page_title: Steampunk
section_title: Music
hierarchical_section_title: Steampunk / Art, entertainment, and media / Music
caption_attribution_description: English: Robert Brown and Finn Von Claret of Abney Park perform at Dragoncon 2008
context_page_description: Steampunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Although its literary origins are sometimes associated with the cyberpunk genre, steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the British Victorian era or the American "Wild West", where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.
  Steampunk most recognizably features anachronistic technologies or retrofuturistic inventions as people in the 19th century might have envisioned them — distinguishing it from Neo-Victorianism — and is likewise rooted in the era's perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art. Such technologies may include fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Other examples of steampunk contain alternative-history-style presentations of such technology as steam cannons, lighter-than-air airships, analog computers, or such digital mechanical computers as Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine.
context_section_description: Steampunk music is very broadly defined. Abney Park's lead singer Robert Brown defined it as "mixing Victorian elements and modern elements". There is a broad range of musical influences that make up the Steampunk sound, from industrial dance and world music to folk rock, dark cabaret to straightforward punk, Carnatic to industrial, hip-hop to opera (and even industrial hip-hop opera), darkwave to progressive rock, barbershop to big band.
  Joshua Pfeiffer (of Vernian Process) is quoted as saying, "As for Paul Roland, if anyone deserves credit for spearheading Steampunk music, it is him. He was one of the inspirations I had in starting my project. He was writing songs about the first attempt at manned flight, and an Edwardian airship raid in the mid-80s long before almost anyone else ..." Thomas Dolby is also considered one of the early pioneers of retro-futurist (i.e., Steampunk and Dieselpunk) music. Amanda Palmer was once quoted as saying, "Thomas Dolby is to Steampunk what Iggy Pop was to Punk!"
  Steampunk has also appeared in the work of musicians who do not specifically identify as Steampunk. For example, the music video of "Turn Me On", by David Guetta and featuring Nicki Minaj, takes place in a Steampunk universe where Guetta creates human droids. Another music video is "The Ballad of Mona Lisa", by Panic! at the Disco, which has a distinct Victorian Steampunk theme. A continuation of this theme has in fact been used throughout the 2011 album Vices & Virtues, in the music videos, album art, and tour set and costumes. In addition, the album Clockwork Angels (2012) and its supporting tour by progressive rock band Rush contain lyrics, themes, and imagery based around Steampunk. Similarly, Abney Park headlined the first "Steamstock" outdoor steampunk music festival in Richmond, California, which also featured  Thomas Dolby, Frenchy and the Punk, Lee Presson and the Nails, Vernian Process, and others.
  The music video for the Lindsey Stirling song "Roundtable Rival", has a Western Steampunk setting.
caption: Robert Brown and Finn Von Claret from Abney Park
exif: {}