Hardcore punk (usually referred to simply as
hardcore)
is a
punk
rock music genre that originated in the late 1970s.
Hardcore is generally faster, heavier, and more abrasive than regular
punk rock.
[2]
The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The
Vancouver-based band
D.O.A. may have helped to popularize the term with the title
of their 1981 album,
Hardcore
'81.
[3][4][5]
One definition of the genre is "a form of exceptionally harsh punk
rock."
[6]
Hardcore has spawned the
straight
edge movements, whose adherents refrain from using alcohol,
tobacco, and other recreational drugs, and its associated submovements,
hardline and
youth
crew. Hardcore was heavily involved with the rise of the
independent record labels in the
1980s, and with the
DIY ethics in underground music scenes. It has
influenced a number of music genres which have experienced mainstream
success, such as
alternative rock,
grunge,
alternative metal,
metalcore,
thrash metal and
post-hardcore.
Hardcore sprouted underground scenes across the United States in the
early 1980s particularly in
Washington, D.C.,
California,
New York,
New Jersey, and
Boston—as well as in Australia, Canada and the United
Kingdom.
While traditional hardcore has never experienced mainstream
commercial success, some of its early pioneers have garnered
appreciation over time.
Black Flag's album
Damaged was included in
Rolling
Stone's list of
The 500
Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003,
[7]
and the
Dead Kennedys have seen one of their albums
reach gold status over a period of 25 years.
[8]
Although the music started in English-speaking western countries,
scenes have also existed in
Brazil,
Japan,
Europe and
The Middle East.
[9]
Music and
clothing style[edit]
In the vein of punk rock, most bands followed the traditional
singer/guitar/bass/drum format. The songwriting had more emphasis on
rhythm
rather than
melody.
Hardcore vocalists
screamed,
chanted and
used
spoken word poetry.
Drummers would play fast
D beat one moment and then drop
tempo into elaborate musical
breakdowns the next. Guitarists were not afraid to play
solos,
octave
leads, and
grooves as well as tapping into the various
feedback and
harmonic
noises available to them. The guitar sound was almost always
distorted and amplified.
In critic Steven Blush's description, "The
Sex
Pistols were still rock'n'roll...like the craziest version of
Chuck
Berry. Hardcore was a radical departure from that. It wasn't
verse-chorus rock. It dispelled any notion of what songwriting is
supposed to be. It's its own form."
[10]
This distillation of punk was further emphasized through dress.
Hardcore punk fans adopted a
dressed-down style of
T-shirts,
jeans,
combat boots or
sneakers and
crewcut-style haircuts. The style of the 1980s
hardcore scene contrasted with the more provocative fashion styles of
late 1970s punk rockers (elaborate hairdos, torn clothes, patches,
safety pins, studs, spikes, etc.).
Circle
Jerks frontman
Keith Morris described early hardcore fashion
as "the...punk scene was basically based on English fashion. But we had
nothing to do with that.
Black Flag and the
Circle
Jerks were so far from that. We looked like the kid who worked at
the gas station or submarine shop."
[11]
History[edit]
Late
1970s-early 1980s[edit]
United States[edit]
Los Angeles[edit]
Michael Azerrad, author of
Our Band Could Be Your Life,
calls
Black Flag the "godfathers" of hardcore
punk.
[12]
Formed in
Hermosa Beach, California by
guitarist
and
lyricist
Greg
Ginn, they played their first show in December 1977. Originally
called Panic, they changed their name to Black Flag in 1978.
[13]
Minutemen performing in 1985, at the now-defunct Safari Sam's
By 1979, Black Flag were joined by other Los Angeles-area bands
playing hardcore punk, including
Fear,
The Germs and the
Circle
Jerks (featuring Black Flag's original singer,
Keith
Morris). This group of bands was featured in
Penelope Spheeris' 1981 documentary
The Decline of Western
Civilization.
[14]
By the time the film was released, other hardcore bands were making a
name for themselves in Los Angeles and neighboring
Orange County, including
The Adolescents,
Angry
Samoans,
Bad Religion,
Dr. Know,
Ill Repute,
The Middle Class,
Minutemen,
New Regime,
Suicidal Tendencies,
T.S.O.L.,
Wasted Youth, and
Youth Brigade.
