'm not sure why Mr. Austin is getting worked up. I was sort of exasperated at yet more tirades about genres, but if it inspires an epic response like that of crustaceanrebel's, awesome! And his post pretty much answers Austin's question too. There's certainly a long history of complaining about genres. Many bands bristled at being called "punk." As did earlier ones at "glam." And later ones at "new wave." Crustacean is right about it being a marketing term in that was used in the "Don't Call It Punk" campaign spearheaded by Seymour Stein of Sire records because he feared "punk" would hurt the sales of all the bands he recently signed. Nick Kent and and Dave Marsh used it in reference to the New York Dolls and the Velvet Underground but it didn't catch on. So there's certainly a strong case for "new wave" being even more of a bullshit term than "post-punk." But it caught on, and serves its purpose, as does post-punk.

Savage Republic seems quite popular around here, so I didn't include them. I don't know Human Hands will check them out, thanks.

No, I'm not fired up.

Which is why all the bands mentioned here that I have in my iTunes are filed under "Rock."

Genre tags, outside of obvious assertions ("rock", "jazz", "blues", "pop") are pretty much useless.

I mean, really: is the Cure's first three albums "post-punk" but everything after that something else?

See my point?

Really not trying to get fired up over this, but the revisionist mindset really gets me going (in a bad way).

It's not revisionist. I was there, I remember. You're in your early 30s, from what you say. And I must have had twenty conversation with Tony Wilson over the years, so while I cannot actually speak for the gent, I can tell you that his statement did not reflect anything like a consensus opinion, and he was foremost a person attempting to promote the bands he looked after (Durutti and JD at any rate) using interview marketing lingo for record execs, not what most people used. And even then, that minority sense would have vanished soon afterwards, when things fragmented in unpredictable ways - in this case, Spandau further embracing commercialism until songs like "True" bore no trace whatsoever of anything except the sort of stuff my mum liked. I can't speak for Vini, but he certainly played in rock and punk bands before Durutti, and he's also a strange 9but lovely) guy. You're taking a couple of minor quotes way out of the context of the times. I can't blame you, you weren't there. But it's weirdly inaccurate and revisionist in itself. Amongst the musicians and fans, "new wave" was a derided term from the beginning (TV Smith was making fun of it in song by the end of 1977!), whilst "post-punk" was not. Not that post-punk was used as much more as a descriptor. It originally meant what I said above, nothing more, nothing less.

And, to your initial question, I answer with another question: why shouldn't Haircut 100, Romeo Void, Aztec Camera, Josef K and Orange Juice belong in the same section?

And further, don't those records just seem to "fit" next to the Cure, Siouxsie and the Cocteaus?

You can things in whatever section you like. But to answer your question is difficult, since you've mentioned eight different artists in comparison to one another, which is a lot of permutations.

Romeo Void never made much of an impression on me, save "Never Say Never," which I remember as a fairly decent dance hit. Everything else I heard by them just sounded like what I'd call Californian post-Fleetwood Mac pop. Like the Motels, Pearl Harbour & the Explosions and that sort of thing. Just pop music, some good, some bad, tarted up for the times. This is subtly reflected in their production and record covers and visual identities. And by chance that they came along at a time with a woman leading a band was a lot more acceptable than it had been previously. This probably had more to do with Fleetwood Mac than the Slits, but times were changing a little, so these bands were marketed as "new wave." In truth, they weren't seen as being particularly different or new. I'd call it 80s pop - it's pop and the "80s" bit helps conjure up the imagery, artwork, production and so on. I guess in this sense, Haircut 100 would fit in here, too.

But the Postcard bands you mention are a bit different. As I mentioned previously with Orange Juice, there was a perversity there that defied real commercial success. Even more so with Josef K, who went even further than Orange Juice in attempting to never see the charts, though in their case it was less likely anyhow. They didn't want success. They didn't care. This was somewhat true, in the beginning, with Aztec Camera, who became fairly successful without trying, and then bit the bullet and went for success in a big way . . . managed some, but lost much in the process. And Roddy regrets that now. In a sense, it can be said that all three of these bands were founded in punk, remained true to those ideals (or came to regret it) and even today more or less play by those rules of punk. For some, like Edwyn, it paid off - he refused deals for his publishing despite needing the cash - he'd seen that such a deal was a kind of servitude and garnered little - only to make a fortune when "Girl Like You" became a gigantic hit and he'd held onto the rights.

