How (post) punk is post-punk, really?

Post-punk is as good as "rock" music ever got, for my money. But "post-punk" the name has always bugged me. It seems very misleading--and kind of non-sequitur--for the expansive, varied, adventurous music we typically refer to when we use the term. Punk, great as it can be, seems like fundamentally one in a cycle of "back-to-basics" Rock Music. Post-punk, by contrast, seems to have seamlessly arisen from many musical phenomena that predate Punk, and relating to punk mainly in terms of DIY energy and democratizing the means of production.

What do you all think? Does post-punk have as much to do with the Ramones as with Neu, with the Sex Pistols as Can? I'd argue the aesthetics, the ethos, the production values, etc. of post-punk (by which I mean Family Fodder as much as Joy Division, Raincoats as much as Gang of Four) were already being expressed almost fully-formed as early as the late 60s.

Punk had (and maybe still gets) more press and is useful as the Big Cultural Phenomenon In Rock in reaction to hippiedom and singer-songwriters and show-off prog, and it's easy to understand why something inherently simple, direct, and fashionable would have long-term popular appeal as a digestible concept ready for emulation. But Post-Punk, and the music I'd argue it's directly related to (per the mix) was the bigger deal in terms of lasting significance and influence on adventurous music well beyond the bounds of rock.

I made a mix to make the argument more clearly than I can with words. It's very far from exhaustive--I'd love to see further examples in this thread.

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/1968-1977-covers_v01a.jpg?w=700

'Post-Punk: 1968-1977'

Various – ‘Post-Punk: 1968-1977’
(Post-Punk Before Punk)

Part I

01 [0:00:00] Brian Eno – “Third Uncle” (‘Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)’, 1974)
02 [0:04:50] David Bowie – “Breaking Glass” (‘Low’, 1977)
03 [0:06:35] Faust – “It’s A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl” (‘So Far’, 1972)
04 [0:14:05] Red Krayola – “Dairymaid’s Lament” (‘God Bless the Red Krayola. . .’, 1968)
05 [0:16:35] Television – “Elevation” (‘Marquee Moon’, 1977)
06 [0:21:35] Silver Apples – “Lovefingers” (‘Silver Apples’, 1968)
07 [0:25:33] Devo – “Social Fools” (‘Hardcore Devo Vol.1’, 1974)
08 [0:29:10] Cluster – “Caramel” (‘Zuckerzeit’, 1974)
09 [0:32:20] Augustus Pablo – “Skateland Rock” (‘This Is Augustus Pablo’, 1974)
10 [0:35:30] Chrisma – “C. Rock” (‘Chinese Restaurant’, 1977)
11 [0:41:00] Laurie Anderson – “Break It” (‘It’s Not The Bullet’ 7″, 1977)
12 [0:45:35] Debris’ – “One Way Spit” (‘Debris’, 1976)
13 [0:48:10] Heldon – “Mechamment Rock” (‘It’s Always Rock’n’Roll’, 1975)
14 [0:51:40] Death – “You’re A Prisoner” (‘. . .For The Whole World To See’, 1975)
15 [0:54:00] This Heat – “Horizontal Hold” (BBC) (‘Made Available’, 1977)
16 [1:02:20] Can – “Vitamin C” (‘Ege Bamyasi’, 1972)

