Why I didn’t always like 80s hardcore

And how I learned to connect with the past

Regular readers can attest that hardcore takes up a big chunk of my musical diet. I love and appreciate all permutations of the genre. Some hit me better than others, obviously, but I think my tastes are pretty well rounded. I like a little bit of everything.

My favourite stuff is from the 80’s. I also love the modern revivalism pulling from that decade, whether it’s Combust doing their best 1989 New York Hardcore impression, or Illiterates imagining what Negative Approach would sound like if you dropped them on the east coast in 1983.

There’s something special about the sound of hardcore’s first decade. It’s fast and rough around the edges, but it’s catchy and fun. The songs are often simple, but they work well. It’s also foundational for what comes after. Almost every good band, even in 2023, has at least a couple members who know the classics like the back of their hand.

Regardless, more and more kids these days have no fond feelings towards 80’s hardcore. There are a million reasons why that might be. I’m not really here to dissect them. Nor am I trying to wave a finger at the youth of today and say “you should know your history blah blah blah”. I can relate to those kids. In fact, I took a long time warming up to what I now consider some of my favourite hardcore records — for valid reasons. Hopefully outlining how I got past my hang ups will help some younger kids fall in love with these awesome albums.

IF YOU CAN MAKE OUT WHAT THE DRUMS ARE DOING ON THIS SONG YOU’RE A LEGEND.

I think the biggest hurdle for young people getting into 80’s hardcore is the production. Recording quality has obviously come a long way in 40 years. Same with recording budgets and access to engineers who know what they’re doing. Back in the 80’s, bands would usually record themselves on a cassette player or hire some random studio guy who had no idea what the hell was going on. Hardcore super-producers like Taylor Young and Will Killingsworth didn’t exist, because everyone who liked hardcore was 16 years old and the technology to self-record at a proficient level wasn’t accessible.

As a result, most 80’s recordings sound kind of stuffy, or dry, or blown out and shitty. I now think amateurism is part of the charm, but when I was a kid listening to pro-level Kurt Ballou productions, I couldn’t understand how anyone enjoyed something like the Bad Brains ROIR Tape (which sounds like it was recorded in a concrete box).

The tape was actually recorded at 171-A in New York City — a glass shop-turned-rehearsal space-turned squat — by some punk dude named Jerry Williams. Bad Brains were the premier hardcore band of the time, and this was top of the pops for hardcore recording setups in 1982. Still, compare the sound to what I was jamming on 30 years later. It’s buzzy and thin.

I went a very long time thinking I didn’t like Bad Brains, which made me feel weird, with so many people calling them the best hardcore band of all time. I finally forced myself to push through the production issues and give them a proper chance. What I noticed was songs like “Attitude” and “Banned in DC” getting stuck in my head for days at a time. Bad Brains have arguably the catchiest songs in hardcore history. Furthermore, when you really listen to what the instruments are doing, the level of complexity for how fast they’re playing is incredible. People always say “you don’t have to be a good musician to play punk rock.” That wasn’t true for the Bad Brains. Those dudes could really shred.

Not every 80’s band could play like Bad Brains. Take Agnostic Front’s 1984 classic Victim in Pain. The amount of flubs on the record is actually comical. There’s probably at least one on every track. If you heard a band drop something with this many fuckups in 2023 you’d probably be like “what the hell is wrong with these kids? Why did they put this shit out?”. AF didn’t really have much choice. They were basically squatters living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with zero money or resources. They had to throw a benefit show at CBGBs to raise money so legendary producer Don Fury could buy them a 16 track tape machine. The entire Victim in Pain album was recorded live, and unlike Cold as Life’s Born to Land Hard, it didn’t come out flawless.

Getting a tight, perfectly played recording is easy when redoing studio takes is simple as pressing Ctrl-Z on your laptop and trying over. Hardcore bands of the 80’s had to pay for actual physical tape, along with studio time. With that in mind, recording had to be efficient as possible. There are many stories about bands booking studio sessions at like three in the morning (because the rates were cheaper) and essentially banging out entire classic albums overnight. I’m not sure if Victim in Pain falls into that camp, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The record sounds drunk.

What actually got me into AF was hearing their 1989 Live at CBGB recording. It’s basically an informal “greatest hits” collection from their first four releases. It also captures the band ripping hard as possible in a live setting, where they were probably more comfortable. Hearing these songs in this format made me realize just how hard some of the riffs are.

