Some days ago I asked to Francesco to write his personal top ten of metal albums... and ultimately I asked the same thing to myself but with my favourite hardcore punk albums. Yes, as every top ten worthy of this name, also this one is a bit restrictive. But I featured mainly the bands that have had a strong impact on me, for a reason or another.
But why did I write a hardcore punk top ten and not a metal one also since I was born as a metalhead? Because in these times infested by the Covid-19 terror, hardcore punk has been particularly important for me, as you'll see soon, and not only for the compilation about the LazioHC that I did some months ago with the same Francesco.
Now, I discovered this genre something like 12 years ago when I bought "American Hardcore", a book by Steven Blush released in 2001 but published in Italy only 6 years later. Thanks to it, I knew the existence of bands like Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, Minor Threat and many many others. Only reading the book, I liked already a lot the energy of these people, their courage to face everything also simply by their moniker (never heard an act naming MDC, acronym for Millions of Dead Cops?), talking about in their songs not only of State and society often in an anarchist way but also about their local musical scene, in a creative way to discuss themselves. In fact, I thought already that you had to have some pair of very big balls to be into the '80s hardcore punk! And so, it started my journey into this music that, in a more conscious way, still continues.
But, actually, hardcore isn't only a music. For me, it's a lot of things: it's fun, it's energy, a place where the different is accepted, a violent but healthy way of dancing... but also a struggle. It can be a struggle against the world, a struggle against the society, a struggle to have a better life and even a struggle against yourself. Yes, it's also a struggle to liberate you from your demons, your negativity, the toxic elements, in order to feel good about yourself.
But this introduction is maybe becoming too a (scant!) philosophical treatise, so let's start to discover this new top ten and enjoy it!
YOUTH OF TODAY - "WE'RE NOT IN THIS ALONE" (REVELATION RECORDS, 1988)
This band has a very special meaning for me. Among other things and people, they helped me to overcome a personal situation. In practice, they helped me, with their message of positivity and hope, to see the light at the end of the tunnel, so I have to thank them again and again. I love you guys!
Said this, both their albums ("Break Down the Walls" and "We're Not in This Alone") are true classics but I think that the latter one is their masterpiece, especially thanks to better and more mature lyrics. These last ones range from the anti-racism of "Prejudice" to the vegan anthem of "No More" (the band shot also a promotional video for this song) or to "Time We'll Remember", dedicated to the musical period that Youth of Today lived and also forged since they created the so-called Youth Crew movement, introducing the straight-edge mentality before in New York and, then, throughout the USA. Musically, this album, that has a more metallic edge in comparison with the debut, shows the typical YOT sound: a brutal hardcore punk made more intense by the unique and ultra-bestial vocals of Ray Cappo, one of the best HC singers of all times in my opinion.
Shame that the 2020 edition of Distruggi La Bassa (an Italian HC punk festival), in which Youth of Today was one of the headlining bands, was delayed due to this fuckin' Covid-19!
HAVE HEART - "THE THINGS WE CARRY" (BRIDGE NINE RECORDS, 2006)
One of the most incredible bands that hardcore ever had, also the Boston straight-edge unit Have Heart have a special place... in my heart! But this time I have to talk about a song in particular, not an entire album, even though it is very good.
In fact, at a certain point I took as my personal anthem the last track of "The Things We Carry", their debut album: it's "Watch Me Rise". It invites everyone with an energetic melodic hardcore punk in mid-tempo to change and to choose their own path themselves, fighting also against their inner fears that can block their growth and awareness.
In brief, for me "Watch Me Rise" is so motivational that alone is worth the entire album!
BAD RELIGION - "HOW COULD HELL BE ANY WORSE?" (EPITAPH, 1982)
If I remember well, this is the first hardcore punk album I bought and I am talking about something like 11 years ago. Precisely, I bought a special version of the Bad Religion's debut because it features their 1981 demo and the EP "Back to the Known" (1985), so I had already a good view of the early days of this seminal band.
Now, "How Could Hell Be Any Worse?" is a 14-track work in which there is a raw but melodic hardcore punk in California-style characterized by the expressive vocals of Greg Graffin. Throughout its 29 minutes of lenght, there is a nice variety so to range from short and raging episodes ("Eat Your Dog") to more structured and melancholic tracks like "Doing Time", that closes the album with the fireworks. Lyrically, there is an existential anthem to the freedom ("Damned to Be Free"), an anti-fascist song ("White Trash (2nd Generation)"), a strong invective against the televangelists ("The Voice of God is Government") or a condemnation of a hypocritical society that doesn't practices what it preaches and that hurts also to the environment ("Fuck Armageddon... This is Hell").
So, the early Bad Religion not only composed very good songs but were already able to write intelligent lyrics about the problems of this tormented world.
DISCHARGE - "NEVER AGAIN" (CLAY RECORDS, 1984)
I bought this Discharge compilation from my trust music store, Star Music, after reading "Burning Britain" by Ian Glasper. After being into bands like them, I started to experience my local punk scene, starting also to participate in some marching protests. I remember that Discharge, with their apocalyptic hardcore dealing with anti-war and anti-system songs, became my revolutionary soundtrack because numbers like "State Violence State Control" gave me always the visions of oppressing masses attacking the State and its slaves with no compromise fury!
