HARDCORE PART 3...

Alright...we're just done on the history of hardcore (US and Europe)...


Now I'm gonna tell more on the mid 1980s-1990 hardcore scene...


Here it goes:-

Mid 1980s

By 1985, most of the early hardcore bands had broken up or were on their way out. The New York hardcore scene became an epicenter for the hardcore movement, and was the birthplace of the youth crew subgenre. Young bands formed by teenagers in New York City between 1986 and 1987 found huge followings in hardcore scenes around the world.

1990s

By the end of the 1980s, hardcore became more diverse, branching off into two sounds: one traditionally punk-based, referred to as old school hardcore and the other evolving into something heavier, slower, more technical and more intense, influenced by heavy metal, known as new school hardcore, metalcore or metallic hardcore. Sick of It All's second studio album, Just Look Around (1991) is illustrative of this style.Earth Crisis, Biohazard, Hatebreed, Snapcase, 108, Strife, Integrity, Damnation A.D. and World's Collide were some of the earliest bands to feature an amalgamation of deep, hoarse vocals (though rarely as deep or guttural as death metal); downtuned guitars and thrashy drum rhythms inspired by earlier hardcore bands; and slow, staccato low-end musical breaks, known as breakdowns. Thrash metal and melodic death metal elements are common in melodic metalcore.

By the middle of the 90's, a new found interest in old school and youth crew hardcore had developed and the scene experienced a major revival of these styles with many bands adopting the sound of late 80's New York hardcore bands such as Gorilla Biscuits and Youth of Today. For this reason, many of these bands were credited as playing "'88 style hardcore" or being part of the "'88 hardcore revival" . Bands that were an integral and prominent part of this movement were Battery, Better Than A Thousand, Ten Yard Fight, In My Eyes, Speak 714, Floorpunch and Good Clean Fun.

An important aspect of the this old school revival was its stripped down and back to basics sound which stood in stark comparison to the more technical and complex style of new school hardcore and metalcore that had developed earlier in the decade. Ray Cappo, the singer of Better Than A Thousand, who had sung originally with Youth of Today in the late 80's but then founded the new school style krishna core band Shelterin the early 90's, explained in an interview his return to the rudimentaries of hardcore in the late 90's. "I was sick of going into the studio for 3 months to record a CD. With Better Than A Thousand we wanted to capture something spontaneous and raw on tape. Get rid of all the flashiness and gloss of expensive studios and just get in there and pour out your heart. We erected a studio in Ken Olden's bedroom and whipped off a completely crunchy and emotional CD that completely captured the essence of what this band was about." 

Towards the end of the 90's and into the beginning of the next century many hardcore bands, such as Botch and Dillinger Escape Plan began incorporating elements of power violence and grindcore into their style such as blast beats, extremely fast and chaotic guitar riffs and unintelligible vocals that were either shrill and screamed or deep and guttural. This style is generally referred to as a form of metalcore entitled mathcore.


Ok...that's all for now...next post will be on the influence of hardcore in other genres...