Postmodernists used music to rebel against the idealistic principles set by Modernism.  Musical techniques, such as twelve-tone, were ubiquitous when Modernism reigned, but these techniques were slowly taken over by more postmodernist ideas, like mixing musical genres.  It is not uncommon to hear waltz tunes mixed with rap beats, for example.  This mixing of genres, mediums, or styles is recurs often in postmodernist works. One of the main goals for postmodern musicians was to blur the boundaries between what was known as high-art music and music that sounded kitschy.

A perk to creating postmodernist music is that the composer has the added opportunity to directly communicate with the audience.  For this, postmodern music tends to react directly against canonized Modernism.

Laurie Anderson is a good example of a postmodern composer.  While her songs can more easily be classified as minimalism, many of her lyrics rely on cultural rhetoric taken out of context and represented as pastiche; directly correlated with postmodern ideals.  She executes this representation in her songs titled "O Superman" and "Big Science;" common answering machines messages as well as meaningless words that have come to bear cultural meaning are stuck together to send a message obviously unconcerned with a meaningful breakthrough, as would have been a goal in Modernism.