Whilst popular traditional punk bands such as the
Ramones,
The
Clash, and
Sex Pistols were signed to major record labels,
the hardcore punk bands were generally not. Black Flag, however, was
briefly signed to
MCA subsidiary Unicorn Records, but were dropped
because an executive considered their music to be "anti-parent".
[15]
Instead of trying to be courted by the major labels, hardcore bands
started their own
independent record labels and
distributed their records themselves. Ginn started
SST
Records, which released Black Flag's debut EP
Nervous Breakdown in 1978. SST
went on to release a number of albums by other hardcore artists, and was
described by Azerrad as "easily the most influential and popular
underground indie of the Eighties."
[12]
SST was followed by a number of other successful artist-run labels —
including
BYO Records (started by Shawn and Mark Stern of Youth
Brigade),
Epitaph Records (started by
Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion),
New Alliance Records (started by the Minutemen's
D. Boon) — as well as fan-run labels like
Frontier Records and
Slash
Records.
Bands also funded and organized their own tours. Black Flag's tours
in 1980 and 1981 brought them in contact with developing hardcore scenes
in many parts of North America, and blazed trails that were followed by
other touring bands.
[16][17][18]
Youth Brigade was one of the first hardcore punk bands to create a
documentary of their tour, releasing
Another State of Mind in
1984.
[19]
The Another State of Mind tour was funded by "Youth Movement '82", a
concert organized by BYO at the
Hollywood Palladium that — in addition to Youth Brigade —
featured
T.S.O.L.,
The Adolescents,
Wasted Youth,
Social Distortion and
Blades. The concert was one of the
largest punk shows ever held around that time, attended by more than
3,500 people.
[20]
Concerts in the early Los Angeles hardcore scene increasingly became
sites of violent battles between police and concertgoers. Violence at
hardcore concerts was portrayed in episodes of the popular television
shows
CHiPs
and
Quincy, M.E.[21]
San Francisco[edit]
The Dead Kennedys: Klaus Fluoride, Jello Biafra, D.H. Peligro and East
Bay Ray
Shortly after Black Flag debuted in Los Angeles,
Dead
Kennedys were formed in San Francisco. While the band's early
releases were played in a style closer to traditional punk rock,
In God We Trust, Inc. (1981) marked a shift into
hardcore. Similar to Black Flag and Youth Brigade, Dead Kennedys
released their albums on their own label
Alternative Tentacles. In addition to
Dead Kennedys albums, Alternative Tentacles released the seminal
hardcore punk compilation
Let Them Eat Jellybeans!
While not as large as the scene in Los Angeles, the
San Francisco Bay Area hardcore scene of the
1980s included a number of noteworthy bands, including
Crucifix,
Flipper,
Kwik Way, and
Whipping Boy. Additionally,
during this time seminal
Texas-based bands
The
Dicks,
MDC,
Verbal Abuse, and
Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (D.R.I.) relocated to San
Francisco.
This scene was helped in particular by the San Francisco club
Mabuhay Gardens, whose promoter,
Dirk
Dirksen, became known as "The Pope of Punk".
[22]
Another important local institution was
Tim
Yohannan's
fanzine,
Maximumrocknroll, as well as his show on
Berkeley, California public radio station
KPFA Maximum
RocknRoll Radio Show, which played the younger
Northern California bands. One of those bands was
Tales of Terror from
Sacramento. Many, including
Mark Arm,
cite Tales of Terror as a key inspiration for the then-burgeoning
grunge scene.
[23]
Washington, D.C.[edit]
Bad Brains at 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C., 1983
The first hardcore punk band to form on the east coast of the United
States was Washington, D.C.'s
Bad
Brains. Initially formed in 1977 as a jazz fusion ensemble called
Mind Power, and consisting of all
African-American
members, their early foray into hardcore featured some of the fastest
tempos in
rock music.
[24]
The band released its debut single, "
Pay to
Cum", in 1980, and were influential in establishing the D.C.
hardcore scene.
