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Underground > Radio & Music >

American Hardcore

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

20:47 / 13.09.06

In the 1980s the hardcore scene broke out in California and spread across the country. I am not a music historian, so I am not an expert in the field, but I want to hear what other people think of the genre.

Was harcore music in the 80s the working class white equivalent of gangster rap? It seems that way on the surface, but again, I am not an expert.

The trialer for the film is available here American Harcore (sorry its myspace).

I posted here because I am less interested in the film right now and more interested in the music behind the movie. Once I see the flic I might post in the FTVT forum.

22:03 / 13.09.06

i think it was massively different to gangsta rap, mostly because it covers a much broader ethic.
minor threat and black flag kinda typify the early stuff for me, and they are pretty different bands(i would also possibly throw the misfits and the kennedys in there, but i always thought of them as punk bands rather than a hardcore bands...). there's also bands like reagan youth, agnostic front, bad brains, scream, dag nasty, the angry samoans, SOA, the teen idles, etc, etc.

the only real similarity i can see is that of aggresive self empowerment, and i'm not sure how far you can take that similarity, or how common a trait it necessarily was. some of the bands are pretty nihilistic, but again that nihilism is far from uniform or ubiquitous.

what kind of hardcore do you mean when you say hardcore?

what do you think of new york hardcore or DC hardcore?
do you think metalcore counts as hardcore?

Locust No longer

00:57 / 14.09.06

I think it's definitely a difficult proposition to make an accurate over view of a genre that was/is so diverse. Hardcore is far from a consistent musical style, much less a consistent ethos.

As far as I can tell, "hardcore" originated in the Washington DC area by punk bands like Minor Threat, The Teen Idles and Bad Brains; they wanted to differentiate themselves from the more nihilistic, rock star style of '77 punk like the Sex Pistols or The Clash. It was a distinctly American style at the time (obviously, it got out to the rest of the world pretty quickly), typified by a faster, harder attack than traditional punk. Everything had to be faster and more aggressive and more pissed off. But, again, this is only one interpretation; like I wrote above, "hardcore" applied to many different bands, often with a very different sound and attitude. It's only more apparent now as the "hardcore" label has only grown more diffused; at this point it can apply to anything from jockey, meathead metal to agitated, emotive college rock.

I think this documentary might be interesting, as it may delve into the American punk underground better than all the other punk documentaries that devote the majority of their time to The Clash and the Sex Pistols, give meager commentary to the early 80s scenes and then skip up to bands like Nirvana (who to my mind weren't punk rock at all), acting as though nothing happened in punk between 1980-1992. Personally, this stretch of time (80-92)was the most important period for the music. I always want to throw something when I seem some self-important, washed up slob from the New York Dolls or from "Punk Magazine" talk to me about how punk rock died after '79.

Jack The Bodiless

11:07 / 14.09.06

There's an assumed definitive 'hardcore' sound, which is commonly what brackets new bands coming up into the hardcore genre - hard, fast, intense punk rock, typically with lyrical bent towards the 'angry young man' archetype. The trouble with applying this to any of the bands mostly considered to have kickstarted the scene or the genre that sprang from it is that they don't necessarily fit that style themselves. Black Flag did to begin with, but, being contrary bastards, instantly kicked out the second they found themselves being trapped in a box. They grew their hair long, dressed like homeless surfers, started playing long, tangled, heavy blues songs, like Sabbath but with the same twisted intensity they'd brought to their earlier stuff. Bad Brains were a lot more jazzy, coming from a fusion and progressive background, but still pretty damned fast - later, they brought in reggae, being committed Rastafarians (Bad Brains were all African-American). Dead Kennedys were political, Minor Threat were had a strong ethical bent to their stuff (or at least Ian MacKaye did)... you can basically recognise the 'hardcore sound' when you hear it, but you can't necessarily recognise that sound in much of the genre's heroes' output.