Listen to Hardcore Punk

Even if you're a heavy music fan, extreme hardcore punk might take some getting used to. Learning how to approach this aggressive, loud, and exciting style of music will let you ease into the genre and develop your taste in hardcore with less headache. Discover the classic practitioners of the style, contemporary masters, and how to negotiate the tangled subculture that surrounds hardcore.

Steps

Getting Started

  1. Work your way into hardcore. If the toughest thing you've ever listened to is Radiohead and you turn on Minor Threat record, you might be in for a surprise. Hardcore is harsh, fast, and aggressive punk rock music. While that’s part of the point of listening to hardcore punk, learning how to approach the music correctly will let you enjoy it without accidentally giving yourself a headache.
    • Sometimes called “pop punk” because of the catchy choruses and hooks, bands like Green Day, NOFX and Social Distortion can be good intros to the genre of punk rock if you’re not already familiar with listening to punk.
    • Alternatively, just dive right in the deep end of the genre and see whether or not hardcore is right for you. After all, it’s just music with guitars, drums, and vocals. It can’t hurt you.
  2. Start with classic hardcore. Contemporary hardcore is a diverse umbrella of music, enveloping lots of subcategories: screamo/skramz, post-hardcore, D-Beat, grindcore, powerviolence. It can be hard to tell one thing from the next. If you want to get into hardcore, though, starting with the early practitioners of the sound is the best way to introduce yourself to the music and see whether or not you like it.[1] While any list is incomplete, these albums will give you a solid veteran perspective on the genre:
    • Black Flag - Damaged, My War, Nervous Breakdown
    • Minor Threat – Minor Threat
    • Negative Approach - Tied Down
    • Cro-Mags - The Age of Quarrel
    • The Misfits - Walk Among Us, Static Age, Earth A.D., Legacy of Brutality
    • Bad Brains - Bad Brains
    • The Circle Jerks - Group Sex, Wild In The Streets
    • D.O.A - Something Better Change, War on 45, Hardcore '81
  3. Keep up with the contemporary scene. Once you've listened to the classics, it's good to check out more contemporary iterations of hardcore music. There are bands staying true to the vibe of the original hardcore masters, bands like OFF!, which is fronted by the former Black Flag and Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris, while younger bands like Converge and Nails have taken hardcore to brutal new heights. Increasingly, hardcore sounds have mixed with metal and other forms of extreme music to fuel all sorts of other hybrid genres. While the categories aren't by any means rigid, and many of the bands might disagree with the following categories, here's a brief breakdown of some distinct and popular genres and some bands that are sometimes associated with them:
    • Grindcore: Napalm Death, Mertzbow, and Terrorizer.
    • Powerviolence: Man Is The Bastard, Spazz, and Charles Bronson.
    • Metalcore: Converge, Dillinger Escape Plan, As I Lay Dying, Trivium, and Pantera.
    • Screamo: Orchid, Pg. 99, Neil Perry, Portraits of Past, City of Caterpillar, In/Humanity, and Joshua Fit For Battle.
    • Post-Hardcore: Fugazi, Thursday, Silverstein, La Dispute and Laughing Hyenas (Come Down to the Merry Go Round, Life of Crime and Hard Times)
    • Melodic Hardcore: Rise Against and Title Fight.
  4. Dig deeper. Take a modern rock band you like and listen to their hardcore influences (most rock bands today were influenced by hardcore). Like My Chemical Romance? Listen to The Misfits, the Cramps, and Gun Club. Do you like Screeching Weasel? Listen to the Descendants. Do you like Rise Against? Listen to Black Flag. Look up the hardcore bands that influenced your favorite musicians today.
  5. Learn about the history of hardcore punk. Like members of any subculture, hardcore punk rockers value authenticity and it's true that many like to question whether or not fans and bands are "real" hardcore or "real" punk rockers. It's a silly argument, but it's something you'll likely confront. To be prepared, it's important that you do some homework and know the ropes.
    • Read the book or watch the movie American Hardcore, which details the history of the genre in quick fashion. Both are a very good look into what hardcore was all about, and you can probably find the movie online for free.[2]

Enjoying Hardcore

  1. Listen to the tight precision of the songs. Good hardcore songs are like swift roundhouse punches to the jaw: they smack you, knock you back, and are gone before you’re sure what happened. The average hardcore song lasts about 90 seconds, featuring howling vocals, super-fast chugging rhythm sections, and feedback-driven guitar, starting with four clicks of the drumsticks and stopping on a dime.
    • In the early days of hardcore, Black Flag was known for its militaristic practice routines, going over each song repeatedly for hours at a time until the band was so tight it was almost spooky. Listen to OFF! and Converge to appreciate how tight a great modern hardcore band can be.
  2. Read the lyrics. Because the songs go by so fast, it can be easy to miss the political and social commentary that's also an essential part of appreciating hardcore music. The lyrics to hardcore songs are often simple, anthem-style, and often socially conscious. Make sure you get a lyric sheet and follow along once or twice to make sure that you're hearing the messages of the music.
    • The politics of a given hardcore band will differ widely from band to band. While some bands discuss anarchic rebellion, others are more concerned with social justice and personal empowerment. It may seem like most bands are left wing, but there are plenty of right wing bands like Agnostic Front, especially in New York.
    • Learn about the background of the musicians to help you interpret the lyrics. While the Circle Jerks track "Wasted" might sound like a simple, even dumb, tribute to hedonism, learning about Keith Morris' substance issues, sobriety, and socio-economic perspective deepens the message considerably, revealing layers of sarcasm.
  3. Move with it. Hardcore punk is a dynamic and intense style of music and it’d be a shame to listen to it sitting down while you’re studying. Listen to hardcore while you drive, or while you walk around. Get moving. Stand up and thrash around your room while you listen to it. Hardcore music is air-guitar and air-drum approved.
  4. Take out your earbuds. While it’s common to listen to most music on our phones and iPods these days, hardcore music isn’t the best thing to jam straight into your ear, especially loudly. Instead, play hardcore music on a decent stereo and let the sound fill the room. Hardcore punk rock takes up a lot of space, and the various layers of the sound should come together into a big rhythmic beast.
    • Earbuds are good for picking out the little details, especially ones with a flat sound signature, but playing something on a stereo lets you get the full scope. Try it both ways.
    • If you want the soundstage and natural sound of a stereo system without annoying your family or breaking the bank, open-backed headphones such as Sennheiser's HD line sound great.

