Dark Wave, also written as Darkwave, is an umbrella term which refers to a movement that began in the late 1970s, coinciding with the popularity of New Wave and Post-punk music. Building upon the basic principles of those musical movements, Dark Wave evolved through the addition of dark, thoughtful lyrics and an undertone of sorrow. Dark Wave is inseparably connected with the stylistic developments of the late 1970s and the 1980s. In the 1980s a versatile subculture developed within the Dark Wave movement, whose members were called "wavers” or "dark wavers". In many countries, the Dark Wave movement also included the early Goth subculture (trad goth).
The stylistic origins of DarkWave were New Wave, post-punk, post-industrial, synthpop, gothic rock, and neofolk styles. The cultural origins were in the late 1970s and 1980s in Europe, especially England, Germany, France, and Italy. The typical instruments in a DarkWave band were a guitar, a bass guitar, a synthesizer, drums, a drum machine, a piano, a violin, a flute, and/or a clarinet. It has small to medium popularity in the mainstream, with the probability that it will become significantly larger in time. The subgenres of Darkwave are ethereal, neo-classical, and new german death art, to name a few.