Origins
The origin of style dates back to the late 1970s in New York and England, where guitar-based bands started to experiment with more dance-friendly rhythms. During this time, disco and funk also crossed over into many rock clubs—for example, it seems that some of the funky guitar work and solid basslines from the CHIC records made it to the rock scene. At the time, this musical style was most closely associated with the post-punk and no wave movements: famous progenitors of this sound include Gang of Four from Leeds, Liquid Liquid from New York, and Medium Medium from Nottingham. German punk chanteuse Nina Hagen had a massive underground dance hit in 1983 with "New York New York," which mixed her searing punk (and opera) vocals with disco, funk, and hip hop beats.
As hip-hop, techno, and other forms of dance music emerged during the 1980s, the "punk-funk" style faded away. The extended 12" mix, synthesizers, drum machines, and other new technologies also pushed the jagged guitar-based dance sound out of the spotlight during the later part of the 1980s and much of the 1990s.
Modern dance-punk
The genre reemerged as "dance-punk" at the turn of the century. The style was championed by rock- and punk-oriented groups such as Liars and Radio 4, as well as dance-oriented acts such as Out Hud, with others such as The Rapture falling somewhere in the middle. There has since been a crystalization of musical forms within dance-punk, as with LCD Soundsystem's strongly dance- and production-obsessed soundcraft or Q and Not U's creation of new kinds of rock-based yet danceable rhythms within the scope of lyrical punk and post-hardcore.
At the same time, however, the concept of the dance-punk genre has become somewhat diluted, partly merging with the more straightforwardly disco-influenced post-punk/garage rock revival sounds from the late 1990s to the present. As with most musical genres, dance-punk began as a fluid extension of several other genres and is in the process of both being defined from within and at the same time being co-opted by other musical forms.
List of Modern dance-punk bands
Beep Beep
Black Eyes
Controller.Controller
CDOASS
Clor
The Dismemberment Plan
Death from Above 1979
Ex Models
Franz Ferdinand
Hot Chip
The Mission Veo
Les Georges Leningrad
LCD Soundsystem
Liars
Moving Units
Out Hud
Q and Not U
Radio 4
Shitdisco
Single Frame
Supersystem
The Rapture
Thunderbirds Are Now!
VHS or Beta
Major post-punk/no-wave influences
ESG
Gang of Four
Liquid Liquid
Medium Medium
Public Image Ltd.
Talking Heads
New Order
Bands influenced by dance-punk
The Faint
Head Automatica
Ima Robot
Mistakemistake