The Cure and Siouxsie and the Cocteaus became big-to giant stars. In part, they did this by never stopping until the times caught up to them. Their respective sounds didn't change much (at least not after the mid-80s) and they hung in there long enough to reap the rewards of the world catching up. I've talked to one of the Banshees, who regrets crossing a line around the time of "Tinderbox" to a just-commercial-enough sound, which he says ultimately made the band less interesting and caused them too much work, without proportionate rewards and led to the split.

But they're all, at their core, pop bands. Why not put them all in the same section? There's no reason.

The thing is, the poll was not, "the greatest 80s pop bands you never heard," it was "the great POST-PUNK bands you never heard." And my argument with that is a somewhat too-encompassing definition of post-punk, because (and here's the truth) some people started calling some of them post-punk long after the fact . . . probably when the distance between the very final drabs of the post-punk era in terms of new bands (say, 1984) was longer than the time between early punk and post-punk - about 8 years, or 1992, give or take a few. So people conflated things, when they were pretty distinctly different to those who were there.

I just listened to the first For Against single, since they are one of the last bands on the poll to start putting out records. The a-side "Autocrat" is a fairly catchy, very 80s tune, described on its YouTube video as "dream pop," which is kind of accurate - it's atmospheric and has a sort of Factory Records sound without the tension you'd find on any Joy Division record - it's pop. It actually sounds a but like A Flock Of Seagulls, who weren't post-punk either, but simply opportunistic early 80s pop. So why would For Against be considered post-punk at all? There's not really any connection there, like them or not. At best, they're kind of post-post-punk, but at that point, the "punk" bit is just pointless. You can't say that about Josef K or Orange Juice or the Passage or the Delta 5 or many of the others, who were directly influenced by punk and it showed.

I'm sorry, I hear no distinction between the catchy psuedo-funky jangle riffs and purposely impenetrable lyrics of 'Rip it Up' than I do the minor chord vamp and catchy vocal melody of 'Autocrat.'

If one is post-punk and the other new wave, I'm lost.

Dream pop is a fake genre made up after the fact as well.

And further, you seem to be caught up on years of release.

What would you consider the Smiths then?

I mean, really: is the Cure's first three albums "post-punk" but everything after that something else?

Well, it's tricky. I mean, I could call the first Beatles album a "beat group" album, but calling "Abbey Road" that would seem silly. Bands change and do different things. Billy Joel and Paul McCartney and Joe Jackson are (generally) pop musicians, but they've all recorded orchestral pieces that clearly weren't pop. Which is fine.

Post-punk was a reaction to punk which embraced a lot of the tenets of punk and expanded on them. So while the first three (I'd say four) albums by the Cure are pretty-lcearly post-punk, a change does happen somewhere in there. And it was purposeful - they went "pop." That's not me saying it, either, it was their stated objective and I've talked to folks like Steve Goulding (who played drums on at least one of their pop makeover singles, maybe "Let's Go To Bed") and for the Cure, the embrace was wholehearted. That's great - my favorite record by the Cure is their debut and the singles around it, but after that, I loved the early pop stuff. I thought albums two through four were too imitative, and apparently Robert Smith acknowledges this. So they became an 80s pop band. So what?

The Banshees evolution was similar, I suppose, but yeah - they became something else. I could listen to the final Banshees album and appreciate what went into it, but it wasn't what I liked (the first five studio albums, in this descending order of quality: 1, 3, 2, 4, 5) and that's fine.

The beauty of the Cure, if you will, is that they managed their entry into pop while still retaining a lot of their very individual quirks - certain sounds and certainly Robert's voice. That's a tricky thing to pull off and I admire them for it. But to me - like the Ramones, who did much the same thing but without the subsequent success - they did kind of lapse into self-parody and I think that by about 1987 the song quality started noticeably declining.

