The 1980s
The Top Music Genres
POST-PUNK
Post-Punk is a broad type of Rock that emerged from the punk movement of the 1970s, in which artists departed from the simplicity and traditionalism of Punk Rock to adopt a variety of avant-garde sensibilities. Determined to break from rock cliches, artists experimented with various cultural sources.
NEW WAVE
New Wave is a genre of Rock that incorporated disco, mod and electronic music and was popular in the late 1970s and 1980s. Common characteristics of New Wave include the use of synthesizers and electronic productions, the importance of styling and the arts, as well as diversity.
NOISE ROCK
Noise Rock is a genre that encompasses a wide range of bands and artists that favour dissonance, wild feedback, and extreme distortion in the context of Rock music. While the style was predicted in the late 1960s and early 1970s Noise Rock came to its own in the 1980s, following the advent of Punk Rock and Post-Punk.
SYNTHPOP
Synthpop is a subgenre of New Wave that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It arose as a distinct genre in Japan and the UK in the Post-Punk era, as part of the New Wave movement of the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.
GOTHIC ROCK
Gothic Rock is a style of Rock that emerged from Post-Punk in the late 1970s and 1980s, when several Post-Punk bands shifted towards dark music with gothic overtones. The genre itself was defined as a separate movement from Post-Punk due to its darker music accompanied by introspective and romantic lyrics.
HARDCORE PUNK
Hardcore Punk is a derivation of Punk Rock that appeared during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It initially borrowed much from Punk's original music framework and energy and made it faster, heavier and more aggressive, while retaining Punk's anti-establishment image and DIY ethics/practices.