Genres and trends of the 1980s

Gothic rock developed out of late-1970s British post-punk. Most of the first goth bands, including Bauhaus, Siouxsie & the Banshees, and The Cure, are labeled as both post-punk and gothic rock. With a reputation as the "darkest and gloomiest form of underground rock," gothic rock utilizes a synthesizer-and-guitar based sound drawn from post-punk to construct "foreboding, sorrowful, often epic soundscapes," and the genre's lyrics often address literary romanticism, morbidity, religious symbolism, and supernatural mysticism." Gothic rock began to develop into its own in the early 1980s with the opening of The Batcave nightclub and the emergence of a goth subculture. By the mid-1980s, goth bands such as The Sisters of Mercy, The Mission, and Fields of the Nephilim achieved success on the UK pop charts. Meanwhile Siouxsie & the Banshees and The Cure moved away from goth, broadening their sound and becoming internationally successful by the start of the 1990s.
Robert Smith of The Cure rejects the genre labels like alternative, gothic rock, and college rock applied to his band. He has said, "Every time we went to America we had a different tag [. . .] I can't remember when we officially became 'alt-rock'".
Robert Smith of The Cure rejects the genre labels like alternative, gothic rock, and college rock applied to his band. He has said, "Every time we went to America we had a different tag [. . .] I can't remember when we officially became 'alt-rock'".

British indie rock and indie pop drew from the tradition of Scottish post-punk bands such as Orange Juice and Aztec Camera, utilizing jangly, shambling guitars and clever wordplay. The most popular and influential band to emerge from this lineage was Manchester's The Smiths. The band managed to score a number of hits and influence a generation of bands while signed to an independent label, Rough Trade Records. Their embrace of the guitar in an era of synthesizers is viewed as signaling the end of the New Wave era in Britain; the band also gained a sizable cult following in the United States. After The Smiths broke up in 1987, singer Morrissey embarked on a successful solo career. Indie rock bands such as The Housemartins and James emerged in their wake. The C86 cassette, a 1986 NME premium featuring such bands as The Wedding Present, Primal Scream, The Pastels, and the Soup Dragons, was a major influence on the development of indie pop and the British indie scene as a whole.

Other forms of alternative rock developed in the UK during the 1980s. The Jesus and Mary Chain wrapped their pop melodies in walls of guitar noise, while New Order emerged from the demise of post-punk band Joy Division and experimented with techno and house music, forging the alternative dance style. The Mary Chain, along with Dinosaur Jr and the dream pop of Cocteau Twins, were the influences for the shoegazing movement of the late 1980s. Named for the bandmembers' tendency to stare at their feet onstage, shoegazing acts like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Ride, and Lush created an overwhelmingly loud "wash of sound" that obscured vocals and melodies with long, droning riffs, distortion, and feedback. Shoegazing bands dominated the British music press at the end of the decade along with the drug-fueled Madchester scene. Based around The Haçienda, a nightclub in Manchester owned by New Order and Factory Records, Madchester bands such as The Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays mixed acid house dance rhythms with melodic guitar pop.