Fastnbulbous: There's one Human Hands CD retrospective, "Bouncing To Disc," and there were plans for a second, which I don't think ever happened. They didn't put all the good stuff on the first volume, but the one track you should hear, if you can only hear one to "get" their sound, is "Trains Vs Planes," which is a bit like the Embarrassment, but more LA than that. They have connections to everyone from Wall of Voodoo to X and Savage Republic.

i'm certain this genre naming thing has been discussed here a few times in other threads.

in australia we would never have associated ourselves with 'new wave' although that term was used a lot in mags and fanzines. to my mind that was linked with the poppier, professional section of bands - like b-52s, elvis costello, xtc, etc (no matter what year they started). still love them all, btw. we never called / linked ourselves with any genre as we were just too young and having an enormous amount of fun. but, as was said above, we were all heavily influenced by some sort of punk / diy attitude and we tried to make a specific type of sound - intially heavier, gloomier, etc. but that all dissipated fairly quickly.

i wanted to be the in the new pere ubu, really, and they started in 1975 way before i heard their stuff.

fastn': i note your idea about album bands but most of the aussie ones were so unprofessional and had such limited funds that a single or EP was all they could ever make before they self-imploded. with that proviso in mind, here are the ones i can think of:

primitive calculators - self titled live album (they're finally releasing a studio album this year)
voigt/465 - slights unspoken (band i was in)
pel mel - out of reason
laughing clowns - Mr Uddich Schmuddich Goes To Town
the makers of the dead travel fast - the vessels
scattered order - prat culture
slugfuckers - transformational salt
tactics - my houdini
birthday party / boys next door - i suppose they're too famous

i could almost consider pel mel new wave but def none of the rest

Due to the limit to 50, these weren't included: Doll By Doll, Kevin Hewick, The Lotus Eaters, Metal Urbain, Monoton, Necropolis Of Love, Pink Industry, The Prefects, The Scientists, Skids, Spherical Objects and Theoretical Girls.

I know an easy way to hear at least a few of these.

http://acuterecords.com/

And of course I voted for The Lines

Apologies to Happy Refugees, Fire Engines, Ike Yard etc.

I don't know Austin, I can hear the sarcasm and irony in "Rip It Up" (and the one chord guitar quote from the Buzzcocks' "Boredom" makes it obvious where they're coming from) and nothing like that in "Autocrat." And that's not even mentioning the huge differences in the rest of their respective oeuvres. Plain as day to me.

"Dream pop" was never a genre, nor did I imply it was one as such, it's just a pretty apt sonic description.

The Smiths, well, that's interesting. They were different from the beginning and I did know them, so I'm speaking more attitude than music. They were outsiders and brilliant at being purposefully obscure on one level and perfectly consistent on another. Morrissey was a pretty well-known character for years before the Smiths, and among people that first heard the Smiths there was an obvious shock that they were so unique and complete and good. I'd see "This Charming Man" as pretty much the barrier between post-punk and what came after. ("Hand In Glove" was first, but it didn't seem as astonishing and even RT was much more conservative in its promotion (no 12") and so it was the follow-up that amazed. In retrospect, everything seems to have changed within months - you can get a sense of this by looking at Rough Trade releases before and after. All the "old guard" just disappeared, with very few exceptions. All of a sudden, Rough Trade released quite a lot of pop hopefuls (like Woodentops, James), mainstream reggae attempts, American college rock and so on, and earlier Rough Trade artists mostly disappeared. That was the end of post-punk, and the beginning of the great splintering that I think has lasted until this day. The fairest thing to call it, from an American perspective, would have been college rock - meaning everything from the Smiths to stuff like For Against, to rock revivalist acts like the Dream Syndicate to SST bands to Violent Femmes, REM's ascent and so on. I was a lot less interested in much of this. Few post-punk bands from before really survived. Most just disappeared. A few people turned up in really different guises with much different aspirations, but it's amazing how many disappeared for years. From a British perspective, it was just a mess, until many of the older punk / post-punk labels folded and the Cartel (big distributor) collapsed and you had a ton of things like real "indie" records - records that stood almost no chance at all, and the are occasional band out of nowhere. Lots and lots of rave and dance music.