Listen to the side-to-side part in “Last Warning” and tell me it’s not the meanest thing you’ve ever heard. AF, along with Negative Approach, were among the first to put the HARD in hardcore. It might sound quaint compared to the insane drop B beatdown we have these days, but if you trace the lineage back, Hatebreed, Madball and Cold as Life are just some of the bands who borrowed heavily from AF.

Those aren’t the only type of artists in the Agnostic Front family tree. A lot of the demo-core stuff these days, like the band Grand Scheme from Virginia (who put out one of my favourite 2023 releases) are AF acolytes. Not to mention the entire late 80’s New York Hardcore scene, which is still loudly reverberating today. Victim in Pain is relevant in 2023 because it’s punk, fast and sloppy but also has some of the most influential mosh parts ever written. It’s one of the few hardcore albums you can get spiked leather jacket PC punks and flat brim mesh shorts felons to agree on. That’s because it’s incredible.

AF wanted the scene to be “United and Strong”, but some of the 80’s bands had a more exclusionary feel to them. Youth Crew bands like Gorilla Biscuits and Youth of Today gave off that energy to me. Even worse, the people who liked that stuff when I was a kid were really annoying and would make fun of you for not knowing it. So of course, I said “fuck you” to those kids and never gave their favourite bands a fair shot.

I couldn’t wrap my young head around Gorilla Biscuits claiming be about Positive Mental Attitude but writing a song called “Slut” with some really mean lyrics. Being 19 years old, I didn’t understand that those dudes were teenagers when they wrote the song, and if I had a girlfriend who cheated on me, I’d be pretty mad too.

Coming back a few years later, I discovered GB also had really insightful and inspiring lyrics in their catalog. The song “Start Today” has literally helped me out of bed on more than one shitty day. I can now see a bit more nuance. It’s not fair to judge a band’s entire catalog on one song, especially considering it’s not in their live set, so they probably don’t even stand by it anymore.

Another barrier to entry with Youth Crew for me was how many shitty bands were doing that style in the early 2010s. I basically had the well poisoned and threw the baby out with the bathwater. I didn’t think I’d like Youth of Today because so much of what they inspired was low-effort, formulaic and boring. Then there was YOT vocalist Ray Cappo’s whole public persona at the time, which was basically “white yogi meets vegan proto-influencer”. I just assumed his band was dumb too.

I eventually went back, because so many influential people in my circle considered them foundational. What I found is that YOT is far and away the best to ever do that style of music. They’re fast, intense and HARD.

Beyond that, their tentacles of influence reach way further than the shitty revival bands who played their riffs backwards and 15 bpm slower. I don’t think you get Hatebreed’s Satisfaction is the Death of Desire without Break Down the Walls. In the same breath, you certainly don’t get Title Fight’s Shed without YOT. Nor do you get much of the Lockin’ Out stuff I love. The short, impactful song structures YOT perfected are the building blocks for modern hardcore. This might be a hot take, but I think 99.9% of new hardcore songs under 1:30 in length probably owe something to Youth of Today, whether the people writing know it or not. That shit is engrained in the fabric of the genre at this point.

There’s also some stuff from the 80’s that immediately impacted me as a kid. Minor Threat’s Out of Step, for example, was complex and emotional enough for my “extremely discerning” 19 year-old tastes. The moment I heard the intro to “We Gotta Know” by the Cro-Mags, I knew that shit was gonna bang in the whip. That’s all to say, if you’re a younger kid who doesn’t really click with 80’s classics, dig around a bit. It’s such a diverse and creative time period for hardcore that I can almost guarantee you’ll find something to enjoy.

100 DEMONS COVERING ONE OF THE HARDEST PUNK SONGS EVER.

At risk of entering “old man yells at cloud” territory, it would be a shame if new kids stopped listening to 80’s hardcore altogether. Especially if it was because of reasons I consider superficial, like production or old-heads being dicks. Some of today’s most influential bands are inspired by this stuff, so I think there’s still value to be found.

It doesn’t come naturally to everyone though. I can attest to that first hand. Still, I’m glad I gave these records second, third, fourth and fifth tries. They’ve become some of my all-time favourites, and I couldn’t stand them as a kid.