hardcore punk

The tradition & historical record

Hardcore punk (commonly abbreviated to hardcore or hXc) is a punk rock subgenre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock music. Its roots can be traced to earlier punk scenes in San Francisco and Southern California which arose as a reaction against the still predominant hippie cultural climate of the time. It was also inspired by Washington, D.C., and New York punk rock and early proto-punk. Hardcore punk generally eschews commercialism, the established music industry and "anything similar to the characteristics of mainstream rock" and often addresses social and political topics with "confrontational, politically charged lyrics". Hardcore sprouted underground scenes across the United States in the early 1980s, particularly in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston, and New York, as well as in Canada and the United Kingdom. Hardcore has spawned the straight edge movement and its associated sub-movements, hardline and youth crew. Hardcore was heavily involved in the rise of the independent record labels in the 1980s and with the DIY ethics in underground music scenes. It has also influenced various music genres that have experienced widespread commercial success, including grunge and thrash metal. Although the music genre started in English-speaking Western countries, notable hardcore scenes have existed in Italy, Japan and Brazil. ¹

Hardcore historian Steven Blush credits Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye with starting a "die-hard mindset that begat almost everything we now call Hardcore", which was virulently anti-music industry and anti-rock star. An article in Drowned in Sound argues that late 1970s/early 1980s-era hardcore is the true spirit of punk, because "all the poseurs and fashionistas fucked off to the next trend of skinny pink ties with New Romantic haircuts, singing wimpy lyrics" and the punk scene now consisted of people like Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Black Flag, and Circle Jerks, dedicated to the DIY ethics. Other writers have also attributed hardcore to a reaction against artsy and mellower sub-genres that punk grew into, such as post-punk and new wave. Hardcore punk additionally broke with original punk rock song patterns and visuals, favoring lower-key aesthetics. ¹

One definition of the genre is "a form of exceptionally harsh punk rock". Hardcore has been called a faster, meaner genre of punk rock, that was a stern refutation against it, being more primal and immediate, with speed and aggression as the starting point. In the vein of earlier punk rock, most hardcore punk bands have followed the traditional singer/guitar/bass/drum format. The song-writing has more emphasis on rhythm rather than melody. Blush writes "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." According to AllMusic, the overall blueprint for hardcore was playing louder, harder and faster. Hardcore was a reaction to the "cosmopolitan art-school" style of new wave music. Hardcore "eschew[ed] nuance, technique, [and] the avant-garde", and instead emphasized "speed and rhythmic intensity" using unpredictable song forms and abrupt tempo changes. The impact of powerful volume is important in hardcore. Noisey magazine describes one hardcore band as "an all-encompassing, full-volume assault" in which "[e]very instrument sounds like it's competing for the most power and highest volume". Scott Wilson states that the hardcore of the Bad Brains emphasized two elements: "off-the-charts" loudness which reached a level of threatening, powerful "uncompromising noise" and rhythm, in place of the typically focused-on elements in mainstream rock music, harmony and pitch (i.e., melody). Hardcore vocalists often shout, scream or chant along with the music, using "vocal intensity" and an abrasive tone. ¹

The early 1980s hardcore punk scene developed slam dancing (also called moshing), a style of dance in which participants push or slam into each other, and stage diving. Moshing works as a vehicle for expressing anger by "represent[ing] a way of playing at violence or roughness that allowed participants to mark their difference from the banal niceties of middle-class culture". Moshing is in another way a "parody of violence", that nevertheless leaves participants bruised and sometimes bleeding. The term mosh came into use in the early 1980s American hardcore scene in Washington, D.C. A performance by Fear on the 1981 Halloween episode of Saturday Night Live was cut short when moshers, including John Belushi and members of a few hardcore punk bands, invaded the stage, damaged studio equipment and used profanity. ¹

Many North American hardcore punk fans adopted a dressed-down style of T-shirts, jeans or work chinos, combat boots or sneakers, and crew cut-style haircuts. Women in the hardcore scene typically wore army pants, band T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts. The clothing style was a reflection of hardcore ideology, which included dissatisfaction with suburban America and the hypocrisy of American culture. It was essentially a deconstruction of American fashion staples—ripped jeans, holey T-shirts, torn stockings for women, and work boots. ¹

The style of the 1980s hardcore scene contrasted with the more provocative fashion styles of late 1970s punk rockers. Siri C. Brockmeier writes that "hardcore kids do not look like punks", since hardcore scene members wore basic clothing and short haircuts, in contrast to the "embellished leather jackets and pants" worn in the punk scene. Lauraine Leblanc, however, claims that the standard hardcore punk clothing and styles included torn jeans, leather jackets, spiked armbands, dog collars, mohawk hairstyles, DIY ornamentation of clothes with studs, painted band names, political statements, and patches. Tiffini A. Travis and Perry Hardy describe the look that was common in the San Francisco hardcore scene as consisting of biker-style leather jackets, chains, studded wristbands, multiple piercings, painted or tattooed statements (e.g., an anarchy symbol) and hairstyles ranging from military-style haircuts dyed black or blonde to mohawks and shaved heads. Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris wrote: "[Punk] 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 sub. ¹

Music writer Barney Hoskyns attributed hardcore being younger, faster and angrier than punk rock, to adolescents who were sick of their life in a "bland Republican" America. Hardcore punk lyrics often express antiestablishment, antimilitarist, antiauthoritarian, antiviolence, and pro-environmentalist sentiments, in addition to other typically left-wing, anarchist, or egalitarian political views. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Hardcore punk”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

hardcore punk is aggressive and fast subgenre of punk rock, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 19 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²