Part II

17 [1:05:50] Suicide – “Che” (‘Suicide’, 1977)
18 [1:10:40] Annette Peacock – “Been & Gone” (‘I’m The One’, 1972)
19 [1:13:00] Tim Buckley – “Song to the Siren” (‘Starsailor’, 1970)
20 [1:16:25] Neu! – “Negativland” (‘Neu!’, 1972)
21 [1:25:55] Wire – “Mannequin” (‘Pink Flag’, 1977)
22 [1:28:30] Kraftwerk – “Antenna” (‘Radioactivity’, 1975)
23 [1:32:10] Talking Heads – “I Want To Live” (Demo) (‘CBS Demos’, 1975)
24 [1:35:55] Chinaboise – “Girl You Got It (So Go Get It)” (‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’, 1975)
25 [1:38:10] John Lennon – “Well Well Well” (‘Plastic Ono Band’, 1970)
26 [1:44:05] Yoko Ono – “Potbelly Rocker” (‘Feeling the Space’ sessions, 1973)
27 [1:46:40] Pere Ubu – “Heart of Darkness” (’30 Seconds Over Tokyo’ EP, 1975)
28 [1:51:20] Modern Lovers – “Someone I Care About” (‘The Modern Lovers’, 1972)
29 [1:54:55] Ultravox – “Hiroshima Mon Amour” (‘Ha!-Ha!-Ha!’, 1977)
30 [2:00:00] Nico – “Janitor of Lunacy” (‘Desertshore’, 1970)
31 [2:04:00] Lou Reed – “The Bed” (‘Berlin’, 1973)
32 [2:09:50] The Stooges – “I Wanna Be Your Dog” (‘The Stooges’, 1969)
33 [2:12:55] Roxy Music – “For Your Pleasure” (‘For Your Pleasure’, 1973)

https://musicophilia.wordpress.com/2018/06/17/post-punk-1968-1977/

Punk, great as it can be, seems like fundamentally one in a cycle of "back-to-basics" Rock Music.

Like what, for instance?

it's pretty post

Punk, great as it can be, seems like fundamentally one in a cycle of "back-to-basics" Rock Music.

Like what, for instance?

― We can be herpes (Tom D.), Tuesday, June 19, 2018 6:14 PM

I'd say the godheads of spirit of '77 Punk on both sides of the Atlantic, for a start--The Ramones and the Sex Pistols. Both are more or less revved-up Buddy Holly or Nuggets rock. And again, that's not a bad thing, and can be great--but it just doesn't seem that artistically/sonically related to post-punk, to me.

The sound of the first Ramones album isn't related to post punk? I strongly disagree. Anyway, I meant what "back-to-basics" Rock Music cycles is it related to?

Wire – “Mannequin”

This more like Buddy Holly than anything the Sex Pistols ever did, of course.

... actually I'm confusing it with "Fragile" but it's still a 60s mod song at heart.

I thought it was basically, Punk meant people heard basic untutored music being played so went out and did things themselves based on some of the same influences which tended to mean everybody was playing ramalama with miminimal chord changes etc.
People were also supposed to be hiding the idea that they were listening to bands deemed uncool at the time because of things like hippy or prog association.
A lot of people started picking up instruments for the first time, others tried to hide their advanced musical tuition. ONce thsoe people had been playing together for a while ideas started creeping in that came from a wider array of sources etc. Once taht started happening things became more complex and things like atmosphere crept into the sound. Once taht happened people moved away from the ultra basic sound and punk moved onto post-punk.
But a lot of the bands and players involved had come into being because of that punk explosion hence once they moved on they were post-punk.

It seems that there were various influences tahtw ere coming together throughout the early 70s, release of Nuggets, Raw power and various other bits and pieces which lead to the punk scene. Or whatever it was called by various players at the time if they weren't overly fond of Malcolm Mclaren or the Sex pistols.

The strumming style of the guitar on "Fragile" doesn't strike me as being particularly Buddy Holly or '60s mod.

And I think fits with what Stevolende is describing as untutored and minimal.

This is probably just going to repeat some of what Stevolende said, but I wrote the whole thing already so I might as well post it.

My understanding has always been that the relationship of post-punk to punk was, initially, a "social" or "personal" one--i.e. that the early post-punk bands were just people from the punk rock scene who started making weirder, more varied music. So the music was "post-punk" just in the sense that it was what punk rockers did after they moved on from playing punk.