Taking the Next Step

  1. Understand what hardcore is not. Hardcore punk isn’t about destroying property, looking cool, slamming into people at a show, or putting other people down for being "real" or "true." It’s a politically-conscious and inclusive style of music that’s sprouted DIY scenes in all corners of the world, some of which ended up engaging in some of the above-described behavior. But there are hardcore kids from Dakar to Tallahassee, and what it means to be hardcore in one place might be very different than what it means to be hardcore elsewhere.
    • Don't focus so much on what's "authentic" or the specifics of various sub-genres. Just listen to the music, appreciate the records, and go see the bands. Have fun.
  2. Go see hardcore live. Perhaps more than any other music, it's hard to get the full experience of a hardcore act on record. Lots of the classics are still touring, though featuring slightly different line-ups, and lots of contemporary hardcore bands are touring, trying to make a buck, and selling their merch on the road. If you find a band you like, get on their mailing list, check them out when they come through town, and support the artists.
    • Check your local venues for hardcore bands you might not have listened to yet. There are more DIY hardcore bands out there than you'd think, and they tend to tour more than big-name hardcore and post-hardcore bands.
    • Buying records is expensive and most bands that make it these days make it by touring, primarily. If you want to buy a record, get a ticket and buy the record from the merch table instead of buying it off iTunes. You'll get it straight from the artist and that money will go toward paying to get to the next town.[3]
  3. Learn about straight edge. There is a vibrant subculture within hardcore punk called straight edge, which takes its name from the Minor Threat track "Straight Edge." The song is Ian McKaye's tribute to clean-living, and people who consider themselves "straight edge" or "edge" swear off alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. Others swear off casual sex, and there is even a faction of vegetarian/vegan straight edge.
    • Straight edgers are sometimes known to have black Xs on the back of their hands to symbolize their abstinence to alcohol drugs and tobacco and casual sex. Sewn-on band patches, safety pins, and jean vests are also sometimes common hardcore attire.
  4. Dress how you want. Hardcore punk is anti-fashion and doesn’t require any signifiers to be a part of the scene. Most so-called “hardcore kids” wear nothing more than a T-shirt with their favorite band’s logo on it and a pair of jeans. No flashy accessories, no weird hairstyles, just normal-looking stuff.
    • Make your own clothes. Don't want to pay $18 at Hot Topic for a Black Flag shirt? Henry Rollins would be the first person to tell you not to. Buy a plain white shirt for a fraction of the price and put the Black Flag logo on it yourself. That’s hardcore.
  5. Be yourself. You can love hardcore punk and love pop country music. You can love hardcore punk rock and listen to Elvis. You can love hardcore punk rock and go to Lady Gaga shows with the other Lil Monsters. There's nowhere that it says "real" hardcore punk rockers can't listen to other kinds of music. Hardcore is about being yourself and empowering yourself, not pretending to be something you aren't and denying yourself other types of music that you legitimately like.

Tips

  • Other good bands to listen to include: Fear, Circle One, LA's Wasted Youth ,

Septic Death, Gang Green, Negative FX, Fugazi, and SS Decontrol,The Descendants, Meat Puppets, and DRI. Find bands you like.

  • Don't be a poser. If your heart isn't in it, people can tell. Why would you wanna be something you're not?
  • If you can't find a certain CD in your local store, try online stores like Crustpunksdistro, Interpunk, or Angryyoungandpoor.com. These sites have a wide selection of hardcore punk on CD, or vinyl.
  • There are a lot of sides to hardcore. Some of the more abrasive ones like screamo/emoviolence and grindcore are worth looking in to. Try some bands like Pg 99, Joshua Fit For Battle, Neil Perry, Saetia, Orchid, and Jerome's Dream.
  • There's still an active screamo scene in Europe with bands such as Sed Non Satiata, Daitro, United Nations, and Pianos Become The Teeth.

Warnings

  • Slam dancing is a big part of many hardcore shows and the live experience. Be cautious about jumping into the pit at your first show.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://www.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2013/08/29/top-20-hardcore-albums-in-history-complete-list
  2. ↑ http://www.factmag.com/2013/03/23/20-best-us-hardcore-records-ever-made/
  3. ↑ http://thepioneeronline.com/14622/artsentertainment/oakland’s-punk-and-hardcore-scene-a-raw-and-supportive-underground-community-2/

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