New Genre Alert: RIDETHELIGHTINGCORE

While the biggest trend in Real Hardcore is ripping off entry-level, corny mall-metal bands from the early 90s, but not everybody is on TYPE O NEGATIVE, LIFE OF AGONY and BIOHAZARD’s balls. If u can believe it, the second biggest trend in hardcore rn is RIDETHELIGHTNINGCORE: Real Hardcore bands who look and sound like third-tier speed metal bands from 1988. More specifically, RIDETHELIGHTNINGCORE is what happens when 2014 hardcore kids start ripping off the BAD albums by 80s hardcore bands who listened to too much METALLICA. Prime example:

First check out this song from the latest TERROR cassette…

Now listen to this song by the third-tier 80s speed metal band MELIAH RAGE, and notice that aside from the vocals, it basically sounds exactly like post-Todd-Jones TERROR :/

I’m sure many of u will rush to mash the keyboard with your stubby, sausage-like fingers and be like ‘but sergeant d this is just the same thing that all those dumb neo-thrash bands like MUNICIPAL WASTE and WARBRINGER and TOXIC HOLOCAUST have been doing for years.” But you are wrong: this is a completely different thing. One that is somehow even more annoying and dumb than neo-thrash. This is what happens when newjack, 2014 Tumblr hardcore kids copy the hardcore bands who copied the bands that neo-thrash bands copied— this diagram should help u understand:

as u can see, RIDETHELIGHTNINGCORE has a whole additional generation of embarrassing, derivative bands in its heritage– like photocopying a photocopy of a plagiarized paper. U know ur genre is bullshit when ur getting called out for being less original than neo-thrash lol

While this is the default sound for “Real Hardcore” bands in 2014, ironically back in the day hardcore kids hated this stuff because it was “too metal.” I know that most of u do not know very much about music that is not one of the 10-12 washed up bands from the 80s/90s that play on those “metal cruises” full of chubby ponytailed dorks in their late 30s, so i will give u a little history lesson and bring you up to speed.

As u may have read in ur textbooks, there was once a time before there internet, when we couldn’t listen to bands without buying the record first. Basically, we just bought records based on how punk the cover art was or if Jeff Hanneman had one of their stickers on his guitar. Sometimes you ended up discovering something amazing like MDC, and other times u would end up with something like GANG GREEN “Older… Budweiser,” which u brought home and excitedly popped it into your dual cassette player and pressed play, eagerly anticipating sick hardcore like old DRI, VIOLENT CHILDREN, or STRAIGHT AHEAD… only to get tepid, awful speed metal :/

why would u copy THIS…

instead of THIS?! idgi

While SSD & DYS did the “once-good hardcore bands turning into incredibly awful hard rock bands” thing, that was thankfully a short-lived trend. On the other hand, the crossover scene (aka “once-good hardcore bands trying to play thrash metal and it coming out really badly because they are terrible at their instruments”) pretty much completely took over hardcore. This is the era in which every 80s hardcore band started to suck– the era in which you had to start adding the “EARLY” modifer when talking about what bands you like: early CRO-MAGS, early SUICIDAL, early BLACK FLAG, etc. It was a dark time, and one that I never, ever thought I’d see revived. I mean, I get why u would want to imitate the glory days of 80s hardcore, because that shit ruled– but why tf would u ever want to copy the SHITTY albums by all the legendary 80s hardcore bands?!

please, please, PLEASE let MORDREDCORE be a thing

If kids are into horrible stuff like this, I’m terrified about the future of hardcore. I can only hope that the Next Big Thing is hardcore kids bringing back the biggest fad of ’89-91 or so, the “zany funk-metal” thing ala MORDRED, SCATTERBRAIN, or UGLY KID JOE. I mean, imagine a bunch of kids in camo shorts, snapbacks and CRUEL HAND hoodies buying 6-string basses so they can practice their popping and slapping and making Craigslists posts like “DJ NEEDED FOR HARDCORE BAND. MUST BE FUNKY.” I think that is something we can all get behind.