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In the UK, a wide variety of post-punk bands emerged, including The Fall, Joy Division, Gang of Four, and Public Image Ltd. Some bands classified as post-punk, such as Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, had been active before the punk scene itself had coalesced; others, such as The Slits and Siouxsie & The Banshees, transitioned from punk into post-punk. The music was often experimental, like that of the New Wave bands; defining them as “post-punk” was a sound that tended to be less pop and more dark and abrasive—sometimes verging on the atonal, as with Wire, and Subway Sect. Drawing inspiration from such art rock sources as Captain Beefheart, David Bowie, and Krautrock, post-punk also explored new lyrical approaches: The Fall’s Mark E. Smith wrote “oblique observations of Northern underclass grotesquerie”.

Post-punk brought together a new fraternity of musicians, journalists, managers, and entrepreneurs; the latter, notably Geoff Travis of Rough Trade and Tony Wilson of Factory, helped to develop the production and distribution infrastructure of the indie music scene that blossomed in the mid-1980s. Smoothing the edges of their style in the direction of New Wave, a number of post-punk bands such as New Order (descended from Joy Division) and U2 crossed over to a mainstream U.S. audience. Others, like Gang of Four, The Raincoats and Throbbing Gristle, who had little more than cult followings at the time, are seen in retrospect as significant influences on modern popular culture.

A number of U.S. artists were retrospectively defined as post-punk; Television’s debut record Marquee Moon, released in 1977, is seen by many as the seminal album in the field. The No Wave movement that developed in New York in the late 1970s, with artists like Lydia Lunch, is often treated as the phenomenon’s U.S. parallel. The later work of Ohio protopunk pioneers Pere Ubu is also commonly described as post-punk. One of the most influential American post-punk bands was Boston’s Mission of Burma, who brought abrupt rhythmic shifts derived from hardcore into a highly experimental musical context. In 1980, Australia’s Boys Next Door moved to London and changed their name to The Birthday Party, which would evolve into Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. King Snake Roost and other Australian bands would further explore the possibilities of post-punk. Later art punk and alternative rock musicians would find diverse inspiration among these predecessors, New Wave and post-punk alike.