The Rapture is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1998. During their first incarnation, the band consisted of Luke Jenner (lead vocals, guitar), Vito Roccoforte (drums, percussion), and Gabriel Andruzzi (keyboards, bass, saxophone, percussion). The classic lineup (1999–2009) added Mattie Safer playing bass and sharing lead vocal duties with Jenner. Safer and Jenner's harmonized choruses became part of the signature sound of the band, featuring on several of the band's more well known songs.

The band mixed influences from many genres including dance-punk, post-punk, acid house, disco, and electronica. They were forerunners of the dance-punk revival coming out of the post-punk revival during the early 2000s, as they mixed their early post-punk sound with electronic and dance elements. The band has acknowledged that their music draws on themes of Christianity.

The band began by releasing a mini-album, Mirror, in January 1999, under Gravity Records. Afterward, in 2001, the band signed to Sub Pop and released the EP Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks. The band released the song "House of Jealous Lovers" in 2002 under their new record label DFA Records. After a re-release of the song, it peaked at number 27 on the UK Singles Chart in 2003 and received critical acclaim. Later that year, the band released their first full-length studio album, Echoes. The band released their second studio album, Pieces of the People We Love, in 2006 under Universal Records and Vertigo Records, featuring production from Danger Mouse, Paul Epworth, and Ewan Pearson.

The band entered a small hiatus in 2008 after band member Luke Jenner left the band, but he eventually returned to the band after 8 months. Mattie Safer, the band's long time bassist and vocalist, also left the band permanently in 2009. After a re-signing to DFA Records, the band released their third studio album, In the Grace of Your Love, in September 2011, which was their first studio album in five years. In 2014, it was revealed that the Rapture had disbanded, though no official statement had been made. The band later reunited in 2019 without Safer. In 2025, the Rapture announced a comeback tour, though only Jenner would remain from the original lineup.

In 1998, drummer Vito Roccoforte and guitarist/vocalist Luke Jenner formed the Rapture. They were childhood friends from a San Diego suburb who started playing music together, and when Roccoforte moved to San Francisco for college, Jenner followed him and they started playing more, which would lead to forming the Rapture. Roccoforte was an aspiring filmmaker, but became a drummer at Jenner's insistence. According to Jenner in 2018, "In college, he got really good grades and had all of these ambitions to be a filmmaker. I kind of railroaded him into the Rapture. He didn't really want to be a drummer, but I needed somebody I could trust who was never going to leave my side. And he agreed; it's not like I forced him into it. I asked him humbly and he accepted." They released a single, "The Chair That Squeaks", on Hymnal Sound that same year. After heavy touring, they released a debut mini-album, Mirror, on Gravity Records in 1999.

After having his house burned down by drug dealers, their bass player suggested they move to Seattle because he had better music contacts there. In five months between January and May '99, the band spent more time getting drunk than writing songs, but they did manage to get a record deal from Sub Pop.

After releasing Mirror, they decided it would be best to move to New York, where they slept in a van that they had bought with money from the label. It was in New York that bassist and vocalist Mattie Safer, a freshman studying jazz at NYU joined the band. He had met them the previous summer when they were touring through Washington DC. He joined the band in the fall of 1999, prior to the 2001 release of the six-song EP Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks on Sub Pop. The addition of Safer proved to pivotal for the band, according to Jenner. In 2006 he said, "There were five people in the band before Matt in the space of just over a year. He was the first person that was actually good. He was musically way better than us and brought a lot of stability. Listening to him for the first time made me think that I actually had better learn to play my own instrument."

Living in New York also made Jenner aware of the possibilities offered by dance music. In 2011 he said, "Coming to NY and going to proper dance music clubs, that was pivotal. I was hearing dance music over a big system and realizing it has the same energy as a hardcore show, the idea that a kick drum can be so powerful, so tough-sounding in a song like 'Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough' by Michael Jackson on the right system. I think also, just the raw power of dancing, and the kind of communal aspect that could be created, like the same thing that sprouts up around punk rock kids, it could be the same with dance music."