I suppose the first really clear "trend" after all that was Britpop, at least in Britain, and one could make the case that the Smiths were the forerunner example of that. To me, the Smiths were one of those strange bands like the Kinks, who were kind of part of something like a scene, but really stood alone in many ways. I liked some of their music, was blown away by what they did in other ways.

The Smiths could almost have been the last non-retro post-punk band - they were clearly "of" punk and a lot that followed (and a lot that came before), but I think enough time had passed since punk that it all came out very differently. You can't compare Essential Logic and This Heat and the Nightingales and Liliput in direct musical terms, but they were of the same set of influences and had something of a common attitude. The Smiths were different from that. Maybe punk was just too far back, or maybe the band's other influences (New York Dolls, girl groups from the 60s, etc) diffused it, but it wasn't the same, it was something different.

One thing you have to keep in mind is how static everything was until punk. When bands could really be "unique," they were almost mind-blowingly unique. You were (literally) risking your personal safety by being into this stuff, just walking down the street - so the attitude was, you might as well REALLY say what you had to say. When it became more acceptable to do one's own thing, the compulsion to push limits died down a lot. All of a sudden, the vast number of choices that punk ultimately caused meant that things would never again be so cohesive in musical trends. Then when the internet came along, things got even more fantastically fragmented. I think the Smiths just happened to come along at a time when kids could be a goth or a punk or a heavy metal kid or a rave fanatic or whatever - a million things - and find a place to feel okay, rather than being restricted to just a couple of choices. I don't know that they had much to do with it (other than to offer yet another choice), and their success was probably only possible because they had great timing. If Morrissey had started a band five years earlier, I wonder if anyone would really be talking about him today.

The Spherical Objects were mentioned, despite their incredible obscurity (despite the ungodly wonderful gift of their reissues), but their label-mate and occasional work partner, Steve Miro should also be mentioned. Brilliant stuff

Xp, the term "dream pop" was created by A.R.Kane to describe their own music in 87 / 88.

Also Grow Up.

As with Simon Reynolds's book, Australia and Germany get very short shrift

UK-centric, Simon Reynolds? Surely not.

(When I got into italodisco I looked at Energy Flash to see what Reynolds had written about it. It got a single sentence which noted that European kids listened to cheesy European records in clubs. That covered the entirety of Italian and mainland European dance/synth music between Moroder and Ride On Time according to S. Reynolds. Oh well.)

Looking forward to checking out some more of the polled bands and some of nonightsweats' Aussie bands when I'm not at work...

In my own mind, I use the term "art punk", and if the artist seems to fit that description, I write out the word post-punk, since that seemed to be the accepted term. I don't think of it as a genre per se, but rather something different from the received streetish reputation of "punk" and the poppish connotations of "new wave". Of course this just pushes the distiction off to how one might define "art", but it's useful for me.

only heard a couple of these so i don't know but this is all-time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTctKIUlHKc

Modern Eon are pretty good if i remember correctly

There's been way too much chatter on this thread for me to catch up properly, but I just want to say... since when is saying "I like New Wave" meant to be uncool?

That whole part of this thread was very strange tbh. Apart from anything else, the term post-punk apparently appeared in Sounds in 1977 so it's not like no-one ever used it at the time (cf. Freakbeat, Garage Punk, Northern Soul etc)

I have this thing at work where you can define a genre by picking a set of representative artists, and then get an extrapolation (or interpolation, depending on how you look at it) to bands like <i>that</i>. I put in this poll's bands as the seeds, and had it generate an introductory playlist to whatever it is they collectively define.

http://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/31ngQVszhBHQLklebwbG0m

Or, for those of you out of reach of Spotify:

Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart
Echo And The Bunnymen – The Killing Moon
Magazine – Shot By Both Sides
The Cure – Just Like Heaven
Gang Of Four – Damaged Goods - Remastered Album Version
Siouxsie And The Banshees – Hong Kong Garden
Wire – Ex Lion Tamer - 2006 Digital Remaster
Young Marble Giants – N.I.T.A.
The Teardrop Explodes – Reward
The Psychedelic Furs – Love My Way
The Chameleons – Don't Fall
Killing Joke – Love Like Blood
Delta 5 – Mind Your Own Business
Public Image Ltd. – Rise
Sad Lovers And Giants – Things We Never Did
Au Pairs – It's Obvious
The Monochrome Set – Eine Symphonie Des Grauens
The Wake – Melancholy Man
SECTION 25 – Looking From A Hilltop
The Fall – Totally Wired
The Raincoats – Lola
The Durutti Column – For Belgian Friends
Colin Newman – Alone
Lene Lovich – Lucky Number
Fad Gadget – Collapsing New People
The Associates – Party Fears Two - Pavilion Glasgow 11/03/1985
Crispy Ambulance – Deaf
The Soft Boys – I Wanna Destroy You
For Against – Sabres
Pylon – Crazy
Gary Numan – Are ‘Friends’ Electric?
The Danse Society – Somewhere
The Birthday Party – Release The Bats
Medium Medium – Hungry, So Angry
A Certain Ratio – Flight - Massey Mix
The The – This Is The Day
Altered Images – Happy Birthday
The Pop Group – She Is Beyond Good And Evil
Glaxo Babies – This Is Your Life
Strawberry Switchblade – Since Yesterday
Essential Logic – Aerosol Burns
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – Hollow Eyes
The Slits – I Heard It Through The Grapevine
The Normal – Warm Leatherette
The Flying Lizards – Money
Wall Of Voodoo – Mexican Radio
Orange Juice – Rip It Up
And Also The Trees – Dialogue
Crime And The City Solution – The Adversary
Shriekback – Nemesis
Bush Tetras – Too Many Creeps
Lydia Lunch – Spooky
Minny Pops – Blue Roses
Scritti Politti – Perfect Way
Department S – Is Vic There?
23 Skidoo – Vegas El Bandito
The Raincoats – Shouting Out Loud
SpizzEnergi – Where's Captain Kirk?
Love And Rockets – So Alive
Cabaret Voltaire – Nag, Nag, Nag
Swell Maps – H.S. Art
Tuxedomoon – In A Manner Of Speaking
Girls At Our Best! – Getting Nowhere Fast
Virgin Prunes – Pagan Lovesong
The Wolfgang Press – Mama Told Me Not To Come
Julian Cope – World Shut Your Mouth - Janice Long 6/8/1986
Suicide – Ghost Rider
The Wild Swans – Young Manhood
Liquid Liquid – Optimo
Alternative TV – Action Time Vision
The Bolshoi – Sunday Morning
Peter Murphy – Cuts You Up
The Glove – Like An Animal - Remastered LP Version
The Prefects – Going Through the Motions
Dif Juz – No Motion
Japan – Ghosts
B-Movie – Institution Walls
Life Without Buildings – The Leanover
Mekons – Where Were You
Spear Of Destiny – Never Take Me Alive
My Dad Is Dead – Nothing Special
E.S.G. – I Don't Dance
Ike Yard – Loss
Gene Loves Jezebel – Desire (Come And Get It) (Re-recorded / Remastered)
New Model Army – 51st State
Mo-Dettes – White Mice
Lizzy Mercier Descloux – Fire
Theatre Of Hate – Original Sin
Tones On Tail – Go! (club Mix)
Liliput – Ain't You
Malaria! – You You
The Feelies – Let's Go
These Immortal Souls – Marry Me (Lie! Lie!)
The Gist – Love At The First Sight
Lords Of The New Church – Dance With Me
This Mortal Coil – Song To The Siren
Thomas Leer – All About You
Teenage Jesus & The Jerks – The Closet
Grauzone – Eisbär (Remix by Carlos Perón)
Quando Quango – Love Tempo - Remix
X-Ray Spex – Oh Bondage: Up Yours! - Live
Alan Vega – Jukebox Babe
Dark Day – No, Nothing, Never
