Where to start with UK Post-Punk
UK Post-Punk is a music scene from United Kingdom, 1977–1984. Its principal artists include Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Fall and Public Image Ltd. This issue covers 10 essential albums and 18 dated events.
Start here
- 1
Unknown Pleasures
Joy Division · 1979Original release: Factory · FACT 10 · 12″ Vinyl · UK 1979It became post-punk's production blueprint, turning a raw live band into something cold and strange.
- 2
Metal Box
Public Image Ltd · 1979Original release: Virgin · METAL 1 · 12″ Vinyl · UK 1979It made John Lydon's declaration that 'rock is obsolete' physical, fusing dub bass and jagged guitar into a lasting influence.
- 3
Entertainment!
Gang of Four · 1979Original release: EMI · EMC 3313 · 12″ Vinyl · UK 1979It proved intellectual rigor and physical intensity didn't have to cancel each other out, influencing dance-punk and art-rock for years.
Go deeper
- 4
Closer
Joy Division · 1980Original release: Factory · FACT 25 · 12″ Vinyl · UK 1980Released two months after Ian Curtis's suicide on 18 May 1980, Closer reached number 6 on the UK charts and sealed Joy Division's reputation as post-punk's most tragic and influential band.
- 5
The Scream
Siouxsie and the Banshees · 1978Original release: Polydor · POLD 5009 · 12″ Vinyl · UK 1978The Banshees' debut caught a band that had already been through two years of live evolution, from the chaos of their twenty-minute Lord's Prayer improvisation at the 100 Club to a tight, unorthodox three-piece attack.
- 6
Juju
Siouxsie and the Banshees · 1981Original release: Polydor · POLS 1034 · 12″ Vinyl · UK 1981Darker and more focused than what came before, Juju helped define gothic rock as it took shape, driven by John McGeoch's guitar work, which Johnny Marr later cited as a direct influence on the Smiths.
- 7
Seventeen Seconds
The Cure · 1980Original release: Fiction · FIX 004 · 12″ Vinyl · UK 1980The Cure's second album marked their turn from punk-pop toward atmospheric post-punk melancholy, a shift shaped in part by Robert Smith's stint filling in for Siouxsie and the Banshees after…
- 8
Chairs Missing
Wire · 1978Original release: Harvest · SHSP 4093 · 12″ Vinyl · UK 1978Wire's second album kept the minimal, angular attack of Pink Flag but let synthesizers into the mix, pushing the band further into the art-rock experimentalism that would shape post-punk's next phase.
For the obsessed
- 9
Kaleidoscope
Siouxsie and the Banshees · 1980Original release: Polydor · 2442 177 · 12″ Vinyl · UK 1980The Banshees' third album pulled in synthesizers, sitars, and drum machines and still reached number 5 on the UK charts, widening post-punk's sonic range at a moment when the band's own future looked uncertain.
- 10
Hex Enduction Hour
The Fall · 1982Original release: Kamera Records · KAM 005 · 12″ Vinyl · UK 1982Recorded with two drummers, Karl Burns and Paul Hanley, driving a relentless rhythmic assault that Mark E. Smith compared to a steamroller, Hex Enduction Hour caught the Fall at their most primitive and most powerful.
The stories behind every record are in UK Post-Punk.