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[[caption-width-right:350: '''''[[Music/MinorThreat Play it faster.]]''''']][floatboxright:
Primary Stylistic Influences:
+ PunkRock
]
[floatboxright:
Secondary Stylistic Influences:
+ occasional HeavyMetal, ProtoPunk, SurfRock and {{Rockabilly}} influences
]

Hardcore Punk is what happens when you take PunkRock and [[DarkerAndEdgier make it harder, faster and more aggressive]]. Simple.

But also more out-there, and somewhat political in some cases. It started in North America in the late [[TheSeventies 1970s]]. The musicians had (mostly) identical ideologies to the first punk rockers, including the DIY-aesthetic. However, while the major early punk bands signed to major labels, hardcore bands recorded DIY records on four-track and sold the records and cassettes on tour, retaining their underground freedom. The art school influences on early punk were discarded, as hardcore musicians and fans tended to have a more blue collar background. As well, hardcore bands and fans moved away from the multicoloured mohawks and flamboyant look (ripped clothes) and towards simple crew cuts, plain t-shirts, jeans and sneakers.

Some of the original, first wave of hardcore bands were Music/BlackFlag, from Los Angeles, Music/MinorThreat, from Washington DC, and the ultra-fast Music/BadBrains, also from Washington DC. These bands were the beginning of a genre that later branched out into countless different iterations.

New York Hardcore, or NYHC, began in the [[TheEighties 1980s]], with a heavier, more chugging sound and a more aggressive attitude. NYHC produced the sounds of bands like Sick of it All and Agnostic Front. Popular bands from the region today are Madball and H20. Bands like Madball were instrumental in the adoption of a "tough guy" sound and image in part of modern hardcore, seen in bands such as Hatebreed, while a band by the name of Judge took the slower approach of ''My War''-era Black Flag and framed it in an NYHC context, creating beatdown hardcore. Other bands in New York, such as the Cro-Mags, adopted Krishna Consciousness.

In the early 1980s, the UK hardcore scene produced Discharge, a band with a brutal roar of guitars and screamed vocals on anti-war and anti-capitalist themes, all over an unrelenting drumbeat, nicknamed D-beat, which was influential in hardcore. Their fusion of hardcore punk with the NewWaveOfBritishHeavyMetal would be refined by bands like Amebix, Hellbastard, Antisect, and Anti Cimex, spawning the genre of crust punk.

Japanese hardcore got its start sometime around the early 1980s, with acts like S.O.B., SS, GISM, The Stalin, and Gauze forming the initial wave. Characterized by its prominent noise and Discharge/D-beat influences, Japanese hardcore was notoriously frantic and abrasive and proved instrumental in the rise of thrashcore and grindcore, with GISM and S.O.B. having been noted as influences by Music/NapalmDeath. It also helped influence metalcore, as many early acts (particularly Integrity and Ringworm) cited Japanese hardcore and particularly GISM as an enormous influence on their music.

UsefulNotes/StraightEdge is thought to have been begun by [[Music/{{Fugazi}} Ian Mackaye]] of Music/MinorThreat. This was a way of life in which the participant would abstain from the vices of the earlier hardcore scene - usually smoking, drinking, drugs and sometimes promiscuous sex. While this movement was for a time characterized by a moral panic over gang violence, its current day incarnation could be seen to be the "Positive Hardcore" scene of New England, which includes bands such as Have Heart, The Effort and Bane.

In the late 1980's and the early [[TheNineties 1990's]], a new breed of hardcore band began. The first of these is sometimes thought to be Integrity, who hailed from UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}}. They mixed thrash metal influences with the fresh flavor of hardcore, and sowed the seeds of a new genre, nowadays known as {{Metalcore}}. Other bands who were instrumental in this were Ringworm, Rorschach, Overcast, and Earth Crisis. Music/{{Converge}} were a band who formed in UsefulNotes/{{Boston}}, Massachusetts. They took the early sound of metallic hardcore and created an enigmatic mix of extreme metal with envelope-pushing sensibilities. Nowadays, they are seen to be the keystone in the influences of the Mathcore subgenre, which includes bands like Music/TheDillingerEscapePlan and Architects.

