Gateways to Geekery - Post-Punk

Geek obsession: Post-punk

Why it’s daunting: Aside from being vague enough to cover everything from The Smiths though to Naked City, post-punk is known for it’s abrasive atonality. Out of tune guitars, experimental electronics and rhythms that refuse to groove - post-punk is a hard sell to those who are unwilling to work. But underneath the minimalist, primal scrawl is the genesis of multiple genres - goth rock, indie, industrial, noise- and some of the strangest, greatest experimental pop songs ever recorded.

Possible gateway: Rough Trade Shops: Post Punk

Why: The infamous Rough Trade store / label were torchbearers for the burgeoning post-punk movement in a time when punk’s rules, ironically, became set in stone. Housing noise-mongers such as This Heat, The Pop Group, and Swell Maps alongside the twee-pop of Jonathan Richman, Rough Trade encouraged a musical scene which valued art over all else. Although some didn’t agree with their politics (when reproached for his choice of language on an album, The Fall’s Mark E. Smith retorted "What the fuck has it got to do with you? Sell the fuckin’ record you fuckin’ hippy"), the label, along with others such as Factory and Mute, managed to somehow sell this ragged, yet contemporary version of art-pop to the masses.

Containing (somewhat) accessible cuts from Wire, The Slits, Magazine and Gang of Four, the compilation’s biggest achievement is its ability to show context. The bright thumping repetition of The Fall’s 'Industrial Estate' is placed alongside the dub-reggae punk of The Slits, Young Marble Giants’ minimalist compositions, James Chance’s white man funk and recent tracks from The Rapture and Erase Eratta. The 2CD set manages to weave a link between punk, the American no-wave scene and the early 2000s dance-punk revival, and by including piece of borderline pop (such as The Raincoats’ demented cover of 'Lola') the compilation clearly charts the both post-punk’s influences and the influenced.


Next steps: Post-punk also birthed several classic albums, ranging from askew pop, drone-filled ruminations on death and exploratory electronic noisefests. Joy Division’s masterful Unknown Pleasures is is punk made morose, slowed down and industrialised. Mimicking its beautiful cover, the album is both bare yet fascinating. Public Image, Limited’s Metal Box (or Second Edition, depending on who you talk to) is a mash of as many genres as possible, melding Krautrock repetition, dub basslines and agitated funk, made cohesive through metallic guitar scrapes and John Lyndon’s blue-eyed howl. Still savage and utterly divisive 30-years on, the album hasn’t lost any of its power, completely blowing away Lyndon’s work in The Sex Pistols.


Where not to start: Due to the scattered, experimental leanings underlying post-punk there’s a lot of albums that are suitable only for the seasoned pro. Many of the 'classic' post-punk albums have a hit/miss ratio that would scare off even Robert Pollard. Although they’re (quite rightly) revered, This Heat and The Pop Group have a tendency to scare off listeners - the first with their experimental tape loops and drones and the later with their anarchic jazz leanings. Although both groups have their pop moments ('Health and Efficiency' and 'She is Beyond Good and Evil' respectively), save their albums for when you’re well entrenched in post-punk gloom. Also, many of the artists that were key to the main post-punk movement (late 70s / early 80s) often changed path multiple times throughout their later career. Whilst some, such as The Cure and The Fall, managed to leave their distinctive mark on pop culture, others, such as Gang of Four and Wire (whose Manscape album was so removed from being accessible that the drummer fired himself) lost their brilliant blend of the creative and the commercial.