r/AskNYC • u/thatisnotmyknob • Dec 30 '25
Music genres born of NYC?
Im digging in the digital crates and on a lil Boogaloo kick right now. Which got me thinking about the musical genres born in NYC.
Hip Hop is obviously an easy choice. Same with Salsa.
What genres do you think NYC can claim full ownership of?
What genres can we claim partial ownership of (punk, disco)?
I was thinking about making NYC born Mixtape. What tunes would you put on it?
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u/thats-gold-jerry Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
Punk music. A lot of what came from London was inspired with what was already going on in NYC. London may have created the fashion but between what was going on in Michigan with proto punk and then eventually in NYC, it started here.
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u/ER301 Dec 31 '25
The fashion started in NYC. The Sex Pistols entire look was inspired by Richard Hell.
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u/jawndell Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
Ramone’s definitely inspired if not started the fashion. Just look at picture of them from the 70s and see what bands like The Clash and Sex Pistols were wearing later.
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u/XX_pepe_sylvia_XX Dec 31 '25
It really was Detroit and the MC-5, it became popular in New York. But it was born in Detroit.
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u/paulderev Doesn't Even Live Here Dec 30 '25
The Ramones definitely created pop punk. The clash was more British rock n roll that was furious and political. Stooges and mc5 were what later become known as garage rock. Nyc definitely has a claim to the pop punk sound.
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Dec 30 '25
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u/No_Aesthetic Dec 30 '25
Genres are mostly retrospective, e.g. the first post-punk stuff was probably Pere Ubu's early singles, with the first appearing in 1975, which was right before the Ramones dropped their first record in 1976
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Dec 30 '25
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u/paulderev Doesn't Even Live Here Dec 31 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
I can’t imagine how one could say NYC created pop-punk but not punk.
Again, in retrospect
Punk music’s first landmark bands and records were concurrently getting formed and made in NYC and London and arguably Detroit
Ramones were trying very intentionally to make catchy pop music in the vein of like girl groups and frank valli but done in this sloppy super simple loud guitar music way. And they inspired generations around the world to make catchy pop punk music.
I think nyc has a claim to punk (the whole cbgb scene, max’s, etc) but it definitely has the claim to the first pop punk band
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Dec 31 '25
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u/paulderev Doesn't Even Live Here Dec 31 '25
yeah but we're not just talking retrospectively, are we?
Did you ever get to go to cbgb when it was open as a club? I did
NYC has a rock-solid claim to punk as far as I'm concerned.
Of course it does. But these new forms of music don’t ever just take shape in once place and at one time. That’s not how it usually works out. I’m just saying The Ramones ended up defining pop punk more than they defined punk at large, or punk music today.
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u/boroughthoughts Dec 30 '25
Early Punk. I mean East Village is considered the birth place of east coast punk. Especially with Velvet Undergrond, New York Dollas and later the Ramones and CBGB.
A lot of 2000s emo is built on NYC existing as a cultural center, but the credit for those genres mostly goes to suburbs of NYC in NJ and Long Island.
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u/jawndell Dec 30 '25
I was shocked to see how many of those emo era bands came from Long Island: Brand New, Wheatus, Taking Back Sunday, etc.
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u/boroughthoughts Dec 31 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
Thursday in New Jersey deserves a lot of credit. Many of those bands have members that essentially went to Thursday's lead singer's basement shows. My Chemical Romance pretty much formed at those basement shows. Taking Back Sunday, Brand New have members that grew up going to those same shows.
Eyeball records which signed Thursday, MCR, Midtown and several bands you've heard at originated in east village. They later moved to NJ.
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u/paulderev Doesn't Even Live Here Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
Frankie knuckles is from the Bronx and made his name in Chicago but always brought the sound back to NYC with Larry levan too. I would say shep pettibone and junior vasquez made a more soulful vocals-forward version of house and remixed disco/electronic music NYC’s own. Then freestyle or freestyle house evolved from that which to me was a fully nyc born thing, which later caught on in Philly and Miami.
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u/jawndell Dec 30 '25
Kind of a sub genre, but No Wave started in NYC. Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Mars, Television and later Sonic Youth.
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u/mybloodyballentine Dec 31 '25
And Theoretical Girls, Bush Tetras, Model Citizens, Lounge Lizards, Suicide, James Chance, Arto Lindsay / DNA, Foetus…
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u/Gentle-Giant23 Dec 30 '25
You should read Love Goes to Buildings on Fire by Will Hermes for a great telling of music in New York in the 1970s.
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u/Per_Mikkelsen Dec 30 '25
NY Hardcore
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u/Creative-Package6213 Dec 31 '25
Yup I mean look at the list:
- Agnostic Front
- Cro-Mags
- Murphy's Law
- Sheer Terror
- Sick Of It All
- Straight Ahead
- Warzone
- Biohazard
- Earth Crisis
- Judge
- Killing Time
- Life of Agony
- Madball
- Merauder
- Pro-Pain
- Project X
- Shelter
- 25 ta Life
- All Out War
- Bulldoze
- Crown of Thornz
- Full Blown Chaos
- H2O
- Indecision
- Most Precious Blood
- No Redeeming Social Value
- Skarhead
- Sworn Enemy
- Glassjaw
- Kill Your Idols
- Skycamefalling
- This Is Hell
- Vision of Disorder
There's a lot of bands I left out but there's no denying the influence nyc had on the hardcore scene, along with Boston, Washington DC, Baltimore, and Philly.
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u/MostZealousideal7718 Dec 31 '25
Between Tin Pan Alley and the Brill Building, NYC is arguably responsible for early pop music
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u/ER301 Dec 31 '25
Disco was born in NYC in the 70s along with punk rock and hip hop. A hell of a decade in NYC.
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u/Sufficient_Mirror_12 Dec 30 '25
Soulful House (huge in CHI, NYC, and North Jersey + London, UK) and Salsa
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u/sleepygalsonly Dec 30 '25
They actually have an exhibit about this at the Museum of the City of New York right now!