What Is Hardcore Music?

Hardcore music is a style of music that formed from Punk music in the late 1970s. The sound of hardcore music is rooted to punk, but quicker, "louder" and heavier than punk music. The vocals are often yelled as opposed to regular singing. The instrumental part of the music is a little bit more complicated than punk, the bands started to incorporate more solos into the music. The drums were much more quicker than punk music.

The bands that are the most popular for being "the first hardcore punk bands" are Minor Threat, Black Flag, and Bad Brains. The majority of these bands were not interested in getting radio time or making money. They were making the music to have fun, as well as expressing themselves in some way. They would record their music in garages or wherever they could find a place to record it.

The whole cultrue is really interesting to look at. Hardcore music is where the music truely became "underground."

The bands would record their music wherever they could. They would record in garages or wherever there was space. They would usually have a friend record it for them, they would print the record cover art themselves, sell them their friends themselves (if they did not just give away the recordings). They had a "Do-It-Yourself" type of attitude (Hardcore Punk).

Many of these bands would book their own tours and stay at people's houses along the way. They would get shows all across the country in small venues, often "hole in the wall places" wherever they could. Often they would just have a friend from another band or from that town put the show together. Then that person was in charge of getting everything ready for the show. The booker was in charge of making the fliers and distributing them out to people. Word for the shows got around by word of mouth and these fliers. They would not advertise these "concerts" on the radio or television like many bigger bands would of the time.

The bands were not concerned about making any profit money. They only money that they were concerned about making, was money on tour and even then, they only expected enough for gas and food money. They would not worry about making money for profit because that is not what hardcore meant to them. They were only interested with getting from one show to another and getting their message across.

Many hardcore bands' lyrics are very informative in some way. It was a lot more noticable in the earlier hardcore bands than it is in many of today's hardcore band; although, many still do have a good message in their lyrics. Minor Threat, led by Ian Mackaye was a band that had many things to speak a bout through their lyrics. Minor Threat spoke about racism and going against the social norm by not drinking alcohol or using drugs,