A Brief History Of American Hardcore
A Brief History of American Hardcore
While the ignorant mind can easily mistake Hardcore as just a genre of music, the societies associated with it tie entire bonds of culture together into huge groups of youths in their own worlds. This new punk-adopted sound was faster and heavier than the traditional punk rock that it sprung out of, and that’s how it prospered. It created a mindset of a no-bullshit attitude and a break-all-the-rules ideology. It’s unfortunate to those respecting the scene that it had to clash with the mainstream and cause resistance, causing it to fall victim to an early death (Blush 9-14).
A general knowledge of pop music history can inform the public of how bands such as The Stooges and The Velvet Underground were huge influences on punk revolutionaries like The Clash and The Voidoids. This music history knowledge shows how these original punk bands lead to the possibility of a “harder” genre to come out… and it did in the form of Hardcore, with bands like Black Flag and Bad Brains. Hardcore has some diverse influences from all over the place, but they certainly were only what they were supposed to be – influences upon which to grow. With all of this in mind, it’s clear how different bands like The Damned were from bands like The New York Dolls, just as there’s much clarity of difference between bands such as The Ramones and bands fashioned like Cro-Mags. It’s certainly unfair not to give credit to bands like The Ramones and The Clash for pioneering a sound that could later bring on newer and better things, but it’s also unfair to lump Hardcore bands in the same genre as traditional punk groups.
Hardcore is said to have come (directly) from a bunch of different sources, by a bunch of different people. For some it was “the suburban American response to the late-70s Punk revolution” (Blush 12), while to others it could have been just a need for a tough punk scene (Hurchalla). Wherever it...
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