Noise Rock
Noise rock is an abrasive style of rock that uses distortion, feedback and dissonance as main ingredients.
It came out of punk and the New York no wave scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Guitars are often detuned or played in unusual ways, vocals are shouted or buried, and the songs can swing between rigid repetition and chaos. It keeps rock's band format and beat, which separates it from pure noise music.
Artists it is known for: Sonic Youth, Big Black, The Jesus Lizard, Swans.
- Family
- Rock
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United States, late 1970s to early 1980s
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 3%
About 2,200 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have noise rock among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Noise Rock artists
my bloody valentine
Sonic Youth
Fugazi
Swans
Parannoul
Dinosaur Jr.
Helmet
Boris
HEALTH
black midiThe noise rock artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.