Minor threat performing in 1981
Ian MacKaye and
Jeff Nelson, influenced by
Bad
Brains, formed the band
Teen Idles in 1979. The group broke up in 1980,
and MacKaye and Nelson went on to form
Minor
Threat, who became a big influence on the hardcore punk genre. The
band used faster rhythms and more aggressive, less melodic riffs than
was common at the time. Minor Threat popularized the
straight
edge movement with its song "
Straight Edge", which spoke out against
alcohol, drugs and promiscuity.
[25][26]
MacKaye and Nelson ran their own record label,
Dischord Records, which released records by D.C. hardcore
bands including:
The Faith,
Iron Cross,
Scream,
State of Alert,
Government Issue,
Void,
and DC's
Youth Brigade. The
"Flex Your Head" compilation was a seminal document of the early 1980s
DC hardcore scene. The record label was run out of the Dischord House, a
Washington, D.C.
punk house.
Seminal Boston hardcore bands included
Jerry's Kids,
Gang
Green,
The F.U.'s,
SS Decontrol,
Negative
FX,
The Freeze and
Siege. A faction of the scene was influenced by D.C.'s
straight
edge scene. Members of bands such as
DYS,
Negative
FX, and
SS Decontrol formed the
Boston Crew, a
militant straight edge group that
frequently assaulted punks who drank or used drugs. The controversy
surrounding this crew and their antics sparked a debate about violence
within the hardcore scene. In the late 1980s,
Elgin
James became involved in the militant faction of the Boston
straight edge scene, and he later helped found the organization
Friends Stand United, which would eventually be
classified as a
street gang.
[27]
In 1982,
Modern Method Records released
This Is Boston, Not L.A., a seminal
compilation album of the Boston hardcore scene. The compilation included
songs by
The Proletariat, The Freeze, The F.U.'s,
Jerry's Kids and Gang Green. Curtis Casella's
Taang! Records was also pivotal in releasing material by
bands from this era.
New York[edit]
The
New York City hardcore scene emerged in 1981 when
Bad
Brains moved to the city from
Washington, D.C.[28][29]
Starting in 1981, there was an influx of new hardcore bands in the
city, including
Beastie Boys,
Murphy's Law,
Agnostic Front and
Warzone. A number of bands associated with New York hardcore
scene came from
New Jersey, including
Misfits,
Adrenalin OD and
Hogan's Heroes.
[30][31]
In the early 1980s, the New York hardcore scene was headquartered in a
small after-hours bar,
A7,
on the lower east side of Manhattan. Later, New York's hardcore scene
was centered around the bar
CBGB, whose owner,
Hilly
Kristal, embraced hardcore punk. For several years, CBGB held
weekly hardcore matinees on Sundays. This stopped in 1990 when violence
led Kristal to ban hardcore shows at the club.
Facade of legendary music club
CBGB, New York
City
Early radio support in New York's surrounding
Tri state area came from Pat Duncan, who
had hosted live punk and hardcore bands weekly on
WFMU since
1979.
[32]
Bridgeport, Connecticut's
WPKN had a
radio show featuring hardcore called Capital Radio, hosted by
Brad
Morrison, beginning in February 1979 and continuing weekly until
late 1983. In
New York City, Tim Sommer hosted
Noise The
Show on
WNYU.
[33]
In 1982,
Bob Sallese produced
The Big
Apple Rotten To The Core compilation on S.I.N. Records,
featuring The Mob, Ism and four other bands from the early A7 era. The
album gained notoriety on the commercial radio station
WLIR, and
nationally on college radio. The LP was followed by
The Big Apple
Rotten To The Core, Vol. 2 in 1987 on Raw Power Records.
Other
North American regions[edit]
Minneapolis hardcore consisted of bands
such as
Hüsker Dü and
The Replacements, while
Chicago
had
Articles of Faith,
Big
Black and
Naked Raygun. The
Detroit
area was home to
Crucifucks,
Degenerates,
The
Meatmen,
The Necros,
Negative Approach,
Spite and
Violent Apathy.
JFA
and
Meat Puppets were both from
Phoenix, Arizona,
7 Seconds from
Reno,
Nevada, and
Butthole Surfers,
Big Boys,
The
Dicks,
Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (D.R.I.),
Really
Red,
Verbal Abuse, and
MDC
were from
Texas.