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness – According To Plan
The Icicle Works – Love Is A Wonderful Colour (Live Town & Country Club)
John Cooper Clarke – Evidently Chickentown
Romeo Void – Never Say Never
Breathless – Next Time You Fall
Ipso Facto – Circle Of Fifths
Danielle Dax – Big Hollow Man
Pigbag – Big Bean (12 Version)
Minimal Man – Consexual
Motorama – Rose in the Vase
Fra Lippo Lippi – Shouldn't Have To Be Like That
Close Lobsters – Just Too Bloody Stupid
Siouxsie – Into A Swan
Half Japanese – 1,000,000 Kisses
Disco Inferno – Can't See Through It
The Gun Club – Sex Beat
The Only Ones – Another Girl Another Planet
The Wedding Present – Brassneck
Subway Sect – Nobody's Scared
Play Dead – Propaganda
Adam Ant – Goody Two Shoes
Trisomie 21 – The Last Song
The Lotus Eaters – The First Picture Of You
Felt – Dirty Girl
Martin Dupont – Just Because
Mars – India Sleeping
Tom Tom Club – Genius Of Love
Dalis Car – His Box
Kas Product – Never Come Back
Xmal Deutschland – Incubus Succubus II
The Mighty Lemon Drops – Inside Out
Chris And Cosey – Obsession
Urinals – Hologram
Chrome – TV As Eyes
Mighty Lemon Drops – Inside Out
The Go-Betweens – Streets Of Your Town
The Dream Syndicate – Tell Me When It's Over
Richard Hell – Blank Generation
Specimen – Syria
The Clean – Anything Could Happen
John Foxx – Underpass (1980 SINGLE EDIT)
Kitchens Of Distinction – Drive That Fast
Anne Clark – Our Darkness
Half Man Half Biscuit – Joy Division Oven Gloves
Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers – Pablo Picasso
Marine Girls – A Place In The Sun
No More – Suicide Commando
War Tapes – Dreaming of You
Destroy All Monsters – Bored
Sonic Youth (Ciccone Youth) – Into the Groovey
Alien Sex Fiend – I Walk The Line
Veil Veil Vanish – Anthem For A Doomed Youth
Frustration – Too Many Questions
Beat Happening – Our Secret
Pete Shelley – Homosapien (Dub)
Red Zebra – I Can't Live In a Living Room
Bill Nelson – Flaming Desire
The Adverts – Bored Teenagers
Throwing Muses – Not Too Soon
Free Kitten – Oh Bondage Up Yours
The Vaselines – Son Of A Gun
Death Cult – God’s Zoo
The March Violets – Snake Dance
Skeletal Family – Promised Land (7” Version)
Chrisma – Black Silk Stocking
The Triffids – Wide Open Road
Red Rockers – China
It's Immaterial – Space
Iron Curtain – The Condos
The Rezillos – Top Of The Pops
Nina Hagen – TV-GLOTZER (WHITE PUNKS ON DOPE)
China Crisis – Wishful Thinking
Robert Smith – Very Good Advice
Bats – Wolfwrangler
The Coathangers – Hurricane

Hilariously, due to some screwed up credits on an old compilation, Spotify thinks "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is a collaboration between Joy Division and Chubb Rock.

OK I'm going for the epic mix. I think this is the biggest mix I've ever downloaded.

I've been trying to get more into post-punk recently but I don't know most of these bands. I got the Ike Yard reissued album a few months ago and I really like it. Also genuine lol at the Chubb Rock thing

Dif Juz – No Motion

^ Have been playing the shit out of this song of late

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUbQiUv1QHo

I know it's not at all unknown but I still find it a staggering piece of music

Other than New Order getting it from New York, itslodisco didn't have a big impact in the uk. America's take and filtering if Italo is a whole other question, which I've probably explained on another thread.

lol I would have voted Chameleons

Oh yeah also missing is Rema Rema.