Music scenes may come and go like the tides, but some become the hidden backbones of their home cities. Not every band makes it big, but underground scenes are still crucial for building community and creating local culture. Here are three music scenes that have gone relatively unappreciated by the mainstream but remain important to the rich tapestries of their regions.
Florida Hardcore
When considering Florida, hardcore punk and metalcore don’t usually spring to mind. However, they really should. Originally being from the St. Pete/Tampa area, I can say with authority that the hardcore music scene has been alive and well there for a long time. Maybe it’s a little harder to find nowadays, what with the overwhelming downtown development that has pushed small venues out. Sure, the focus has turned from hyper-local scenes and has settled on pleasing the continuous waves of tourists. But still, hardcore remains an overlooked backbone of St. Pete and its surrounding cities.
Miami has also been a longtime hub of hardcore, remaining hidden beneath the city’s obvious luxury. Florida hardcore, in close collaboration with skate culture, thrives because of its truly underground nature. Where is it? Well, nowadays, you’ve really got to know someone with an in. But, I can tell you that, in my neck of the woods, the plethora of local breweries is a good place to start.
Philly Underground
In a similar vein, Philadelphia has a thriving underground scene as well. The general DIY punk ethos is almost baked into the Philly mindset, an attitude that has made the city and her residents the butt of many jokes and satires. This is the place that blessed us with the chaos demon that is Gritty, after all. Overall, Philly is plucky, tenacious, and perhaps a little unhinged. All the earmarks of a strong underground music scene.
From hardcore punk to experimental noise to shoegaze and slowcore, Philly has been producing exceptional DIY bands for decades. And why is this town such a haven for the underground scene? One defining reason is that the majority of Philly homes have basements, which serve as key venues for local bands. House shows are plentiful in Philly, which allows for a more accessible music scene and a tight-knit community, a notion that remains at the heart of Philadelphia.
London Post-Punk
London post-punk has been having a resurgence in recent years, to the point where it feels like every new post-punk band comes out of the U.K. But it also seems like the London post-punk scene in itself hasn’t been as recognized, not like post-punk as an overall genre. The growth of U.K. post-punk seems to lend itself to the political climate across the pond, specifically the post-Brexit landscape.
Post-punk in the U.K. is an often oversimplified music scene, considered elsewhere to be just a genre or style. But bands like Black Country, New Road, Idles, and Maruja prove that it’s more than stylistic choice. In Ireland, Fontaines D.C. have done the same, breaking out in 2024 with a post-punk reckoning. While the genre goes back to the 80s following the break of the hardcore scene, this emerging community is more than just an arbitrary grouping. As many critics and artists who are involved in this resurgence have noted, it’s a direct response to an exhaustingly unknown future.
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