The rockabilly of Elvis and Johnny Cash was a very original sound. It combined the twangy Appalachian country music of the "hillbillies" with the rhythm and blues of black artists. The resulting sound is a driving form of rock and roll, upbeat and easy to swing dance to. Throwbacks to rockabilly are seen in the 21st century via pin-up girls, hot rod cars and pompadour hairstyles. Rockabilly is indebted to the 1950s, but it maintains young fans through every generation.
Combining the dark styles of goth with old rockabilly energy, gothabilly musicians often wear white face makeup and dark eyeshadow while performing. Slower than other forms of rockabilly, gothabilly incorporates horror themes into the music such as creepy organs and heavier reverb. Gothabilly is the smallest sub-genre of rockabilly, and most bands in the gothabilly scene are known in underground circles but not on any mainstream level.
Always a genre high on energy and quick in tempo, rockabilly naturally evolved into psychobilly along with the development of punk rock and garage rock. Like old rockabilly bands, psychobilly retained the upright bass instead of an electric bass. It is much more aggressive lyrically and musically, with mosh pits often resulting at psychobilly shows. Some popular psychobilly bands include Reverend Horton Heat, Tiger Army and The Living End. Psychobilly first appeared as a genre in the early 1980s, and is sometimes referred to as punkabilly.
As music continues to evolve and more sub-genres emerge, various other forms of rockabilly have developed. Smaller scenes within rockabilly include trashabilly, which is akin to the musical form of a B-movie, surfabilly, which brings surf rock styles into the genre, and thrashabilly, which is noisier and more distorted than any other form of rockabilly. Other types of rockabilly exist in even smaller scenes, all depending on the other styles infused into the basic rockabilly structure.