Why Hardcore is the Greatest Music of all Time!

First of all allow me to explain that when I say Hardcore I'm not talking about tough guy-beat down-Biohazard-sounding wannabe metal crap, nor am I talking about eyeliner and tight pants wearing-arm hugging whiney emo crap. If you like either of those types of music right on, I have no problem with that, but that ain't what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about bands like Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Negative Approach, SSD, Void, Black Flag, Necros--you know, the real stuff!

Never before or since has there been a more organic and real "music scene". OK maybe when field workers were singing songs out in the fields before there were records (or illegal downloading), that was pretty real too. But the original hardcore scene was entirely a grassroots, word of mouth kind of thing. You heard about bands from your friends, older siblings or xeroxed fanzines. MTV didn't exist and even when it finally did there certainly weren't any Meatmen or Circle Jerks videos being played (or being made for that matter). If you were lucky enough to have one in your hometown (or if you lived in a city) you could also go down to your local independent record store and check out the latest stuff. I bought plenty of albums and 7 inches based soley on the fact that they had cool looking covers.

The internet was still years away. There were no tour announcements in Rolling Stone magazine. No one else at your high school had heard of the shit you were into, and a lot of them wanted to beat you up for it even. You had to work for this stuff. Not to sound like your great grandpa telling you how many miles he had to walk to school through snow and rain without shoes, but it wasn't easy being hardcore back then. If I had a nickel for every time some asshole yelled "Rock Lobster" or "Whip It" at me from a passing car or pickup truck I could definitely go buy a fresh case of Budweiser right now.

This was music truly by and for the people. It was completely ignored by mainstream culture and corporations except when they wanted to ridicule it/us or make fun of it. Anyone remember the "punk" episodes of Quincy and Chips? How about the movie "Class of 1984"? They always got it wrong when they tried. Always.

There were no interested record labels so people put out their own records. Eventually there were a couple hardcore labels but even those were mostly just people from the scene putting out records they liked in relatively small pressings. Plenty of classic HC 7"ers now go for one or two hundred bucks or more. Ever see someone pay 150 bucks for a Michael Jackson record? I haven't.

One thing that hardcore never seems to get credit for is great songs. As far as I'm concerned, the true test of a great song is whether or not you can sing and play it on acoustic guitar and it still sounds like a great song. You can do that with Black Flag songs, you can do it with Misfits songs, you can even do it with Negative Approach tunes. Try doing that with a Britney Spears or a Rihanna song. You can't. They need the studio gloss.

I'm not saying other forms and styles of music aren't good (I'm as open minded as the next guy after all), I'm just saying that to me this is the real thing, like no other. It's the ultimate form of rock music--stripped of all fakery and bullshit star trips and played with utmost intensity. Playing music for the sake of playing music, not to get rich or be on the cover of some slick magazine. This kind of thing doesn't exist anymore. It's like the blues almost.