Portland Oregon bands included
Poison
Idea, Final Warning and
The Wipers. Hardcore bands in
Washington state
included
The Accüsed,
The
Fartz,
Melvins, The Dehumanizers, Subvert, and
10 Minute Warning.
Raleigh, N.C. Hardcore included Corrosion
of Conformity, Aftermath, The Wartz, and Final Option. Corrosion of
Conformity was the longest-lived of the Raleigh/Durham area hardcore
bands. Final Option, was started in 1986 by frontman, Panzer Vortex when
he was still a sophomore at Needham Broughton High School. Aftermath's
lead Singer, Ronnie Dalgo, a friend of Panzer Vortex, was also a high
school student at this time. Aftermath had a more hard-edged sound than
Final Option, which preferred more humorously absurd and offensive
lyrics.
D.O.A. formed in
Vancouver,
British Columbia in 1978 and were one of the first bands to refer to
its style as "hardcore", with the release of their album
Hardcore
'81. Other early hardcore bands from British Columbia included
Dayglo Abortions and
The Skulls.
United Kingdom[edit]
Motörhead's lead singer and bassist Lemmy.
In the
United Kingdom a hardcore scene eventually
cropped up. Referred to under a number of names including "U.K.
Hardcore", "
UK 82", "second wave punk",
[34]
"real punk",
[35]
and "No Future punk",
[36]
it took the previous punk sound and added the incessant, heavy
drumbeats and distorted guitar sound of
New Wave of British Heavy Metal
bands, especially
Motörhead.
[37]
Formed in 1977 in
Stoke-on-Trent,
Discharge played a huge role in influencing
other European hardcore bands. AllMusic calls the band's sound a
"high-speed noise overload" characterized by "ferocious noise blasts"
[38]
Their style of hardcore punk was coined as
D-beat, a
term a number of 1980s imitators of
Discharge are associated with.
[39]
Another UK band,
The Varukers, were one of the original D-beat
bands,
[40]
and
Sweden
in particular produced a number of D-beat bands during this time period
including
Anti-Cimex,
Disfear,
and
Totalitär.
Scottish band
The Exploited were also influential, with the
term "UK 82" being taken from one of their songs. They contrasted with
early American hardcore bands by placing an emphasis on appearance with
frontman Walter "Wattie" Buchan's giant red
mohawk, and the bands continuance of wearing
swastikas à la
Sid
Vicious. Because of this they were labeled by others in the scene as
"cartoon punks".
[41]
Other UK hardcore bands from this period included
Broken
Bones,
Chaos UK,
Charged GBH,
Dogsflesh,
Disorder,
English
Dogs, and
grindcore innovators
Napalm
Death.
Mid-1980s[edit]
Corrosion of Conformity playing in Denver in 1986.
The mid-1980s were a time of transition for the hardcore scene. Bands
such as
Husker Du,
Articles of Faith, and new bands
formed by members of bands like
Deep
Wound and
Minutemen experimented with other genres and were
embraced by college radio, coining the term "
College Rock". Many Boston bands such as
SS Decontrol,
Gang
Green,
DYS, and
The
F.U.'s, as well as Midwestern hardcore bands
Necros,
Negative Approach and
The
Meatmen moved in a slower, heavier hard rock direction.
Crossover thrash was another influential movement in
mid-1980s hardcore, with bands like
D.R.I.,
Corrosion of Conformity,
Suicidal Tendencies,
Los
Cycos,
Cro-Mags,
Fang
(band),
Agnostic Front,
Rich Kids on LSD,
The
Accüsed and
Cryptic Slaughter embracing the thrash metal of bands
like
Slayer.
And most of the Washington D.C. hardcore scene eschewed hardcore in
favor of a
college rock-influenced style of punk.
Late 1980s[edit]
By the mid to late 1980s, many of the most prominent early hardcore
punk bands had broken up.
Bad
Religion made a
progressive rock album with
Into the Unknown,
[42]
the
Beastie Boys gained fame by playing
hip hop,
and
Bad Brains incorporated more
reggae
into their music, such as in their 1989 album
Quickness.
[43]
Social Distortion went on hiatus after its first album
was released, due to
Mike Ness's drug problems, and returned with a
sound based more on
country music, which was referred to as
cowpunk.