During the second half of the 1980s and early 1990s, hardcore also branched out through the work of bands like Music/{{Fugazi}}, Music/RitesOfSpring and Embrace, whose greater experimentation with the style and more melodic songwriting combined with highly personal, introspective lyrics helped create PostHardcore and EmoMusic respectivley, which have both strayed from their origins and become difficult to define (especially the latter genre). On the other hand, this time period also resulted in a different movement that aimed to mix the energy and intensity of hardcore and grindcore with the oblique, discordant elements of post-hardcore, noise, and math rock to create the powerviolence genre, which made a name for itself with bands like Man Is the Bastard, Spazz, and Despise You and later helped create the Entombedcore movement in the late 2000s when people began to mix it with metalcore and crust punk.

Furthermore, beatdown hardcore and slam death metal also started finding themselves being mixed in ways that increasingly blurred the lines between the two genres in the 2010s; while it is still largely an underground movement, acts like No Zodiac, Dysentery, The Merciless Concept, and Acranius have started to gain some momentum, and Slam Worldwide (a content aggregator/one-man PR firm) has served as something of an epicenter of this movement. The Entombedcore movement also bled into death metal, where a new crop of old-school death metal acts with extremely prominent hardcore elements (namely Gatecreeper, Outer Heaven, and Creeping Death) began to find substantial unexpected success in the late 2010s.

Bands from Southern California in the early 1990s who were influenced by the hardcore sound of Music/BlackFlag and the Music/{{Descendents}}, such as NOFX, Music/{{Rancid}}, Music/BadReligion and Music/TheOffspring, were a huge part of the 1990s Punk Revival, incorporating more melodic elements, with Bad Religion in particular being known as one of the creators of the melodic hardcore subgenre. These bands also cemented the genre of SkatePunk and played a part in the popularity of SkaPunk and PopPunk, influencing bands in the latter genre like Music/GreenDay and Music/{{Blink 182}}.

