How are you?
Following the last week, I am going to
start my 71st lecture.
The topic for this week is “Hardcore”,
the 10th theme of “The History of Rock”.
This lecture is a summary of the
contents of “71. History of Rock Music: 10. Hardcore” introduced on December 3,
2016.
“Hardcore punk” or “Hardcore” is a genre of
punk rock that originated in the late 1970s, which is generally faster, harder,
and tougher than other forms of punk rock. The roots of hardcore can be traced
to early punk bands in San Francisco and Southern California, which were
created as a reaction against the still predominant hippie cultural climate of
the time. It was also influenced by New York punk rock and early proto-punk.
In general, hardcore rejects commercialism, the established music industry and anything similar to the characteristics of mainstream rock, and often deals with social and political topics. Hardcore was greatly influenced by the growth of independent record companies in the 1980s, and it also influenced various music genres which were commercially successful, including alternative rock and thrash metal.
Traditional hardcore never had the commercial success of the mainstream, but some of the early bands were well received by the audience. For example, Black Flag's “Damaged”, Minutemen's “Double Nickels on the Dime” and Husker Dü's “New Day Rising” were included in the list of “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” selected by Rolling Stone magazine in 2003.
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| Damaged, Black Flag |
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| Double Nickels on the Dime, Minutemen |
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| New Day Rising, Hüsker D |
The origin of the term "hardcore" is uncertain, but there is a claim that the term originated from the title of the album "Hardcore '81," by the Vancouver band "D.O.A." released in 1981.
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| Hardcore '81, D.O.A. |
Most of the hardcore bands followed the
traditional band member’s layout, such as vocal, guitar, bass and drum, and the
composition emphasized rhythm rather than melody. Hardcore vocals scream or
sing along with music, and guitars use complex and various techniques, and
their rhythms are challenging. The guitar sounds always use distortion and
amplify the sound, and bass sometimes uses picks instead of fingers for fast
playing.
Hardcore bands in the early 1980s developed “slam dancing,” also called “moshing,” which members throw themselves towards the audience from stage, and they used moshing as a means of expressing anger while playing violent and harsh.
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| Moshing |
Various subgenres have been derived from
hardcore, one of which is “sludge metal”. This genre is a fusion of Black
Sabbath-style music and hardcore, which was born in the early 1990s from the
southern United States, especially New Orleans metal bands. The pioneers of
sludge metal include Eyehategod, Crowbar, Down, Acid Bath and Corrosion of
Conformity.
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| Eyehategod |
You can also review this lecture from
following media.
Next week, I will lecture 11th topic “Nu
Metal”.
Thank you.
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