These bands were influenced by funk, disco, new wave, and other dance music popular at the time (as well as being anticipated by some artists from the 1970s including Sparks and Iggy Pop).
The second wave of dance-punk materialized in an urban landscape characterized by the presence of the hipster figure, deeply entrenched in creative industries, operating in the symbolic realm rather than the manufactured, and accumulating subcultural capital.
These spaces, whether they exist in the realm of imagination or reality, conjure up a sense of cosmopolitanism, artistic liberation, and a spirit of defiance against the confines of conventional mainstream culture.
[11] Categorizing dance-punk becomes increasingly complex as certain bands proclaim allegiance to a punk "attitude" while crafting music that leans more towards electronic dance genres.
Within dance punk, minimalism is not just about simplicity; it signifies a sense of directness and systematic order, often drawing parallels with the purity associated with the clean lines and abstractions of modernist art.
[10] The guitar sound in dance punk takes on a unique quality characterized by angularity - a clean and brittle spikiness that departs from traditional riffing or bluesy chords.
Syncopation, a key component, involves shifting and eliminating predictable accents, aligning rhythms more with speech and orality, emphasizing the human element over mechanistic precision.
This approach has similarities to disco singing, where the repetition of phrases serves to empty language and open the self to divine inspiration through heightened emotional expression.
[14] In the early 2000s Washington, D.C. had a popular and notable punk-funk scene, inspired by Fugazi, post-punk, and go-go acts like Trouble Funk and Rare Essence, including bands like Q and Not U, Black Eyes, and Baltimore's Oxes, Double Dagger, and Dope Body.