But what's about "Never Again"? Well, it is a compilation featuring 17 tracks, included many of the classics taken from Discharge's seminal album "Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing". It isn't a greatest hits of their golden days but we are not so far from it. Actually, I have the 2003 edition featuring other 4 tracks, with some of them that are alternative versions of the songs originally included in the comp.
Some time later, I finally listened to "Hear Nothing..." in its entirety but this is another story...
DEAD KENNEDYS - "FRESH FRUIT FOR ROTTING VEGETABLES" (IRS RECORDS, 1980)
It was released in a time when hardcore punk wasn't still a stagnant musical formula and neither a race to who played faster and with the most distorted guitars. So, Dead Kennedys created an experimental work of pure imagination showing a lot of different influences. For example, "Stealing People's Mail" is a demented rockabilly, "Chemical Warfare" is so schizoid to contain even a waltz passage, "Holiday in Cambodia" has surf tunes... and without forgetting the funny "Viva Las Vegas", a sarcastic Elvis Presley cover!
At the same time, this album has very provocative, sharp and ironic lyrics thanks to a Jello Biafra in a state of grace.
Still now it impress me so much, also because (almost) every song is a classic. Fundamental!
MILIZIA HC - "L'INFERNO DELL'UGUAGLIANZA" (DIY CO-PROD, 2007)
If YOT's "We're Not in This Alone" can be considered as the album of my adulthood, "L'inferno dell'uguaglianza" was the album of my angry teen days, so it has a particular importance for me.
I reviewed it in full lockdown, so, in this occasion, I'm going to say simply that it is a brutal Italian hardcore punk dealing with various themes like toxic love, religion, the State of Israel guilty to oppress the Palestine, and so on. Relevantly, these lyrics are spewed forth by Lorenz with his lacerating screams, characterizing more the sound of these 4 maniacs.
Maybe I exaggerate a bit but believe me that I never heard such hate and fury in a hc album before and after Milizia HC!
WRETCHED - "LIBERO DI VIVERE LIBERO DI MORIRE" (CHAOS PRODUZIONI, 1984)
And now it's the turn of the most radical band that came out from Italy during the wildest '80s: Wretched!
In the much feared year of the Big Brother, Wretched released a debut album that is a total sentence without appeal against State, society, Church and Army, searching for a life of their own in a world possibly free from war, authority, religion and misery. So, "Libero di vivere, libero di morire" is a furious and chaotic hardcore punk clearly influenced by British bands like Discharge and Disorder, showing it throughout 17 tracks. Each of them is a call to the direct action, honoring also the memory and the struggle of the infamous squat Virus ("15/5/1984"), that was their headquarter but, unfortunately, it was cleared out, indeed, in the same 1984.
Since all these things and that I love a lot the ultra-radical mentality of Wretched, they have always been among my favorite hardcore bands!
SIEGE - "DROP DEAD" (SELF-RELEASED, 1984)
Curiously, the Massachusetts hardcore scene had many of the fastest US bands of the early '80s. For example, Deep Wound and Negative FX come in my mind. But, among them, there is the killing quartet Siege, that entered the legend with only the demotape "Drop Dead" and the participation in the "Cleanse the Bacteria" 1985 compilation.
Well, they "entered the legend" not for luck but because they anticipated a lot the grindcore of Napalm Death and the likes with "Drop Dead", a 6-track demo full of short explosions such as "Life of Hate" and "Armaggedon". Despite this, it is closed by a haunting 7-minute tour de force of the calibre of "Grim Reaper", that is really surprising for a band of this kind. And we can't forget the lyrics, that deal with anti-fascism, conformism because of the fear to change, genocide and the starvation of the oppressed nations.
As a fan of the total speed since an immemorable time, "Dropdead" was a very good discovery when many years ago I started to listen to it for a book (one of the many...) about the extreme metal roots that I never finished.
RAW POWER - "YOU ARE THE VICTIM" (MECCANO RECORDS, 1983)
Another journey into the Italian hc with Raw Power!
Some years ago I received in physical format the reissue, released by F.O.A.D. Records, of their debut album "You Are the Victim", consisting also of "God's Course" (the demo recorded in 1982), in order to review it for Heavymetalwebzine, the 'zine in which I was a collaborator.
Needless to say, after some listening sessions, I was positively hit by the wild but creative hc of Raw Power that, strong of two vocalists in their line-up, created songs full of rage against everyone, not only the cops and the politicians but also against the communists, in an anarchist fury giving no concessions to anything.
And the nicer thing is that 2 years ago I had finally the honour to see Raw Power on stage for the first time... and it was fuckin' crazy!
CHARGED G.B.H. - "CITY BABY ATTACKED BY RATS" (CLAY RECORDS, 1982)
As Discharge, I knew also Charged G.B.H. through "Burning Britain"... and I immediately love them!
In particular, their debut album "City Baby Attacked by Rats" consumed again and again my ears in a certain point of my life. I was struck by their typical British hardcore, simple and anthemic but with a slight metallic edge à la Motörhead. And the lyrics? This time don't expect anything about State or society but about horror themes, having sex... and dancing "down at the Bell End Bop"!
In brief, a fundamental page for the British hardcore punk, also only for the ultra-amazing main riff of the anti-religious "Prayer of a Realist"!
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