During the first wave of punk, roughly spanning 1974-78 acts such as the Sex PIston, The Clash, The Ramones, and The Damned began to challenge the current styles and conventions of rock music by stripping the musical structure down to a few basic chords and progressions with an emphasis on speed. Yet as punk itself soon came to have a signature sound, a few acts began to experiment with more challenging musical structures, lyrical themes, and a self-consciously art-based image, while retaining punk's initial iconoclastic stance.

Classic examples of post-punk outfits include The Psychedelic Furs, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Fall, Gang of Four, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Orange Juice, Joy Division/New Order, Killing Joke, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Wire and Tubeway Army. Bands such as Crass and Throbbing Gristle also came within the scope of post-punk, as with several outfits formed in the wake of traditionally punk rock groups: Magazine from Buzzcocks, for instance, or Public Image Ltd. from the Sex Pistols. A list of predecessors to the post-punk genre of music might include Television, whose album Marquee Moon, although released in 1977 at the height of the punk movement, is considered definitively post-punk in style. (However, many would argue that bands such as Television, Talking Heads, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Voidoid were all core punk, as it was the raw originality and diversity of sound and style that was punk.) Other groups, such as The Clash, remained predominantly punk in nature yet inspired and were inspired by elements in the post-punk movement.

Championed by late night BBC disc jockey John Peel and record label/shop Rough Trade (amongst others, including Postcard Records, Factory Records, Axis/4AD, Falling A Records, Industrial Records, Fast Product, and Mute Records), "post-punk" culd arguably be said to encompass many diverse groups and musicians. The original post-punk movement took place largely in the United Kingdom, with significant scenes throughout the world, though North American and other non-British bands weren't often recognized worldwide. Some notable exceptions include North Americans Pere Ubu, Suicide, early Hüsker Dü, Boston's Mission of Burma, Australia's The Birthday Party, The Church, Brazil's Legião Urbana and Ireland's U2 and The Virgin Prunes.

Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, walking over her bass during a concert.

Around 1977, in North America, the New York led No Wave movement was also tied in with the emerging eurocentric post-punk movement. With bands and artists such as Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Glenn Branca, Mars, James Chance and the Contortions, D.N.A., Bush Tetras, Theoretical Girls, Swans, and Sonic Youth on their first self-titled album recorded by Don Hunerberg. The No Wave movement focused more on performance art than actual coherent musical structure. The Brian Eno produced No New York compilation is considered the quintessential testament to the history of No Wave.

The original post-punk movement ended as the bands associated with the movement moved away from its aesthetics, just as post-punk bands had originally left punk rock behind in favor of new sounds. Many post-punk bands, most notably The Cure and Siouxsie & the Banshees, evolved into gothic rock (formerly a style of the larger post-punk movement) and became identified with the goth subculture. Some shifted to a more commercial New Wave sound, while others were fixtures on American college radio and became early examples of alternative rock.

The turn of the 21st century saw a post-punk revival in British and American indie rock, which soon started appearing in many different countries as well. The earliest signs of a post-punk revival took place with the emergence of various underground bands in the mid-90's. However, the first commercially successful bands The Rapture, Liars, Interpol, The Libertines and Franz Ferdinand surfaced in the late 90's to early 00's. These bands made music with recognizable post-punk influences, even accompanied with arty, almost modish fashions copied from original post-punk bands. Modern post-punk is far more commercially successful than in the 1970s and 1980s. The post-punk revival is unique in modern rock trends, in that it has retained a strong following even after similar 80's revival genres such as electroclash have fallen out of style.