If You’re Not Angry, You’re Not Paying Attention.
- The Setlist
- Mar 20, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 14, 2019
Written by: Gabriel Willson
Edited by: Alex Woods
We’re pissed off, our president is a bigoted sex offender, police brutality is still going unchecked in our streets, and mass shootings happen so often we don’t even flinch when they come up in the news. The rights of women and gays are still hotly debated, people of color and people of non-Christian faiths feel legitimate fear to only go about their daily lives. Yeah, we’re mad. Thankfully, we have music as a vessel to express that anger. Hardcore punk has become a hub for the broken, the beaten, and those that society has deemed unworthy. Yet, it’s a genre that exists largely beneath the collective eyesight of the mainstream. It’s a genre written off and ignored by everyone not involved with it. It’s a genre that, at its essence, is all about politics and all about anger
To explore hardcore, we have to look back to the periods where hardcore music was particularly popular. The first rise of hardcore was in the early 1980s. The continuation of conservatism in politics served to alienate minorities in the United States. They throttled the poor, wrote off the gays, and gave police nearly free rein to terrorize people of color. Bands like Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, and The Circle Jerks led this early movement of hardcore. It was time of raw political anger.
By the late 1980s, however, this sound had been replaced in the “mainstream” of punk rock. Pop punk took its place, and hardcore was only for the, pardon the pun, hardcore fans of the genre.
It wasn’t until the late 1990s that hardcore punk would make its resurgence. Between the war-mongering of the US military, police brutality starting to be noticed on a national scale, “don’t ask, don’t tell” laws coming into effect, and countless other political oversights, the United States needed hardcore again, more than ever. And this time, it stuck. The 90s are regarded by many as the golden age of hardcore, and deservedly so. This was the time when it started to become the diverse genre it is today. This is when we started seeing bands fronted by women, by gay men, people of color and hardcore started to truly blossom into the bastion of self expression for all that it is today.
Now more than ever we see a blossoming genre full of expression and allyship, inclusiveness, and gives a voice to the voiceless. Bands from all parts, all backgrounds, with all different manners of life experiences are spreading the message of love and support while delivering scathing critiques of the current system. These artists have been harmed and shut down by the system coming up to rise against through music, and they are taking a stance.
This genre is great because of the diversity that has naturally blossomed. But one thing has remained consistent of the hardcore genre throughout its history. We are mad, dissatisfied. and we will work to change this broken system. Things will get better, for everybody that’s struggling.
Check out this playlist that includes different styles of hardcore bands:
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