[44]
But in WA state, many hardcore punk/metal cross over bands had
emerged like Stric-9, The Brain Dead, and Dumt.
Youth crew[edit]
While hardcore punk was declining in some American cities, New York
City was becoming an even bigger epicenter for hardcore. Influenced by
original
straight edge bands
7 Seconds,
Minor
Threat,
Bl'ast, and
Uniform Choice, bands such as
Youth of Today spearheaded the
youth
crew movement. An extension to the original pioneers groundwork of
lyrically expressing views against drugs, alcohol and promiscuous sex,
this newer belief system also focused on topics such as
vegetarianism
or
veganism.
[45]
In the late 1980s, other bands associated with youth crew included
Bold,
Gorilla Biscuits,
Side by Side and beyond the New York area to
Southern California bands such as
Chain of Strength and
Inside Out.
At the beginning of the 1990s, bands such as
Born
Against,
Rorschach,
Burn and
Drive Like Jehu took the 1980s styles of hardcore and pushed
them into more contemporary sounds. Many of the bands from this era were
strongly influenced by other genres, such as
heavy metal, alternative, pop, and even rap.
Hardcore
subsequently became a broad umbrella term, as a variety of different
sub-genres arose, such as;
melodic hardcore (
Avail,
Lifetime,
Kid Dynamite),
emo (
Ashes,
Endpoint,
Saves
the Day),
d-beat (
Avskum,
Aus Rotten,
Skitsystem),
powerviolence (
Spazz,
Dropdead,
Charles Bronson),
thrashcore
(
What Happens Next?,
Voorhees,
Vivisick),
mathcore
(
The Dillinger Escape Plan,
Botch,
Converge),
screamo (
Heroin,
Antioch Arrow,
Portraits of Past,
Swing Kids) and
rapcore.
While the 1990s had many different sounds and styles emerging, the
genre primarily branched into two directions;
new school metallic
hardcore (sometimes referred to as
metalcore),
which incorporated aspects of
thrash
metal and
death metal for a heavier and more technical
sound, and
old school, reminiscent of classic styles of hardcore
punk like
youth crew. "New school" bands such as
Strung
Out,
Earth Crisis,
Snapcase,
Strife,
Hatebreed,
108,
Integrity and
Damnation A.D. dominated the scene in the early 1990s, but
towards the end of the decade, a new-found interest in "old school" had
developed, represented by bands like
Battery,
Ten Yard Fight,
In My Eyes,
Good Clean Fun,
H2O and
Ray
Cappo's new band
Better Than a Thousand.
[46][47][48][49]
Many of the bands during this time wrote lyrics about
straight
edge, politics, civil rights, animal rights and spirituality. Ray
Cappo's views led him to become a
Hare Krishna
and fellow members of the New York scene,
John Joseph and
Harley Flanagan of the
Cro-Mags
also converted, as would new bands embracing youth crew.
[50]
While most of the bands embraced the straight edge lifestyle, some
prominent ones from this era did not, such as
Biohazard,
Madball
and
Sick of It All. As a result of the Internet, music
festivals such as
Hellfest, and
the commercial success of
Victory Records and
Trustkill Records, various bands such as
Refused
went on to find success with a larger audience and eventually brought
the term "hardcore" into the mainstream.
[51][52]
Rise Against playing live in 2008.
With the increased popularity of punk rock in the mid-1990s and the
2000s, some hardcore bands signed with major record labels. The first
was New York's
H2O, who released its album
Go (2001) for
MCA.
Despite an extensive tour and an appearance on
Late Night with Conan O'Brien,
the album was not commercially successful, and when the label folded,
the band and the label parted ways. In 2002, California's
AFI
signed to
DreamWorks Records and changed its sound
considerably for its successful major label debut
Sing the Sorrow. Chicago's
Rise
Against were signed by
Geffen Records, and three of its releases on the label were
certified platinum by the
RIAA.
[53]
Rise Against gradually diminished hardcore elements from their music,
culminating with 2008's
Appeal to Reason, which lacked the intensity found in
their earlier albums,
[54][55]
but returned to its hardcore roots in 2011's "
Endgame". United Kingdom band
Gallows were signed to
Warner Bros. Records for £1 million.