Of course, this ends up being confusing for a number of reasons. The idea that punk was ever a single identifiable style, defined by speed and aggression and power chords or whatever, is post-hoc revisionism that can't even account for why The Clash would be considered punk, let alone Television or the Talking Heads. And, as you point out, some post-punk bands ended up having clear stylistic affinities with arty bands from before and/or during the initial punk explosion. This leads to a band like Devo, for example, getting tagged as "post-punk" (sometimes) despite having formed in 1973.

Now, as far as I can tell, when a band gets called "post-punk" it just means that they sound a lot like an late-70s/early-80s post-punk band in some way.

I've come to loathe the term "post-punk", even though I'd agree that it's probably my favorite era of guitar-based music. I've always preferred "new wave", because if it was good enough for Tony Wilson, it's good enough for me.

New Wave always smacked of what the larger corporate labels wanted to call things so i always associate it with the more watered down bands. Post-punk at its best remains pretty intense.

Also, there are some obvious personnel carryovers -- like with Red Krayola – “Dairymaid’s Lament”; Mayo T. obviously went on produce a number of well-known "postpunk" bands, so the aesthetic link isn't too surprising.

there's a great quote from Charles Hayward somewhere about how the guys in This Heat were super excited to hear this new punk music they'd been reading about, and when they heard the Clash they were like "this is just sped-up Chuck Berry"

just dropping that in here

That's not a very accurate characterization of the Clash, even in the very beginning

well if you look at it through the lens of "dude who was in Quiet Sun" I think it's totally fair, I mean come on "White Riot"?

"White Riot" sounds a lot more like the NY Dolls than Chuck Berry to me.

NY Dolls were a pretty straight mutation from R'N'b sources surely?

I don't think so. You don't think they were innovative at all?

tim u are splitting some exceedingly pedantic musical hairs here if you don't see how much closer The Clash are to Chuck Berry than they are to This Heat

I didn't say that

I just see that characterization of *JUST sped-up Chuck Berry* as lazy and not particularly accurate, informed only by the fact that the Clash were using simple chords

I see the Dolls as a heavy band in the same way that Aerosmith was a heavy band but bringing other things to the table

Including innovation

xps but can you see why a guy who played in Quiet Sun would have that thought when hearing The Clash for the first time after such a buildup of "punk" in the music press as something new and radical and different? probably my fault for paraphrasing, the whole quote provides more context.

Dolls vs. Aerosmith is an interesting thought in terms of similarities!

I think the term "art punk" would have been better than what stuck. DIY without populist ambitions.

Is the thesis here that the sounds we associate with post-punk would have come along even if 77 punk hadn't revved up glam and pub rock? Probably!

New York dolls were a band directly covering r'n'b numbers in a pretty untutored way hence straight mutation of . Comparisons i've seen from the time are to early 60s rolling Stones etc.
BUt their innovations are in incorporating a ramshackle element as a working part of their sound and may be what punk picked up from.

Also I think sped up Chuck berry is probably more shorthand for various r'n'b stylings rather than necessarily a purist comment on him as the model.

xp
I think I actually say "arty punk" when I reference those bands IRL

There's one cover version out of eleven songs on the Dolls' first album. They did more on the second album, yes.

their innovations are in incorporating a ramshackle element as a working part of their sound

Disagree that this summarizes their innovations.

there was post-punk already in the 60s. the whole British Invasion was basically an early punk revival: you had the garage rock scene as direct response, embracing DIY & the roughness and drive of early rock. soon psychedelics took over and there was plenty of experimentation.

imo The Monks are perhaps the best example of a 60s post rock band. they are a sort of postmodern prefab band a la The Monkees but with a weird twist. their music is all chord progressions/lyrics stripped down to extreme minimalism, simplistic pop deconstructed down to absurdity.

timellison otm itt, except when he disagreed with me.

New Wave always smacked of what the larger corporate labels wanted to call things so i always associate it with the more watered down bands. Post-punk at its best remains pretty intense.