Needless to say, the work of pioneers like Music/BlackFlag and Music/MinorThreat have had an extensive influence on the music of today, whether they wanted to or not.
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Some bands commonly referred to as hardcore:
[[index]]
* 25 ta Life (New York)
* [[Music/SevenSeconds 7 Seconds]] (Nevada)
* Music/TheAcaciaStrain (Western Massachusetts/Albany, also metalcore)
* Acranius (Germany, also slam)
* Music/{{Adolescents}} (California)
* Music/{{AFI}} (pre-''Sing the Sorrow'') (California)
* Music/AgainstAllAuthority (Florida, mixed with SkaPunk)
* Music/AgentOrange (California)
* Music/AgnosticFront (New York)
* American Nightmare (Boston, later changed name to Give Up the Ghost)
* Music/{{Amebix}} (co-TropeMaker for crust punk)
* Music/AngrySamoans (California)
* Music/AntiFlag (Pittsburgh)
* Music/AntiCimex
* Music/Antisect (co-TropeMaker for crust punk)
* Music/ArticlesOfFaith (Chicago)
* Backstabbers Incorporated (New Hampshire, also metalcore)
* Music/BadBrains (DC)
* Music/BadReligion [[/index]](California, later mixed with PopPunk to form Melodic Hardcore)[[index]]
* Bane (Worcester)
* Music/BattalianOfSaints (California)
* Music/{{Beartooth}} (Ohio, mixed with {{Metalcore}})
* Music/BeastieBoys (New York, in their early years, they were this. They would occasionally return to this style after their switch to hip hop.)
* Music/BigBoys (Austin, An odd, {{Funk}} influenced band, an early example of Queercore)
* Music/BlackFlag (UrExample for California Hardcore)
** ''Music/{{Damaged|Album}}'' (1981)
* Blood for Blood (Boston, later became Ramallah)
* Bodysnatcher (Florida, also deathcore, though they largely abandoned deathcore on ''This Heavy Void'')
* Music/{{Bulldoze}} (New York, TropeCodifier for beatdown)
* Music/{{Carnivore}} (New York) (also ThrashMetal)
* Music/ChaosUK (UK)
* Music/ChokingVictim (New York)
* Music/CircleJerks (California)
** Off!
* Colin of Arabia (Boston)
* Music/{{Conflict}} (UK)
* Music/{{Converge}} (Massachusetts)
* Music/{{Crass}} (UrExample of British Hardcore; also generally considered {{Trope Maker}}s for anarcho-punk)
* Music/CroMags (New York)
* Cruel Hand (Maine)
* Music/TheCrucifucks (Michigan)
* Crucifix (California)
* Music/{{Dangers}}
* Music/DirtyRottenImbeciles (Houston, Trope Codefier for thrashcore)
* {{Music/DOA}} ({{Trope Namer|s}}, TropeCodifier in Canada)
* Music/DeadKennedys (A rare GenreBusting example from California and a [[TropeMaker pretty early one too]].)
** Music/JelloBiafra
* [[Music/{{DYS}} D.Y.S.]] (Boston)
* Music/DeepWound (Boston, precursor of Music/DinosaurJr)
* Music/{{Descendents}} (California) (either the UrExample or {{Trope Maker}}s for melodic hardcore; also PopPunk)
** Music/{{ALL}}
* Music/DeezNuts (Australia, also RapMetal)
* The Dicks (Austin)
* Music/DieKreuzen (Milwaukee)
* Music/{{Discharge}} (UK)
* Downswing (Albany)
* Music/{{Dropdead}} (Rhode Island, also an UrExample of powerviolence)
* Dysentery (Massachusetts, also slam death metal)
* E.Town Concrete (New Jersey, also rapcore)
* Music/EarthCrisis (Syracuse, also one of the {{Trope Codifier}}s for metalcore.)
* Music/ExtremeNoiseTerror (UK)
* Eye of the Destroyer (New Jersey, also slam)
* Music/TheFaith (DC)
* Music/{{Fear|Band}} (California)
* Music/{{Flipper}} (California, Also NoiseRock)
* Music/TheFreeze (Boston)
* Music/FluxOfPinkIndians (UK, first two albums)
* Music/FuckedUp (Toronto)
* Music/FumingMouth (Boston, mixed with DeathMetal)
* Music/GangGreen (Boston)
* Gator King (Boston)
* Music/GayKiss (Phoenix, Mixed with BlackMetal)
* Music/TheGerms (California, TropeMaker)
* Music/GGAllin
* [[Music/{{Gloss}} G.L.O.S.S.]] (Washington)
* Music/GorillaBiscuits (New York)
* Great American Ghost (Boston)
* Music/{{GWAR}} (Virginia)
* Music/{{H20}} (New York)
* Music/Hellbastard
* Harm's Way (Chicago)
* Harvest (Minneapolis)
* Music/{{Hatebreed}} (Connecticut, also {{Metalcore}})
* Hate Diplomacy (New York, originally based out of Puerto Rico; also death metal)
* Have Heart (New Bedford)
* [[Music/Ho99o9 Ho9909]] (New Jersey, also {{Horrorcore}} and [[{{Industrial}} Industrial Hip Hop]])
* The Hope Conspiracy (Boston, also metalcore)
* Music/HuskerDu (Minnesota, early material, later moved on to PostHardcore and AlternativeRock)
* I Am (Dallas)
* Music/{{Idles}}
* [[Music/JerrysKids Jerry's Kids]] (another possible UrExample from Boston)
* Music/{{JFA}} (Phoenix)
* Music/{{Judge}} (New York, also an UrExample of beatdown)
* Judiciary (Texas, also crossover thrash)
* Music/{{Kamikazee}}
* Knocked Loose (Kentucky)
* Music/{{Kvelertak}} (Norway)
