Hardcore
1. In music, hardcore is a subgenre of punk rock characterized by bands who play short, loud, and angry songs with exceptionally fast chord changes on highly overdriven guitars. An early influence came from The Ramones. Yet probably the strongest single influence on hardcore in America came from Washington D.C.'s Minor Threat, who themselves were inspired by the Bad Brains, also D.C. locals. In 1980/81 Minor Threat galvanized the blunt and tightly organized sound that these bands would prefer to the more loose experimentalism of the "first generation" punks of the 1970s. From England, Discharge emerged as one of the most copied bands, but were among the first to pare down their songs into ultra-fast three-chord blasts, without melodies and without excess ornamentation. Both bands' lyrical themes ranged from righteous indignation at societal hypocrisy--both within and without the punk scene itself--to promotion of some positive form of anarchy.
Later in the 1980s hardcore music found a kindred spirit with heavy metal and vice versa, especially with bands like Agnostic Front, DRI, and Metallica. Discharge themselves took a 180 degree turn to play long, slow metal songs, and switched from spiked hair to long hair in the process. Hardcore has since been a genre in which the stylistic line between "punk" and "metal" has blurred, as seen in the list below.
There have been numerous trends and movements within hardcore, mostly self-classified according to a particular philosophy or political outlook. Perhaps most notable is the straight-edge "scene" (because many involved would not necessarily want to be called a "movement"), which got its name from a Minor Threat song. Other hardcore scenes include pacifist bands, Hindu bands, and even Eatern Orthodox Christian bands.
Some bands which are commonly described as hardcore include:
- Society System Decontrol
- MDC
- Agnostic Front
- Necros
- Biohazard
- The Dillinger Escape Plan
- Hatebreed
- Blood for Blood
- Martyr AD
- Earth Crisis
- Redline
- Dag Nasty
- Snapcase
- All Out War
- Where Fear and Weapons Meet
- No Innocent Victim
- Candiria
- Sepultura
- Stretch Armstrong
- Zao
- Poison the Well
- 1/4" Micro Bomb
2. Hardcore also refers to explicit pornography which depicts (depending on local mores) sex organs or sex acts.