[56]
Their major label debut
Grey
Britain was described as being even more aggressive than their
previous material, and the band was subsequently dropped from the label.
[57]
Los Angeles band
The Bronx briefly appeared on
Island Def Jam
Music Group for the release of their
2006 self-titled album, which was
named one of the top 40 albums of the year by
Spin magazine.
[58]
They appeared in the
Darby Crash biopic What We Do Is Secret,
playing members of Black Flag.
In 2007,
Toronto's
Fucked
Up appeared on
MTV Live Canada, where they were
introduced as "Effed Up".
[59]
During the performance of its song "Baiting the Public", the majority
of the audience was
moshing, which caused $2000 in damages to the set.
[60]
Influence
on other genres[edit]
Alternative rock[edit]
Some hardcore bands began experimenting with other styles as their
careers progressed in the 1980s, becoming known as
alternative rock.
[61]
Bands such as
Minutemen,
Meat
Puppets,
Hüsker Dü, and
The Replacements drew from hardcore
but broke away from its loud and fast formula. Critic Joe S. Harrington
suggested that the latter two "paraded as Hardcore until it was deemed
permissible to do otherwise."
[62]
In the mid-1980s, northern
West Coast state bands such
as
Melvins,
Flipper and
Green River developed a sludgy, "aggressive sound that
melded the slower tempos of heavy metal with the intensity of
hardcore," creating an alternative rock subgenre known as
grunge.
[63]
One of the most popular grunge bands
Nirvana was particularly influenced by a number of hardcore
bands (
Black Flag,
Bad
Brains,
MDC, etc.), with band members
Dave
Grohl and
Pat Smear being recruited from
Scream and
The Germs, and singer
Kurt
Cobain listing hardcore albums among his top 50 favorites.
[64]
Electronic music[edit]
Digital hardcore is a music genre fusing
elements of hardcore punk and various forms of electronic music and
techno.
[65][66]
It developed in
Germany during the early 1990s, and often features
sociological or
left-extremist lyrical themes.
[65][66]
Nintendocore, another musical style, fuses
hardcore with
video game music,
chiptunes,
and 8-bit music.
[67][68][69]
Emo and
post-hardcore[edit]
Fugazi guitarist Guy Picciotto.
The 1980s saw the development of
post-hardcore,
which took the hardcore style in a more complex and dynamic direction,
with a focus on singing rather than screaming. The post-hardcore style
first took shape in Chicago, with bands such as
Big
Black,
The Effigies and
Naked
Raygun,
[70]
while later developed in Washington, DC within the community of bands
on Ian MacKaye's
Dischord Records with bands such as
Fugazi,
The Nation of Ulysses, and
Jawbox.
[71]
The style has extended until the late 2000s.
[71]
The mid-80s Washington D.C. post-hardcore scene would also see the
birth of
emo.
Guy Picciotto formed
Rites of Spring in 1984, breaking free of hardcore's
self-imposed boundaries in favor of melodic guitars, varied rhythms, and
deeply personal, impassioned lyrics dealing with nostalgia, romantic
bitterness, and poetic desperation.
[72]
Other D.C. bands such as
Gray Matter,
Beefeater,
Fire
Party,
Dag Nasty, also became connected to this movement.
[73][74]
The style was dubbed "emo", "emo-core",
[75]
or "post-harDCore"
[76]
(in reference to one of the names given to the Washington D.C. hardcore
scene
[77]).
Heavy metal[edit]
Metallica at a London concert in 2008.
Metalcore
is another metal-based
fusion genre which combines hardcore ethics and
heavier hardcore music with
heavy metal influences. It has been used to refer to bands
that were not purely hardcore nor purely metal such as
Earth
Crisis,
Integrity[78]
and
Hogan's Heroes.
[79][80]
Metallica
and
Slayer,
pioneers of the heavy metal subgenre
thrash
metal, were influenced by a number of hardcore bands. Metallica's
cover album
Garage Inc. included covers of two
Discharge and three
Misfits songs, while Slayer's cover album
Undisputed Attitude consisted of
covers of predominately hardcore punk bands. Younger groups such as
Sepultura also began to incorporate hardcore punk influences, resulting
in a leaner and more direct sound. In turn, hardcore bands such as
Corrosion of Conformity,
Suicidal Tendencies, and
Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, started to incorporate
thrash metal into their own music to create a style that DRI coined as
crossover thrash.
