Hardcore Punk

Thirty-second songs, shouting and all-ages shows in Los Angeles and Washington from 1979.

Related

ContemporaryTempoDrum KitElectric guitar

Hardcore punk pushed punk's speed, volume and self-built network to an extreme, forming in Los Angeles and Washington between 1979 and 1983.

Origins and era

In 1979 Black Flag in Los Angeles released their first EP and moved shows into all-ages spaces. In 1980 Minor Threat formed in Washington and Dischord Records began, while Bad Brains put reggae passages and very fast hardcore in the same set. Dead Kennedys in San Francisco and Hüsker Dü in Minneapolis built local scenes of their own. Fanzines, tape trading and all-ages shows were the real infrastructure of this network.

What you hear

Songs last from thirty seconds to ninety, at 180 BPM and above. Drums push with fast snare and hi-hat, and short stops cut between sections. Guitar uses downpicked power chords, distortion heavy but not always thick, and solos are almost absent. The singer shouts rather than sings, lyrics are direct and often aimed at politics, police and peer pressure. Recordings are low-budget and live-sounding, with little reverb. The drummer keeps fills extremely short, often a single hit, while the guitarist reduces power chords to two- or three-note motifs. Voice and instruments start together, without an intro. The crowd shouts the chorus, and live recordings capture that layer too.

Key figures

Greg Ginn of Black Flag built the template with dissonant solos and self-released records, and Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat wrote the DIY ethic into lyrics and label practice. H.R. of Bad Brains carried reggae and hardcore in one voice, Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys handled politics through satire, and Hüsker Dü pushed melody into the noise.

Lineage

1970s punk and the first stirrings of speed metal feed in; post-hardcore, thrash metal, grunge and the 1990s underground come out. It set the template of independent labels, all-ages shows and tape networks that later independent music borrowed widely. Corresponding scenes appeared in Europe and Japan in the 1980s, and tape networks let different cities hear each other almost at once. Its sense of time and short structures later entered metalcore and noise rock.

Common misunderstandings

The common claim is that hardcore is just faster punk, when it also built a separate infrastructure and ethic. Another is that hardcore is always political; Straight Edge and more private lyrics matter just as much. Treating it as one tone also ignores the differences between Los Angeles, Washington and the Midwest.

Sources

• Steven Blush, American Hardcore, A Tribal History（Feral House, 2001），用于核对洛杉矶与华盛顿场景
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry Hardcore，用于交叉核对风格与谱系

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.