POC in Goth/Punk/Alternative Music
Submissions Open!!
Relaunching this again for a future ‘not-post’, but something better! Thank you to everyone who continued to send in suggestions. Submit here.
As an addition to the goth/post-punk/alt band masterpost, here’s a list of bands featuring members of color. Most are influential, others new discoveries or future freak gods. Thanks to research and helpful readers, here’s a bit of sick sound suitable for all taste buds:
Goth, dark or industrial:
Creature Feature - Erik X is an evil composer and organ player with a special gift for raising the dead.
Plastique Noir -the Brazilian band that made the song “Empty Streets” that’s just too dark to handle.
O. Children - contrary to popular belief, Tobi O’Kandi is not, in fact, a black reincarnation of Ian Curtis.
Thrill Kill Kult - sick industrial band with several poc members.
Glorious Din
Android Lust - Shikhee is Bangladeshi, and she makes some of the best industrial music ever heard.
She Past Away
13th Moon
Malice Mizer and Moi Dix Mois
Phaidia
Corrupted - awesome japanese doom/sludge band that are considered super influential in the scene.
Light Asylum - heavy dark synth primarily. It’s really fun and the front singer HAS A MIGHTY POWER.
Plastic Zooms
Hocico
Crowd Pleaser
Angelspit
Punk, hardcore or post-hardcore:
Bad Brains - why most of the bands on this list even exist.
Death - not to be confused with the metal band of the same way. Not that you could confuse the members in any way.
Rough Francis - founded by the sons of David Hackney of Death.
Pure Hell - afropunk taken literally.
X-Ray Spex - Poly Styrene was the energy and feel of the band. Actually, she was just energy and feel period. Fun fact: she was also bipolar.
Radkey - Rad.
TMGE - Japanese band named “Thee Michelle Gun Elephant” or as they prefer: JAPANESE BAND NAMED “THEE MICHELLE GUN ELEPHANT”.
Tamar Kali - powerful musician, especially known for “Boot”.
The Objex - Feloney Melony’s got a wicked hawk and voice.
Stiffed - Santi White now performs solo as Santigold.
Cerebral Ballzy
Suicidal Tendencies
Midori - great jazz-punk fusion band.
The Redscare
Le Butcherettes - Mexican garage punk band.
Atari Teenage Riot
NOFX
Stalin
The Bags
Dev Hynes - a British musician who started out in a punk band Test Icicles then went solo as a folk/indie musician as Lightspeed Champion and now is doing an electronic/R&B thing as Blood Orange.
L’Arc-en-Ciel - Okay, so these guys are Japan’s other most famous export. These guys got known outside of japan for doing some major anime theme songs (Fullmetal Alchemist, Gundam 00, NANA live action movie, etc) and were the first Japanese act to headline Madison Square Garden (Japanese rock bands really like New York for some reason). Their bassist tetsuya (formally known as tetsu) gets bonus points for being one of Japan’s only out LGBT celebrities (he’s Bi).
Doll$Box
Letlive
The Chariot
Trashtalk
Gogol Bordello - self described as “gypsy punk”. Singer Eugene Hütz is Russian-Ukranian with Romani heritage and born with a ‘stache. Nearly crazier than Little Big and Korpiklaani combined.
Blackfire
The Bots - punk duo made of two brothers.
Bow Wow Wow - IIIIIII Waaaant Caaandy!!!
Love Equals Death
Ritualization - blackened death metal from Orléans, France
Teengenerate
Ten Grand
Letlive
Martin Sorrondeguy - spoke out about US based Latino issues in many of his lyrics and was involved in bands Los Crudos, Limp Wrist and Needles.
Ghost Town
Metal, funk/rap/reggae metal fusion or core:
Blasphemy - Black metal, the biggest irony on earth as Caller of the Storms remains one of the rare black musicians within the genre.
Babymetal - this Japanese trio is more metal than a viking woman on her period in the middle of a battlefield drinking the blood of her enemies to the sound of Immortal…for some at least.
Wicked Wisdom - Will Smith’s wife get a band?? Yes she Will.
Unlocking the Truth - these 13 year olds played in the streets of NYC before they opened for Living Colour.
Absolace - amazing metal from Dubai.
Living Colour - better than Dead Monochrome.
King’s X - more hard rock, but hey.
Bionic Jive - one of the better hip-hop/metal fusions.
Skindred - check out the album “Roots Rock Riot”.
Ego Fall - a Chinese folk metal band and also Corbac’s fave. Mixing tradition with heavier sounds.
Static X - Japanese guitarist Koichi Fukuda & Mexican-American bassist Tony Campos.