[81]
Melvins,
aside from their influence on grunge, helped create what would be known
as
sludge metal, which is also a combination between Black
Sabbath-style music and hardcore punk.
[82]
This genre developed during the early 1990s, in the
Southern United States (particularly
in the
New Orleans metal scene).
[83][84][85]
Some of the pioneering bands of sludge metal were:
Eyehategod,
[82]
Crowbar,
[86]
Down,
[87]
Buzzov*en,
[84]
Acid
Bath[88]
and
Corrosion of Conformity.
[85]
Later, bands such as
Isis
and
Neurosis,
[89]
with similar influences, created a style that relies mostly on ambience
and atmosphere
[90]
that would eventually be named atmospheric sludge metal or
post-metal.
[91]
Thrashcore[edit]
Often confused with
crossover thrash and sometimes
thrash
metal, is
thrashcore.
[92][93]
Thrashcore (also known as
fastcore[94])
is a subgenre of hardcore punk that emerged in the early 1980s.
[95]
It is essentially sped-up hardcore punk, with bands often using
blast
beats.
[94]
Thrashcore spun off into
powerviolence,
another raw and dissonant subgenre of hardcore punk.
[93][96]
Politics[edit]
Punk fans burning a United States flag in the 1980s.
Many early hardcore punk bands took far
left wing political or
anarchist stances and were vocal against
Ronald
Reagan, who was the
Republican United States
president from 1981 to 1989, and/or
Margaret Thatcher, who was the
Conservative British prime minister
from 1979 to 1990. Reagan's policies, including
Reaganomics
and
social conservatism, were common
subjects for these bands.
[97][98]
Shortly after Reagan's death in 2004, the
Maximumrocknroll radio show aired an
episode composed of anti-Reagan songs from hardcore punk bands including
Dead Kennedys,
Government Issue,
DRI,
Youth Brigade,
Crucifucks,
Wasted Youth,
Dayglo Abortions,
Reagan
Youth,
T.S.O.L. and
The
Fartz.
[99]
During the 2001–2009 United States presidency of
George W. Bush, a number of hardcore bands expressed anti-Bush
stances. During the
2004 United States
presidential election, artists and bands including
Brian Baker,
Jello
Biafra,
Mike Watt,
Bad
Religion,
Rise Against,
[100]
Circle Jerks,
Ensign,
Sick of It All,
The Unseen,
Western Addiction and Youth Brigade were involved with
the anti-Bush political activist group Punkvoter.
[101]
A minority of hardcore musicians were more
right wing, such as the band
Antiseen,
whose guitarist Joe Young ran for office as a
North Carolina Libertarian.
[102]
Former Misfits singer
Michale Graves appeared on an episode of
The Daily Show, voicing support for George W. Bush.
[103]
Jimmy Gestapo of
Murphy's Law endorsed Reagan and called
Jimmy
Carter a "pussy" in a 1986
New York Magazine cover story.
[104]
Hardcore dancing[edit]
The early 1980s hardcore punk scene developed slam dancing and
stage
diving. A performance by
Fear
on the 1981
Halloween episode of
Saturday Night Live was cut short when slam dancers,
including
John Belushi and members of a few hardcore punk
bands, invaded the stage, damaged studio equipment and used profanity.
[105][106]
Those band members included
John Joseph of
Cro-Mags
and
Ian Mackaye of
Minor
Threat.
[107]
Other early examples of American hardcore dancing can be seen in the
documentaries
Another State of Mind,
Urban Struggle,
The Decline of Western
Civilization,
American Hardcore, and "30
Years of northwest punk. The UK punk band Hacksaw came out against
moshing after an incident at a 2006 gig caused several fans to suffer
serious injuries. This resulted in a song on their 2007 album,
Vote
Hacksaw, titled "Amateurs in the Pit", wherein they condemn some
moshers as "brain dead morons who wanna stamp on kiddies".
[citation needed]
