CyberPunk

Quora Answer : Is cyberpunk a music genre?

Nov 24

Cyberpunk is a literary genre, a kind of subgenre of science-fiction.

But there is music which is sometimes called "cyberpunk". And more music which kind of resonates with the concerns of the authors.

For example, I'd say Atari Teenage Riot were pretty "cyberpunk" in their vibe. Combining the energy and "street insurgency" of punk with more explicitly digital technology, the sounds taken from rave and gabba and other hi-tech music.

The original cyberpunk fiction, though, was written in the 70s and early 80s, so its musical touchstones were real punk and reggae. Neuromancer has a whole spacestation sound-tracked by Dub Reggae. Which seemed weirdly outdated in the late 80s, but perhaps prescient of the return of dub in the form of Dubstep etc.

Most of the cyberpunks as I remember seemed to love Sonic Youth, Talking Heads people like that.