― Stevolende, Tuesday, June 19, 2018 12:09 PM (thirty-two minutes ago)

This is the sort of nonsense that I hate. "Post-punk = valid artistic statement, new wave = sell out music." Meanwhile, the term new wave is what was used at the time to describe everyone from the Ramones to Devo to the Human League. "Post-punk", as near as I can tell, is a term that was created after the fact to segregate the quote en quote "COOL, GOOD BANDS" from the quote en quote "CRAP, POP BANDS." It's an elitist form of labeling that relies on how cool a band is in retrospect and it's an unproductive, regressive train of thought.

First time I was aware of the term New Wave was via this Sire records sampler from 1977: Talking Heads, Voidoids, Dead Boys and Saints. Nothing watered down at all.

https://img.discogs.com/m-mjEWGWJC9xuSjO0bjRb8SJviA=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-1380531-1465599513-3026.jpeg.jpg

https://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9780684179445-us.jpg

(^ that was as late as 1983)

I think I'll just keep the distinction that I have for the last 35 or whatever years.

Yeah, revisionism is awesome.

I love pretty much all this music, but have never been good at sorting it into buckets. A friend of mine said New Wave was just rock music with asymmetrical haircuts, and I'm not sure how much I disagree. I love a lot of music that generally gets called post-punk, New Wave, and synthpop, but my liking it generally predates knowing what to call it.

I think I'll just keep the distinction that I have for the last 35 or whatever years.

[citation needed]

"we're not a punk rock band we're a new wave band". 1979 fwiw

So you've got a band that you haven't named or shown the context for saying that.
& it shows what?

New Wave will always smack to me of what mainstream labels thought they could market at the time including rebranding bands as.
Always seems like stylized skinny tie, weird haircut etc wearing stuff. Which is not what I would be looking for at the time or since.

You got something against stylized skinny ties, weird haircuts etc wearing stuff or what?

sorry, that was the Dead Kennedys and they were being ironic. agreeing with you Stevo, new wave was being called "sellout" back in the 70s

My favourites are when bands who were around before or during punk are described as post punk.

"Pink Flag" is a post punk album - yeah, right, sure it is.

I always thought of post punk as slits, raincoats etc

Am I missing something

Young marble giants

Soundslike is the god of mixtapes

that Chrisma record rules, I just got it a few months ago

side 2 my war

― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, June 20, 2018 11:26 AM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

well it's a stairway
to
heav
en
well i was a born

There are no new waves, there is only the ocean - JLG

I like post punk as a label. It is fitting name for a genre. Last month I only listened to post punk. It tends to be more industrial than art punk.

To clarify I didn't listen to any modern music called post-punk. There is no post-punk in the last 20-30 years (anyone that tells you differently is wrong). . Just late 70's and 80's.

Captain Sensible used to follow Soft Machine all over the UK, wearing his Mike Ratledge trademark long leather coat.

wot?

Lol

Captain Sensible spearheaded a music-and-dialogue concept album after all.

To clarify I didn't listen to any modern music called post-punk. There is no post-punk in the last 20-30 years (anyone that tells you differently is wrong). . Just late 70's and 80's.

― He said captain, I said wot (FlopsyDuck), Wednesday, June 20, 2018 11:59 PM (yesterday)

I wouldn't have believed it, either, till I heard the proof. I can't say I love it as much as the peak '78-'82 (or avant-post-punk '68-'77) stuff. But there's definitely a lot of excellent music being made the last few years that doesn't just ape forms of post-punk but really inhabits its spirit. I imagine as staunchly as you're stating your opinion, the music won't dissuade you, but others might find it of interest:

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/pp-0717-covers.gif?w=624&zoom=2