* Music/LeftoverCrack (New York, combined this with ska and DeathMetal, among other influences)
* Music/TheLemonheads [[/index]](Boston, gradually turned from this into PopPunk)[[index]]
* Music/LifeNeverLost (UsefulNotes/{{Albuquerque}})
* Music/LimpWrist (New York, one of the most aggressive queercore acts; their stated ethos is "[putting] the 'core' back in 'Queercore'".)
** Los Crudos
* Music/MachineGirl (New York, combined with HardcoreTechno and DrumAndBass)
* Music/{{Madball}} (combined with Crossover Thrash)
* Music/TheMadCapsuleMarkets (Japan, also HardcoreTechno)
* Music/ManIsTheBastard (California) (TropeMaker for Powerviolence)
* Music/ManWithAMission
* Music/MaximumTheHormone (Japan)
* Music/TheMeatmen (DC)
* Music/MeatPuppets (Phoenix, early material, later moved on to Cowpunk / PsychedelicRock)
* Music/{{MDC}} (Austin)
* Music/{{Melvins}} (Washington)
* Music/TheMentors (Washington)
* The Merciless Concept (Long Island, also slam)
* Music/MiddleClass [[/index]](Another possible UrExample for California hardcore)[[index]]
* Music/MinorThreat (Trope Codifier for DC Hardcore)
** Skewbald/Grand Union
** Music/TheTeenIdles (Possible UrExample of DC hardcore)
** Embrace
** Music/{{Fugazi}} ([[TropeCodifier codified]] PostHardcore)
* Music/{{Minutemen}} (California, also an UrExample of post-hardcore)
* Music/TheMisfits [[/index]](California, mixed this with Deathrock / Horror Punk style GothRock)[[index]]
* Modern Life Is War (Iowa)
* Music/MurphysLaw (New York)
* Music/NegativeApproach (Detroit)
* No Zodiac (Arizona, originally based out of Chicago; also slam)
* Music/TheOffspring (California. Their earlier albums were in this style, by ''Smash'' they had switched up to Melodic Hardcore and eventually just PopPunk)
* Only Living Witness (Boston)
* Overcast (Boston, also metalcore)
* Power Trip (Dallas, also crossover thrash)
* Music/{{Proletariat}} (Boston)
* Punchyourface (New York)
* Music/{{Racetraitor}} (Chicago, also powerviolence; also famous for its association with Music/FallOutBoy, as Andy Hurley is their longtime drummer and Pete Wentz was an intermittent live fill-in bassist)
* Music/{{Rancid}} (California, also SkaPunk and PopPunk)
** Music/OperationIvy (UrExample of SkaPunk)
** Music/LarsFredriksonAndTheBastard
* Ratos de Porao (Brazil, has gone between this and crossover thrash throughout their career, also the face of South American hardcore)
* Music/ReaganYouth (New York)
* Music/ReallyRed (Houston)
* Music/TheReplacements [[/index]](Minnesota, Primarily in their early work, though- from ''Hootenanny'' on, they played the odd Hardcore song but mostly played AlternativeRock instead)[[index]]
* Music/RiseAgainst [[/index]](Chicago, later mixed with PopPunk, much like Bad Religion)[[index]]
* Music/RudimentaryPeni (UK, mixed with PostPunk and GothRock)
* Sam Black Church (Boston)
* Music/{{Scream}} (DC, members went on to form Music/FooFighters and Dave Grohl was in the band before Music/{{Nirvana}})
* Music/ShaiHulud (Florida, mixed with Metalcore)
* Sheer Terror (New York)
* Music/{{Showbread}} (Georgia)
* Music/SickOfItAll (New York)
* Music/{{Siege}} (Boston, also an UrExample of {{Grindcore}} and powerviolence)
* Since the Flood (New Hampshire)
* Slapshot (Boston)
* Music/{{Snot}} (Los Angeles)
* Music/{{SSD}} (Boston)
* Music/SocialDistortion (California, early on, before switching to Cowpunk; they later revisited this style on ''White Light, White Heat, White Trash''. Actually around since the early days of Hardcore.)
* Music/StormtroopersOfDeath (New York)
* Music/StrayFromThePath (New York, mixed with {{metalcore}}. Very bizarrely integrated NuMetal and RapMetal elements on their sixth album, which they opted to keep)
* Music/SuicidalTendencies (California, they eventually developed a more metallic sound, though)
* Sworn Enemy (New York)
* Ten Yard Fight (Boston)
* Music/{{Tendril}} (Texas, mixed with AlternativeMetal)
* Music/{{Terror}} (California)
* Music/TokyoYankees (Japan)
* Music/{{TSOL}} (Orange County, later became more of a [[GothRock Deathrock]] band)
* Music/{{Turbonegro}} (Norway)
* Music/{{Turnstile}} (Maryland)
* Untouchables (DC)
* Music/{{Vanna}} (Boston)
* Music/{{Varukers}} (UK)
* Music/{{Void}} (DC)
* Music/WesleyWillis Fiasco (Chicago)
* Music/{{Wire}} (UK, Their 1977 debut ''Music/PinkFlag'' is another [[UrExample avant-garde precursor]])
* Music/XUSBand (California, More poetic and less fast than their contemporaries)
* Music/YouthOfToday (Connecticut)
* Music/JohnZorn (New York)
** ''Music/{{Spillane}}'' (1987)
** ''Music/{{Radio}}'' (1993)
[[/index]]

