Additionally, the retro trend has led to a post-punk revival with bands like The Hives, The Libertines, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, and Editors, which were often heavily influenced by 1990s bands such as Radiohead and Nirvana, as well as the punk genre, and post-punk bands such as Joy Division.
Originally, the term "post-punk" was coined to describe those groups which in the late seventies and early eighties took punk and started to experiment with more challenging musical structures, lyrical themes, and a self-consciously art-based image, while retaining punk's initial iconoclastic stance, such as Public Image Ltd., Gang of Four, and Joy Division. At the turn of the century, the term "post-punk" began to appear in the music press again, with a number of critics reviving the label to describe a new set of bands that shared some of the aesthetics of the original post-punk era. The Rapture, Interpol, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, and Franz Ferdinand were the first commercially successful projects to revive media interest in the movement.
This second wave of post-punk incorporates elements of dance music and genres that are part of the dance punk movement in much the same way that the original post-punk movement was influenced by the Krautrock, Dub, and Disco music of the 1970s. Music critic Simon Reynolds notes that these bands generally draw influence from the more angular strain of post-punk bands such as Wire and Gang of Four.
Metalcore, an originally American hybrid of thrash metal and hardcore punk, emerged as a commercial force in the mid-2000s. It is rooted in the crossover thrash style developed two decades earlier by bands such as Suicidal Tendencies, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, and Stormtroopers of Death. Through the 1990s, metalcore was mostly an underground phenomenon. By 2004, melodic metalcore—influenced as well by melodic death metal—was popular enough that Killswitch Engage's The End of Heartache and Shadows Fall's The War Within debuted at numbers 21 and 20, respectively, on the Billboard album chart.
Bullet for My Valentine, from Wales, broke into the top 5 in both the U.S. and British charts with Scream Aim Fire (2008). In recent years, metalcore bands have received prominent slots at Ozzfest and the Download Festival. Lamb of God, with a related blend of metal styles, hit the Billboard top 10 in 2006 with Sacrament. The success of these bands and others such as Trivium, which has released both metalcore and straight-ahead thrash albums, and Mastodon, which plays in a progressive/sludge style, has inspired claims of a metal revival in the United States, dubbed by some critics the "New Wave of American Heavy Metal."
The term "retro-metal" has been applied to such bands as England's The Darkness and Australia's Wolfmother. The Darkness's Permission to Land (2003), described as an "eerily realistic simulation of '80s metal and '70s glam," topped the UK charts, going quintuple platinum. One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) reached number 11.
Wolfmother's self-titled 2005 debut album had "Deep Purple-ish organs," "Jimmy Page-worthy chordal riffing," and lead singer Andrew Stockdale howling "notes that Robert Plant can't reach anymore." "Woman," a track from the album, won for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 2007 Grammy Awards.
In continental Europe, especially Germany and Scandinavia, metal continues to be broadly popular. Well-established British acts such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden continue to have chart success on the continent, as do a range of local groups. In Germany, Western Europe's largest music market, several continental metal bands placed multiple albums in the top 20 of the charts between 2003 and 2008, including Finnish band Children of Bodom, Norwegian act Dimmu Borgir, and Germany's Blind Guardian and Sweden's HammerFall. The Swedish act In Flames took both Come Clarity (2006) and A Sense of Purpose (2008) to number 6 in Germany;
each album topped the Swedish charts.
As computer technology has become more accessible and music software had advanced, interacting with music production technology became possible using means that bear no relationship to traditional musical performance practices: or instance, laptop performance (laptronica) and live coding.
In the last decade a number of software-based virtual studio environments have emerged, with products such as Propellerhead's Reason and Ableton Live finding popular appeal. Such tools provide viable and cost-effective alternatives to typical hardware-based production studios, and thanks to advances in microprocessor technology, it became possible to create high quality music using little more than a single laptop computer. Such advances have led to a massive increase in the amount of home-produced electronic music available to the general public via the internet. Bands such as The Prodigy, Pendulum, Ratatat, and Nine Inch Nails are a few of the most popular electronic rock bands.
The industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails' album "Year Zero" utilized a heavily edited and distorted guitar sound modified via laptop computer. Allmusic's review described the album's laptop-mixed sound: "guitars squall against glitches, beeps, pops, and blotches of blurry sonic attacks. Percussion looms large, distorted, organic, looped, screwed, spindled and broken." The French electronic duo Justice's album † incorporates a strong rock and metal influence into their music and image. Canadian band Crystal Castles incorporates elements of chiptune and punk rock vocals. Icelandic singer Bjork's song "Declare Independence" from her album Volta featured a heavily modified synth bass guitar sound and strong rock feel. Canadian artist Peaches and various aspects of the Electroclash genre often reflect a strong Rock sensibility. New York's Ratatat is often cited as achieving an "electronic rock" sound.
Many groups in the post-punk era adopted a more rhythmic tempo, conducive to dancing. These bands were influenced by disco, funk, and other dance musics popular at the time, as well as being anticipated by some of the 1970s work of David Bowie, Brian Eno, and Iggy Pop, and some recordings by the German groups referred to as Krautrock.
The music style re-emerged under the name dance-punk at the beginning of the 21st century.
The style was championed by rock- and punk-oriented bands such as Liars, The Rapture and Radio 4, as well as dance-oriented acts such as Out Hud. Other groups, such as !!! and The Faint fell somewhere in the middle. There has since been a crystallization of musical forms within dance-punk, with bands such as Death from Above 1979, Test Icicles, Fake Shark - Real Zombie!, and Q and Not U exploring aspects of dance-punk, along with post-hardcore and other musical styles. DFA Records can be seen as the current center of the dance-punk genre. As well as James Murphy's LCD Soundsystem, the label is currently home to The Juan MacLean, Hot Chip, Hercules & Love Affair, Brinvonda, Shit Robot, Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom, Prinzhorn Dance School, Booji Boy High, Shocking Pinks, Holy Ghost!, Still Going, Syclops and YACHT.
The influence of rock music is far-reaching, and has had significant impact worldwide on fashion and film styles. Its impact has been positive as well, with the trend of many rock stars facilitating charity events such as Live Aid. There are also spiritual aspects tied to rock music. Songwriters like Pete Townshend have explored these in their work. The common usage of the term rock god acknowledges the religious quality of the adulation some music celebrities and rock stars receive.