A Projection · Ablebody · Agent Side Grinder · Anika · Ashrae Fax · Ausmuteants · Aviaries · Band Aparte · Behavior · Beach Fossils · Beak · Bent · Black Marble · Blau Blau · Blood Sound · Blood Sport · Bobsleigh Baby · Carola Bony · Bootblacks · Cellular Chaos · CFCF · Chromatics · Cold Beat · Cold Cave · Cold Waste · Corners · Corridor · Cowtown · Crumbs · The Dance Asthmatics · Daphni · Death & Vanilla · Dirt Dress · Dirty Ghosts · Disappears · Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein · Drab Majesty · Eagulls · Eat Skull · Electrelane · Electricity In Our Homes · Erase Errata · Esses · Estrambote · The Estranged · Explode Into Colors · Exploded View · Factory Floor · Fear Of Men · Forests · Foster Body · Freak Heat Waves · Frustration · Fujiya & Miyagi · Gesture · Glintshake · Gold Cross · Golden Teacher · Grass Is Green · Grass Widow · Joana Guerra · Hdspns · Holograms · The Knife · Koban · The Kurws · The Lanskies · Lithics · LCD Soundsystem · Lunch · M!R!M · Massicot · Mazing Vids · Melt Yourself Down · Mere Women · Mermaidens · Micachu & The Shapes · Minuit Machine · Mode Moderne · Moss Lime · My Disco · Naked Lights · New Blood · New Fries · The New Sound of Numbers · No Zu · Normal Love · Omni · Opposite Sex · Otzi · Ought · The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart · Parquet Courts · Peaking Lights · Plastic People · Pow! · Preening · Preoccupations · Priests · Primitive Motion · Primitive Parts · Prinzhorn Dance School · Protomartyr · Ravioli Me Away · Frankie Rose · Sacred Paws · Savages · Shadowlands · Shopping · Sneaks · The Soft Moon · Surplus 1980 · Taiwan Housing Project · Talk Normal · Terrible Truths · Terry · Total Control · Total Victory · Trash Kit · Tunabunny · Unur · Uranium Club · Var · Varsovia · Vats · Viet Cong · Virginia Wing · Vivian Girls · Winkie · Wint · The World · Yvette · The Zygotes

https://musicophilia.wordpress.com/2017/10/24/post-punk2007-2017/

In a certain way, all this new stuff sort of cemented my longstanding feeling that whatever post-punk is (that isn't just "the thing that came mostly immediately after punk") isn't a 5-year phenomenon but a continuously evolving musical tradition.

isn't a 5-year phenomenon but a continuously evolving musical tradition.
>
Yeah would hope it would be, I think that was part of what made it interesting in the first place.
People discovering that they can do it yourself once shown the basics. Not following formulas etc.

& what I'm familiar with from the playlist does seem to be a lot of what I'd take the touchstones for development at the time to be.
Can't think offhand exactly how representative of the original bands on the playlist those specific tracks are.
I think there was always a level of filtering what did and didn't fit what was wanted at the time anyway.
So maybe the ideal was revisionist to begin with. As was punk really wasn't it?

Or that in taking elements one liked from disparate influences one liked and recontextualising them together one would be reinvisioning.

https://www.network77.com/

all your waves

i had to go and get chrisma's _chinese restaurant_, that is fun, cool shit. once again with the, "how did i never even hear of this"?

Chrisma/Krisma must've been fairly big in Italy--they were a band whose albums yiu could find as super-saver type albums at mainstream media shops when I lived there a few years ago. But yeah, don't seem to show up too often in post-punk/new wave discussions.

I explained it to someone who didn't know shit about punk or post-punk but who was surprised that the lovely post-punk album I played him sounded nothing like the screaming, sneering, antisocial, and loud music that he had decided that punk music sounded like thusly:

Punk music gave license that you didn't need a degree in music theory to be in a band.
Post-punk took that same license even further and said you didn't even have to sound like punk.

I might have been talking out of my ass but he seemed satisfied.

That seems reasonable to me. I've always been thankful for punk's promise of freedom--and post-punk's delivering on that promise.

One more fan of that Chrisma track. I knew them from "Nothing To Do With The Dog" in the 80s, but didn't know they dated back to '76.

It was definitely a shame that the Who almost didn't form when Keith Moon forgot how to resolve German sixth chords. Good thing Townshend helped him with his fugal exposition on the extra credit assignment.