Sepultura - the founding members are all Brazilian, currently their lead singer (Derrick Green) is black. “Arise” is a massive album of pure metal awesomeness.
Straight Line Stitch
Blood Stain Child
Sasamaso
Tenger Cavalry - a folk metal band based out of Bejing who describe their style as “Mongolian folk metal”. Like this and you’d probably enjoy Ego Fall.
Cthonic - Taiwanese metal band who’s lead singer is also the president for the Taiwanese branch of Amnesty International.Most of their music deals with their goal of an independent Taiwan and they’re really REALLY great.
Myrath
God Forbid
Invasion - a stoner/psych-metal band fronted by a valkyrie space wizard out of London.
Vodun - like invasion, marries punk, psychedelic, and doom metal influenced instrumentals with soul influenced vocals to create a unique and original takes on doom metal.
Sevendust
Animals as Leaders - most suggested band on this list and for good reason.
Veil of Maya
Oceano
Body Count - Ice T’s metal band rules. It would be a little tastier with ice cubes though.
Hirax - pioneering thrash/speed metal band (with hardcore influences). Katon De Pena is one of the most distinctive vocalists of the then-burgeoning California metal scene. Though they never achieved the success of some of their contemporaries like Metallica or Slayer, they have long been an insiders’ favorite and cited as an influence by bands ranging from Napalm Death to Cannibal Corpse to Darkthrone.
Infectious Grooves
Melechesh - an Assyrian black metal band originating from Jerusalem whose lyrical themes include Mesopotamian mythology and occultism.
Iron Man - American doom metal band with PoC members.
Sex Machineguns - Japanese speed metal band.
Hibria - Brazilian power metal band.
Metallica - their first lead guitarist was Lloyd Grant. Here he is in their first recording.
Gevolt - Yiddish band from Israel.
The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza
Gridlink
X Japan - Probably Japan’s most famous metal export. These guys are the reason Visual Kei (basically Japan’s gothic metal scene) exists. All those flashy JRock bands wouldn’t exist without X Japan. They also recently just played a huge show at Madison Square Garden.
Maximum the Hormone - Also known as “the guys that did that weird opening and ending to death note”, MTH do a fantastic combination of metal, punk, and even pop. The best part about MTH is that their lyrics don’t make sense even when translated so you can just have mindless fun listening to them even if you understand Japanese.
Suffocation - one of the most influential death metal acts of all time. Terrance Hobbs’ incredible mastery of the guitar allowed the band to blend complex technicality into the genre without sacrificing raw brutality.
Versailles Philharmonic Quintet
Suicide Silence
The Crimson Armada
For Today
Glass Cloud
Heaven in Her Arms
Here comes the Kraken
Issues
Periphery
Reflections
System of a Down
Fear Nuttin Band
Year of the Dragon - founder was a member of Fishbone.
Dir En Grey
Skyharbor
Spineshank
Coal Chamber
Ill Niño
Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in Dilapidation (FID) - Formed in Tokyo. Rad ladies playing some super hard grindcore.
Sarcofago - Brazilian band
Acrassicauda - Iraqi heavy metal. There is a film called “Heavy Metal in Baghdad”, about the band. Another documentary called Global Metal, which is by the same director as Heavy Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, is highly recommended.
Sigh - one of the first japanese black mack metal bands led by a fierce lady.
Sabbat - Japanese black/thrash.
Blood Stain Child - rather epic sounding Japanese metal band with contrasting vocals and instrumentals.
Gallhammer - female Japanese extreme metal band of doom. The wickedest chicks, definitely recommend.
Avulsed - Spanish death metal band.
Necramynth - Korean black metal.
Crossfaith - japanese metalcore.
Subrosa
As they Burn - deathcore band from Paris, France.
Wolves and Jackals - blackened thrash/death metal from Atlanta, GA.
Infernal Revulsion - brutal death metal from Tokyo, Japan
Orange Sky - from Trinidad and Tobago.
Monuments - it’s got saxophone and it’s awesome.
Ego Likeness
Peelander-Z - watch the videos, you’ll be happy you did.
For Today - if you’re into Christian metal.
Dream Theater - John Myung plays in the influential prog metal band with the aid of his majestic hair.
Alternative or too cool to label:
Bat for Lashes - Natasha Khan’s songs are ethereal.
Skunk Anansie - Skin is a fierce woman with a fierce voice. Also, her eyes will pierce through your soul.
Fishbone - literally unclassifiable: ska, punk, crazy cool…
Dub War - often likened to Skindred. Not because the singer has dreads or anything. Or because it’s the same guy.
