It's called punk-funk but also trades under the aliases dance-punk, disco-punk, and dance-rock and it's the sound you get when two opposing music cultures collide.
The US branch can be traced back to Devo, Talking Heads and parts of the No Wave moment (although some will tell you it stretches further back to Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix), but it was the immediate post-punk bands in the UK who refined the sound.
Josef K and Gang Of Four were among the first out of the blocks in throwing funk/disco beats and slabs of bass guitar on top of new-wave guitar sounds, although many will argue that Manchester's A Certain Ratio were the best exemplars of the sound.
Always regarded as a very earnest musical movement, the early punk-funk bands would have lyrics about Marxism and Roland Barthes. The idea was that people "could move their limbs to the music but also question themselves and the society around them".
It always threw up some very unlikely bedfellows: you would have some white bread indie miserabilists referencing the glitter-ball disco sound of bands such as Chic.
Punk-funk faded suddenly as dance and hip-hop went into the ascendant and guitar rock music was swamped by the grunge sound. When it remerged a few years ago it had changed its name to dance-punk. The Rapture led the second wave assault and were soon followed by Radio 4, Liars, Hot Chip, Simian, Hot Hot Heat and the splendidly titled You Say Party! We Say Die! The term itself is now seen as an increasingly elastic concept, with dance and rock/punk meaning different things to different people depending on what country they come from and what era of dance and rock/punk they're talking about.
The most commercially successful punk-funk band remains the Red Hot Chili Peppers who, as devoted Gang Of Four fans, even got the band's Andy Gill to produce their debut album. As of yet there is no The Best Punk-Funk Album In The World - Ever! planned for release.
