In the beginning, there was punk. Then, after a few years of tumult, punk begat post-punk. The fundamentalists among you may be asking, “If post-punk evolved from punk, why are there still punks?” I don’t know, dummy—go ask Richard Dawkins.
Post-punk began as an extrapolation of ‘70s punk, but became a movement of its own, borrowing its forebear’s energy, but welcoming experimentation and exploration, often incorporating jagged guitar, prominent bass, art school aesthetics and intellectual lyrics. The simplest definition might be that it’s music by punks with library cards and amphetamine habits.
Here are fifty important songs from the first wave of post-punk you should know if you want to impress that bartender with the Factory Records tattoo. (Follow along with the playlist)
50. Crispy Ambulance “Sexus” (1982)
These guys opened for Joy Division so you’d think their post-punk bona fides would be unassailable. That being said, a band called The Actors featuring the bald brothers from Right Said Fred also opened for JD, so maybe it isn’t as big a deal as you’d think.
49. Glaxo Babies “Who Killed Bruce Lee” (1979)
The ‘Babies suspect foul play, but the latest mainstream answer to the titular question is that Lee died from hyponatremia, or having too little sodium in his bloodstream, likely caused by excessive water consumption.
48. Fra Lippo Lippi “A Moment Like This” (1981)
Norway’s Fra Lippo Lippi started out cool as hell but somehow wound up making saccharine synth crap even your mom would think is too corny. However, this track from their debut shows the Joy Division devotees doing their best uptempo, downtrodden work.
47. Lowlife “Gallery of Shame” (1985)
If this melancholy track from perpetually bummed-out Scots Lowlife doesn’t drag down your mood, you may be pathologically upbeat and should see a doctor (it could be a tumor).
46. A Certain Ratio “Knife Slits Water” (1982)
These chaps helped integrate a dancier sound to the Mancusian post-punk landscape, which would later explode with the Madchester scene. Without ACR’s pioneering weirdo coked-up hipster punk-disco, there would be no LCD Soundsystem—make of that what you will.
45. Swell Maps “The Helicopter Spies” (1980)
There’s a charming—if paranoid—pop song buried beneath the cacophonous squall of distortion here. It’s easy to see why Swell Maps’ blend of melody and raucous noise would go on to influence bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain, Pavement and Sonic Youth.
44. U2 “Out Of Control” (1980)
Before The Edge was inexorably fused with his effects rack like some kind of beanie-clad Brundlefly, U2 were capable of producing the occasional hard-charging gem like this one.
43. Tones on Tail “Performance” (1984)
Between stints in Bauhaus and Love and Rockets, Daniel Ash and co. produced one gloriously strange album as Tones on Tail. The eerie “Performance” comes shambling along like a New Order track risen from the grave.
42. Bush Tetras “Too Many Creeps” (1980)
Light years ahead of its time, this dance-punk track would’ve fit right in in early-21st century Brooklyn. Close your eyes and you can just picture some mustachioed dipshits huddled in a Williamsburg dive bar bathroom doing lines of cheap coke with this song booming in the background.
41. Bunnydrums “Little Room” (1983)
This group of Philly freaks drew inspiration from sci-fi—”Little Room” comes from their album PKD, named for weirdo genius Philip K. Dick. A chunky bassline is layered with staccato guitar and creepy vocals in this cheesesteak-take on the British post-punk sound.
40. Devo “Gut Feeling” (1978)
What begins with an uncharacteristically delicate repetition of five arpeggiated guitar chords builds and eventually erupts into a venomous anthem whose ferocity is quite the foil to the band’s later twerpcore hit “Whip It.” One might be compelled to exclaim, “Hey, these dorks can rock!”
39. The Chameleons “Paper Tigers” (1983)
Feel free to light up a clove and listen to this one in a cemetery at dusk. Sometimes this band is referred to as The Chameleons UK, because some dopey American band of jerks that no one’s ever heard of nabbed the name first and the US is full of litigious buttholes.
38. The Raincoats “You’re a Million” (1979)
The young women in The Raincoats seemed determined to buck every convention of rock, as demonstrated on this manic track. They even incorporated violin, a decidedly un-punk instrument, but an important callback to The Velvet Underground’s viola-wielding John Cale.
37. Josef K “Fun ‘N’ Frenzy” (1981)
For a small country, Scotland sure produced a disproportionate number of great bands. Is it something to do with all the sheep? Peat moss? Irn Bru? Named after a Kafka character, you’d think Josef K would be more dour, but this track is pretty upbeat and fun.
36. Comsat Angels “On The Beach” (1980)
Like Joy Division, these British lads loved showing off their affinity for subversive literature, naming themselves after a J.G. Ballard story. Cheerily, this song is based on a British novel of the same name which is about nuclear apocalypse.
35. The Birthday Party “Release the Bats” (1982)
This noisy number from fucked-up Aussie miscreants The Birthday Party is one of the early salvos of the nascent gothic movement. The song is about vampires humping and was likely the inspiration for the Twilight series.
34. Kleenex (LiLiPUT) “Die Matrosen” (1980)
Swiss girl band Kleenex had to change their name when Big Tissue’s lawyers came after them. This song, by the way, has it all—if by “all” you mean an absolutely filthy bass tone, a sick drum beat, catchy vocals, saxophone and whistling. What else is there?
33. And Also the Trees “So This Is Silence” (1983)
These moody kids from Worcestershire (yes, where the sauce is from!) were taken under The Cure’s wing as baby goths, given opening slots on some Cure dates. “So This Is Silence” owes as much to Joy Division as it does The Cure, even surpassing the former in terms of tormented howling.
32. Pink Turns Blue “Walking On Both Sides” (1987)
This chillingly catchy track by Berliner darkwave progenitors Pink Turns Blue is pretty much as German as it gets: cold, precise and humorless, which is pretty much what you’d expect from some lads growing up in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.
31. Delta 5 “Mind Your Own Business” (1979)
It’s hard to top the beautiful dissonance of those harsh guitars slashing across this track’s dance-punk groove. This innocent-sounding song from the politically active Delta 5 is actually a defiant “fuck off” to conservative efforts to legislate people’s private lives. Mind your own business, indeed.