The Slack Republic - fairly new (2005), looking forward to more.
Pierce the Veil - they’re really more “Punk Pop” than anything else. All members are Mexican.
Coheed and Cambria
Alice in Chains
Boris - japanese experimental metal band highly influential in the doom, stoner, noise rock scene.
Bleed the Pigs - great band with a singer who has an awesome colorful fro.
Motherjane
Jimi Hendrix - duh.
Asian Dub Foundation
BIS (Brand-New Idol Society) - considered “alternative Japanese idols”, and have done some amazing things including recruiting a new member who was rumored to be a high school girl and turned out to be Junko Koshino, a famous fashion designer who is 74 yrs old. Their song + video for MURA-MURA is excellent.
Go Betty Go - chicano rock, “pop punk”. Several of their songs are in Spanish.
Melt-Banana - Japanese noise rock band.
Deftones
Rage Against the Machine
TV on the Radio
Rain Machine
Bloc Party - singer is gay and black.
Little Dragon
Asobi Seksu
Blonde Redhead
The Go! Team
CSS
The English Beat
Kenna
Mono
One Ok Rock
ELLEGARDEN - JAPAN’S BEST 90s/EARLY 2000s POP PUNK ROCK EXPORT I’M NOT EVEN KIDDING. Part of what contributes to this is Takeshi Hosomi (singer/rhythm guitarist) writing ¾ of the band’s discography in perfect english. Unfortunately they went on hiatus in 2006, but that spawned two more fantastic bands: Takeshi does experimental progressive indie in the HIATUS (its the same guy I swear), and guitarist Shinichi Ubukata formedNothing’s Carved In Stone which is basically a Japanese alt. rock supergroup.
The Hiatus
Nothing’s Carved in Stone
Shonen Knife - you can’t talk about japanese girl rock without the literal originators of the movement/popularity. Because Kurt Cobain said he listened them, a HUGE surge of all girl bands started popping up over Japan.
O’Brother
The Pillows - alt rock band from Hokkaido.
Set it Off
The Novembers
Shiva En Exil
Guns N’ Roses - Slash.
(Hed) PE - (or Planet Earth) original sound described as “G-Punk”, a fusion of punk rock and gangsta rap.
Soundgarden
She Wants Revenge
Skip the Use - with influence from various genres and a black lead.
Elsiane - Formed in Montreal. Fronted by Elsieanne Caplette. Trip-hop/downtempo.
Fall Out Boy’s bassist Pete Wentz English/German and Afro-Jamaican.
Sonic Boom Six
Cibo Matto - real cool duo.
My Vitriol
Buck Tick
Wormrot - grindcore from Singapour.
Toe - post rock from Japan.
Guitar Wolf - “Jet Rock n’ roll”.
Gazette
Kanon Wakeshima
The Coup - Yesssss.
Street Sweeper Social Club
Merchant Ships - post hardcore.
The Skints - reggae/dub/punk fusion.
White Town - bzangy deserves WAY more recognition! You’ve probably already heard “I Could Never be Your Woman.”
The Mars Volta
Drill Queen - Born Depressed is just the greatest song.
Death Grips - experimental rap.
Grateful Dead
Suffrajett
Remember to Submit here.
Help Us Make this List a Database
This was originally a simple post intended to show representation within alternative music. So many of you responded. Over the past weeks I have received over 80-some band suggestions in my mailbox, this not counting the 80-some suggestions within the comments.
Let’s Expand
I am constructing a full on resource for underrepresented alternative artists of yet more walks of sound. This includes artists of color, lgbt+ folk, musicians with disabilities and more. The goal is to provide a space for discovery, notably among those young to the scene searching for their like. Each band will have their own space with a short bio, recommended sounds and their impact on the scene as an underrepresented musician - if possible, newspaper clippings and photography.
Many of you had comments about genres, band controversies and various tidbits. The database would provide a place for people to discuss and make it easier to edit band info.
How Can We Reach this Goal?
The goal is almost reached!! Donate (as little as $1) on Patreon. We have already hit close to $175. This is the amount required for time, research and even interaction with musicians themselves. Patreon users donate on a monthly basis. Say you choose to donate $5, the amount will be deducted from your account monthly and you will receive prizes relative to the donation. You may opt out at any time.
Each contributor (yes, all of you who suggested awesome bands) will receive a personal thank you. Each patron will get a special prize: custom art, full color comic of you, shootin’ the double scoop with the creator etc….
At this point it would only take 34 peeps to each donate $3 to get the database up and running.
Ready? Let’s go!
