The Lowdown on Hardcore Music
Do you sit in your room, listen to KoRn, and cry about your lack of friends? If so, this isn’t about you! I’m not talking Jonathan Davis, Ozzy Osborne, or Disturbed. I’m talking meat cleavers and baseball bats!
If you like relatively heavy music, you should learn all about Hardcore. Have you ever seen anyone walking around with a black bandana and/or an olive or black colored army hat, ripped up jeans, 1980s style sneakers, and a tight black t-shirt? They probably listen to Hardcore. (I’m not saying that you won’t run into a guy in a polo shirt and slacks who listens to Hardcore) Have you ever watched a music video or seen a live performance in which the people in the mosh pit were karate kicking and punching the air instead of moshing? Odds are, what you witnessed was Hardcore.
^^^Hardcore Hat^^^
As far as lyrical content goes, Hardcore music is usually about world issues, emotions, or some sort of play on words that comes off quite comical. Most of the vocals are screaming, but don’t underestimate the skills involved in such styles of vocalizing. There is actually a professional way of screaming that can be studied. Melissa Cross, the “Queen of Scream,” recently released a double DVD titled The Art of the Scream, which explains methods of screaming that don’t harm the vocal chords. Some of Melissa’s clients include Keith Buckley from Every Time I Die, Randy Blythe from Lamb of God, and Corey Taylor from Slipknot. Screaming is obviously no joke.
When it comes down to the music, Hardcore blows many other music genres away. Most of the musicians in the Hardcore genres are seasoned musicians who have been playing for many years. For those musicians out there, most Hardcore [genres] incorporates harmonics, odd scales, finger tapping, fast and intricate picking, multiple time signatures (usually overlapping), frequent tempo changes, and various tricks, such as guitar flips and cymbal chokes - definitely not a genre for the weak at heart.
Hardcore started in the 1980s with bands such as Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies, Bad Brains, and Gwar. These bands laid the path for today’s most popular Hardcore acts. Why these bands? Slayer paved the way for pretty much every Death Metal band by using constant double bass pedal drumming, hideous guitar solos, and sick breakdowns (slow, groovy parts of a song). Suicidal Tendencies brought speed and a younger attitude to the table. Bad Brains has a very unusual style, and is extremely catchy. And Gwar is simply deranged; they wear masks and have lyrics that read, “I'm the guy who stiffed the waiter, mangled public flagellator, turgid bowel exaggerator, fleshy flap-valved gladiator!” The roots of Hardcore stretched from evil and deranged to comical and fast and led to what we have today.
What do we have today? Well, Hardcore has split into a bazillion sub-genres including Metalcore, Death Metal, Grind, Mathcore, and Tech/Experimental Metal.
Good old-fashioned BEATDOWN Hardcore is a good place to start. The most popular Hardcore band is Hatebreed. Some people say that Hatebreed is all about mosh pits, pot, beer, and chicks. All of which is untrue. The only reason Hatebreed is associated with such nonsence is because of the fact that most of its “mainstream” fans listen to Pantera, which is a band that is all about beer, chicks, and pot. The only reason that people mosh (instead of dancing) during a Hatebreed concert is because the people at Ozzfest don’t know any better. They are unaware of the Hardcore scene. Other popular Hardcore acts include Terror, Madball, and The Walls of Jericho.
Metalcore contains lots of chugs (palm mutes), breakdowns, and eeeeent chords (two notes, a half step away from each other, played at the same time). Popular bands include Eighteen Visions, Norma Jean, and Fear Before the March of Flames.
Death Metal, a more primitive version of Hardcore, contains some of the most talented drummers in the music industry today. Most of Death Metal’s stringed instrument players use lots of power chords and arpeggios built from scales. Most of the singers use a lot of stomach growling. Important players within this sub-genre include Dying Fetus, Deicide, and Nile.
Grind is very sporadic and short. Most Grind songs are only thirty seconds long and are pretty much made up of noises and insanely fast beats. Excellent Grind bands include Daughters and Circle of Dead Children.
Mathcore is the most challenging of the sub-genres of Hardcore. Every musician is well versed and intellectually superior to a good portion of today’s music community. The most popular of these “mathcore” bands is The Dillinger Escape Plan, who is rumored to have mathematical codes hidden in its music. Some people even say that Dillingers' “rolls dice” to decide the time signatures of its songs. Some exceptional Mathcore bands include "The Dillinger Escape Plan", "Between the Buried and Me", "Glass Casket", and the newest "A Life Once Lost" record.
Tech Metal is the most experimental Hardcore sub-genre. Most people consider it a sub-genre of Metal, but it deserves mentioning. This genre can be summed up by one band - MESHUGGAH! Meshuggah may be the most influential band in heavy music today.
Actually, the term Hardcore has been used so much that bands like The Number Twelve Looks Like You and Circle Takes the Square are considering themselves “Post-Hardcore.” Post-Hardcore contains all of the elements of all of the “sub-genres” of Hardcore.
As generations pass, music has tested itself and its performers. Hardcore is a popular genre that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. If the prior paragraphs prove intriguing, please investigate the mentioned musicians; you won’t regret it.