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Tropes associated with hardcore and its direct offshoots:
* AnarchyIsChaos: [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools In a good way, however.]] That said, some of the actual anarchist bands defy this, though the LyricalDissonance may make this not obvious at first.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Many early bands lacked the metal influence that would become popular from the late 80's onwards. Some of the first bands such as Wire and Crass often had primitive NoiseRock tendencies.
** Judge is a very militant straight edge band that was more similar in philosophy to it's predecessor Youth of Today than the Tough guy 'Jock-ist' attitude of the Beatdown bands that copied them.
* EpicRocking: Rarely but occasional examples pop up, including but not limited to "From the Cradle to the Grave" by the Subhumans (16:51), "Full Metal Jackoff" by Jello Biafra and D.O.A. (13:57), and "Shut Down" by the Germs (9:30)
** The longest example is "Yes Sir, I Will" by Crass at 43:53
** Black Flag's ''My War'' caused much controversy when it was first released, partially because Side B contained 3 examples: "Nothing Left Inside" (6:44), "Three Nights" (6:03) and "Scream" (6:52). Those weren't their last as they also had "Armageddon Man" (9:12), "Slip It In" (6:17), "You're Not Evil" (7:00), "Your Last Affront" (9:39), "The Process of Weeding Out" (9:58), and "Society's Tease (6:09)
* DarkIsNotEvil: Yes, it is a quite loud, heavy genre, but most hardcore musicians are goodnatured.
* DeadpanSnarker: Most of hardcore lyrics tend to invoke this.
* TheFettered: Most protagonists in hardcore songs will tend to invoke this in some way or another.
* HeavyMetal: Hardcore has a long and nuanced history with Metal, featuring a ''lot'' of cross pollination. Metal was very influential on what Hardcore Punk became, and metal and hardcore combining has created several metal subgenres such as ThrashMetal, CrossoverThrash, and {{Metalcore}}.
* LyricalDissonance: A lot of anarchist bands, such as Music/{{Crass}} and Flux of Pink Indians, used violent, abrasive musical styles to convey a message of ActualPacifist.
* MinisculeRocking: A lot of bands have very short songs, though there was also a tendency among bands to expand their song lengths later in their career as they [[GenreBusting experimented with their sound more]].
** Some of the more impressive examples include the Music/{{Minutemen}}'s ''The Punch Line'' with 18 songs in 15 minutes, D.R.I's Dirty Rotten LP with 22 songs in 17 minutes, and the compilation ''Short Music for Short People'' which fits 101 songs by 101 bands onto a 48 minute CD.
* ProtestSong: Well, it's punk; what did you expect?
* TeenageWasteland: Probably the reason why most hardcore punk musicians are pretty young.
* TrueArtIsAngsty: Hardcore punk lyrics are mostly somber-natured.
* ThreeChordsAndTheTruth: Most hardcore punk musicians tend to eschew high-budget production in favor of a more dirt-cheap, lo-fi one. Subverted with the more recent offspring of hardcore punk, as lo-fi has mostly fallen out of favor.
* TropeMaker: Popular candidates include Music/BlackFlag, Music/DeadKennedys, Music/TheGerms. Some of them exhibit somewhat GenreBusting tendencies compared to the rest of the genre because they played it when it had still been an UnbuiltTrope.
* UrExample: Music/{{Crass}}, Jerry's Kids, Music/MiddleClass and Music/{{Wire}} are frequently considered this. Many of them are quite avant-garde.
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