PUNK HARDCORE - The Nineties

By the mid 1980s, it became nearly impossible to keep track of all the new bands and styles that were helped out by the essential fanzines to get their messages and names out. Mainstream culture has become increasingly aware of the multitudes of music coming out of the post-punk subcultures, shown by coverage of the most successful bands from SST, Dischord, Homestead, Twin/Tone, including Meat Puppets, Butthole Surfers, Hüsker Dü, Replacements, Dinosaur Jr., Big Black, Sonic Youth, Swans, Fugazi, Bad Brains, to hip-hop artists like Boogie Down Productions to several inventive industrial bands and the retro 'sludge' movement (Melvins, Green River, Blood Circus, Mudhoney, Nirvana, Soundgarden) initiated by the Sub Pop label in Seattle, reaching back to the pre-punk music of the Stooges, the MC5, Alice Cooper, Radio Birdman and even Blue Cheer and Black Sabbath.

Suddenly the industries see big possibilities for mass consumption of the bands who once thrived (or starved) in the underground subcultures. A corporation called Joseph-Fox Communications, Inc. even tried to emulate the style of fanzines with a tiny, slick and laughably naive production called New Route: The new route to new music. Douglas Joseph, the Editor-in-Chief and presumably the former half of Joseph-Fox, wrote an editorial in the October 1989 issue where he brought up the Warner Bros.-Time Inc. merger, PolyGram buying out Island and eventually A&M, EMI buying out Chrysalis Records and Virgin Records taking in major equity partners. 'CBS Records is owned by Sony, and RCA Records by BMG,' he said, brilliantly concluding that 'the music industry is big business.'

During the 90s Punk split in several sub-genres: Emocore (Emo is for 'emotional') is a style of music characterized by angsty wailing, alternately loud and quiet musical parts, and shifty dynamics (time changes and the like). The Emocore style has become broader over the years. In the beginning, these bands consisted mostly of people who played in hardcore punk bands, got burned out its limited forms, and moved to a guitar-oriented, midtempo rock-based sound with emotional punk vocals. Later bands bring in more pop elements, like catchy-riff based songs, pop song structures and less-punk, more-smoothly-sung high-register singing. Listen to Elliot or Chamberlain for an example of how alternative-pop this music has become. Emo started in the DC area in 1987/88 with bands inspired by that area's post-hardcore acceptance of new, diverse sounds within the punk scene. Musically there's a lot dynamics between ultra-soft whispered vocals, twinkly guitar bits and full-bore crashing, screaming vocals. One of the most recognizable and universal elements of Emo shows up in the guitar sound of this style: the octave chord. Straight-edge boys tend to hate that part. Most Emo bands tend to have some epic-length songs that build up very slowly to a climax where someone cries. Harcore Emo is similar to punk vs. hardcore punk - faster, louder, harder, much more intense and single-minded. Most of these bands play extremely fast, and introduce the 'chaos' concept to hardcore. This is extremely abrasive music, with vocals screamed at the physical limit of the vocal chords. The guitars are distorted to the point that notes and chords are hard to recognize. Emocore, Emo and Hardcore Emo are 3 different sides of the same style. All the 3 genres are evolution of the Straight Edge Hardcore of the 80s (Still Life, Promise Ring, Texas Is The Reason e Ass-Factor4).

Straight Edge Hardcore is an attitude against sexism, racism, drugs and alcohol addiction, political and religious intolerances. Band as Minor Threat (whose leader, Ian McKaye, was master of the Dischord record label and leader and guitarist in the Fugazi, the band mother of the so-called Emo). To the Washington D.C. Straight Edge scene, with positive attitude, we can oppose the Bostonian scene (Slapshot, Judge e Uniform Choice): Straight Edge bands from Boston were absolutely intolerant against the old self-destructive punk scene. The evolution of the Bostonian Straight Edge Hardcore scene is the 'New School of Hardcore'. The most important bands of the 90s are Earth Crisis, Integrity and Warzone.

Another style came out from the most politic Anglo-Saxon punk-hardcore is the Crust, whose most representative bands are the Discharge (several bands of the Crust movement have in their name the 'Dis' prefix: Disfear, Disrupt, Dischange…) and the Doom. Crust is 'no trend', no compromise with the show biz, no self-celebrative musical iconography. Musically there is fast rhythms, a monolithic sound, gut-wrenching screaming vocals, lyrics very critical against multinational corporations and western governments politic into third world. During the 90s the most representative Crust bands are the Scandinavian 3Way-Cum, the Belgian Hiatus and the American Aus-Rotten.

The Anglo-Saxon band of the Napalm Death signs the rise of another important punk-hardcore scene: the Grindcore. They mixed 2 styles, considered during the 80s, apparently incompatible: punk and heavy metal. A terryfing mix of speed, sound on the border of pure noise (when the Thrash-Metal meets the Crass style hardcore), gut-wrenching screams, extreme political attitude, makes the Napalm Death the most revolutionary band on the scene. Other important combos of the Grindcore scene, who push the sound to the extreme, are Extreme Noise Terror, Agathocles, 7 Minutes Of Nausea and Anal Cunt. During the last years the Grindcore scene turned into Ultracore (Infest, Drop Dead and Larm), a sort of Straight Edge Hardcore far from the self-destructive attitude.

Power Violence and Sludge are the last examples of a style in a never-ending evolution. The former, close to a classic punk attitude to the music, is the result of a Chris Dodge's (leader and guitar player in Spazz) idea. Bands like Charles Bronson and No Comment are the most important of the Power Violence scene. The latter is a mix of Heavy Metal and lysergic sound of the 70s: ultraslow rhythms, monolithic walls of sound, lyrics celebrating the 'joy of the addiction', Lo-Fi recordings are the peculiarities of this style. Eyehategod and Iron Monkey, from USA, Boris, Corrupted and Green Machine, from Japan, are the most important bands of the Sludge scene. On a different side of the medal we can find bands who have a funny attitude to the life. Mixing punk-rock and reggae-ska elements, with a pop flavour came out the Flower Punk. NOFX, Millencolin, Green Day and Offspring hit the world charts with 3 minutes songs, characterized by fast rhythms, pretty vocal harmonies and summer atmospheres.