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Minor Threat/Complete Discography/19809/hardcore/Washington, D.C.



Minor Threat was active from 1980-83 and this album contains 26 songs.

This band is important for several reasons, so I figured I would include their discography here because it was one single release, and its short enough to be one album

Minor Threat, like the name implies, is not a macho band. At all. They have an extremely fast hardcore sound that occasionally can get melodic in addition to being sprinkled with tracks about not drinking. At a bare minimum you have "bottled violence", "straight edge", "in my eyes", and the duo of "out of step(with the world)", and its cover "out of step" (the latter has the lyrics "dont smoke, dont drink, dont fuck, at least i can fucking think" changed to I don't...each thing), are about alcohol and drug refusal.

While the song has plenty of anti alcohol songs, thats not all it's about. The song 12XU, a cover of a song by the band Wire, introduces us to the concept of "flex your head" which I interpret as meaning intelligence and reason beats violence. There's a sarcastic song about selling out, and the song "screaming at a wall" is actually really fun to listen to when you do want to scream at a wall. Another song I'd highlight is "guilty of being white" which was covered by slayer. This song shouldn't discourage you because it isnt racist, and it really sounds great. Another song I really like is "in my eyes" where mackaye shouts "at least i'm fucking. trying. what the fuck have you done?!" Despite all that it doesn't seem to take itself too seriously.

So basically, you've got blistering hardcore that occasionally can slow itself down(and indeed listening to this album in order does show great songwriting evolution), that's got lyrics with serious bite that are very easy to understand. but not in a way where we feel insulted. ian mackaye hasn't even gotten angry yet.

This band never really intended to start a movement with the song "straight edge" but a movement did start and thats what it became known as. if you ever see somebody at a concert with an X drawn on the hand it means nah i aint/cant drink. 46 seconds spawned an entire movement. I can't blame them for promoting positive messages.

"I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and fuck my head
Hang out with the living dead
Snort white shit up my nose
Pass out at the shows
I don't even think about speed
That's something I just don't need"

[despite being lightning quick...]