Um, what?

Or should I say “wot?”

I said “Sund4r”
I said “wot?”

Was a (probably delayed) reaction to:

Punk music gave license that you didn't need a degree in music theory to be in a band.

There is no shortage of musicians who decided upon hearing the Sex Pistols or the like that punk meant they didn't have to be a virtuoso to get up on stage and play.

This can't be a controversial statement.

Didn't the Sex Pistols cover Substitute?

Indeed they did.

Pete Townshend definitely did have classical influences and aspirations though: https://petetownshend.net/musicals/music-of-the-spheres-the-orchestral-music-of-pete-townshend. John Entwistle’s parents, both musicians, gave him and sent him to music lessons. He played French horn in a youth orchestra and then was playing some kind of wind instrument in a trad jazz band. Moonie, as well as The Ox. was a certain kind of chops monster, and all four of them were able to do those four part Beach Boys harmonies on occasion ( The Ivy League only sang backing vocals on “I Can’t Explain”). So, instrument smashing and attitude aside, The Who don’t quite qualify as proto-punks.

Wait I just watched video of "Substitute" from Monterey Pop and I take it back about the singing harmony.

Sweet, punks vs. mods redux.

http://britpopnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/mods-vs-rockers.jpg

There is no shortage of musicians who decided upon hearing the Sex Pistols or the like that punk meant they didn't have to be a virtuoso to get up on stage and play.

This can't be a controversial statement.

I wasn't even arguing this as much as I thought it was funny to take literally the idea that a degree in music theory was a requirement to form a band pre-punk. "Classical aspirations" and "parents sent him to music lessons" are not exactly the same thing as "having a degree in music theory" ftr.

B-b-but was it in fact meant literally?

I wonder what Harlan Ellison RIP™ would have had to say about this issue.

my takeaway from ‘rip it up and start again’ was that post punk wasn’t really a thing at the time and the narrative was revisionistically pieced together after new wave by critics tracing influences backward (proto new wave??) through all the different weirdo scenes. so i agree with the thesis of the thread, also mix in the OP looks killer

B-b-but was it in fact meant literally?

Probably not

I'm old enough to remember the era and I don't recall people talking about "post-punk". I've always assumed that was a naming after the fact. "New wave" these days seems to mean late seventies skinny tie pop-rock, like Joe Jackson or something, but my feeling that is that it was a broader term back then and encompassed what we now call post-punk. In this interview for instance Ian Curtis includes Bauhaus as one of the "new wave" bands he likes: http://www.post-punk.com/happy-birthday-58th-birthday-ian-curtis/

Also Bowie referencing the "new wave boys" on Scary Monsters - around the time he was also referencing bands like Joy Division in interviews

and recruiting the blitz kids for video

Not sure if this is the place to put this, but 15 years after I started making the '1981' post-punk box set, I've finally tackled 1980:

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/folder.jpg?w=1024

https://musicophilia.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/Post-Punk-1980_GIF_Medium.gif?w=624&zoom=2

Eight themed mixes, 147 artists, plus a "sampler" mix--streaming or download these days, alas no physical boxes anymore. Artists include:

A Certain Ratio · Animals & Men · The Associates · Au Pairs · Bauhaus · The Beat · The Blackouts · Blondie · Blancmange · David Bowie · Bow Wow Wow · The Boys Next Door · Glenn Branca · The Breakers · Buggles · Buzzcocks · The Cars · Chris Carter · Alex Chilton · Chrome · Colored Minds · The Comsat Angels · Elvis Costello & The Attractions · The Cramps · The Cure · Dalek I · Delta 5 · Deutsch Amerikanische Freundshaftt · Devo · The Diagram Brothers · Din a Testbild · Doctor Mix & The Remix · Dome · Dow Jones & The Industrials · The Durutti Column · Essendon Airport · Factrix · Fad Gadget · Family Fodder · The Feelies · Final Program · Fire Engines · Flowers · Flying Lizard · Free Agents · Friction · John Foxx · Peter Gabriel · Gang of Four · Girls At Our Best · The Gist · The Go-Go’s · The Gordons · Half Japanese · The Human League · Husker Du · Ike Yard · Implog · Indoor LifeIn Camera · INXS · The Jam · Japan · Grace Jones · Josef K · Joy Division · Kid Creole & The Coconuts · Killing Joke · Krisma · Lizard · Ludus · Magazine · Manicured Noise · Marilyn · Martha & The Muffins · Material · Minutemen · Missing Persons · Mission of Burma · Mr. Partridge · Moderne · The Mo-Dettes · The Monchrome Set · Pauline Murray & The Invisible Girls · MX-80 Sound · Nasmak · Neonbabies · New Musik · Colin Newman · Gary Numan · Iggy Pop · The Only Ones · Orange Juice · Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark · Our Daughter’s Wedding · Pink Military · Pink Section · Plastics · Polyrock · Poly Styrene · The Pop Group · Pretenders · Prince · Psychedelic Furs · Pylon · Reptile Ranch · Martin Rev · Reversible Cords · Rinder & Lewis · The Room · Roxy Music · Ryuichi Sakamoto · The Selecter · Simple Minds · Siouxsie & The Banshees · The Slits · Smokey · Sods · Soft Cell · The Sound · The Specials · Squeeze · Richard Strange · The Stranglers · Swell Maps · Talking Heads · Teardrop Explodes · Television Personalities · Telex · This Heat · Tuxedomoon · Ultravox · Units · Urban Verbs · Les Vampyrettes · The Vapors · Alan Vega · Virgin Prunes · Visage · Scott WIlk & The Wall · Wipers · Xex · XTC · Yello · Y Pants · Yellow Magic Orchestra · Young Marble Giants

Check it out, spread the word, and buy lots or records from it! Thanks all!

https://musicophilia.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/post-punk-1980-box-set/

Thanks! Your obsessions seems to match mine - but you've got better energy and drive.

Btw it took me a while to work out how to stream each of the mixes on Mixcoud, rather than download the whole caboodle, but I may be behind the curve in my online skills.

Huh. I never would have guessed that Love Will Tear Us Apart would fade so seamlessly into We Got The Beat until I heard it.
Loving these mixes.

Vivien Goldman of late 70s early 80s postpunk fame, plus a critic, author and Professor, has a new album Next Is Now

New wave argument upthread is fun because you can continue on the proto/punk/post confusion onward into new wave/synthpop/etc. (and probably infinity) - when I was a kid it was too late for 1980 Blondie or Talking Heads to still be getting radio play but Tears for Fears and Depeche Mode would and the DJs were calling them new wave.

I somehow missed the news about the Vivien Goldman so thanks for that. Enjoying it.

Yea, I enjoy some of it , though am not hearing anything as good as Launderette yet

no, no Private Armies either, but her voice is still as adorable as ever and I will purchase. Substitute remained in my head afterwards.

Have learned that the melodies and lyrics are largely all Vivien Goldman but she let Youth create the tracks and they then collaborated to finalize them.

nobody really knows what's what when the thing's happening. even 'punk' was hardly ever 'punk.' there was the magazine 'punk' and a greasy trashy sort of scene that sort of vaguely accreted to it, and the scene was very arty and art-adjacent from the get go, improvised-ramshackle and yet exquisitely presented. I mean, forget prog, Ramones s/t was the ultimate make-believe concept album of the 70s.

And if you look at the LA scene, the bands playing in Chinatown or at the Masque (Middle Class, X) you can't slice that sucker into punk/post-punk no matter how hard you try. 'Punk' in SoCal really didn't get sonically and aesthetically codified until *after* 'punk', when it shifted away from Hollywood weirdos of all kinds and became a boys-only thing in the suburbs and beach towns, giving us hardcore.