Has there been a more influential punk band in the last 45 years? I don’t think so…
Cards on the table right at the outset….I think that the US hardcore punk scene of the 1980s is the most significant and impactful era of punk there has ever been and married the heavy, raw sound that punk is known for with a truly inspiring rethink of what it means to live a good life and be part of a community.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Minor Threat’s seminal album ‘Out of Step’ (yes it’s definitely 40 years- I’ve crunched and re-crunched the numbers). And over that 40 years every punk writer and their dog have probably written about this album (punk dogs make excellent music journalists) such is the pivotal nature of this album.
But even 40 years on, this album is still vital, if not more- not just in terms of the music itself but everything that was represented in this release and everything it has come to represent since. It is the promise of what punk could offer when it is incendiary, inspiring, forward thinking, clear headed and angry.
There is still an overwhelming wave of admiration and respect for Minor Threat- their music, their ethos and in particular their frontman Ian Mackaye. I can only think of one other band- Operation Ivy- who have had such an incredible influence on the genre of punk in a way that is disproportionate to the quantity of their output. But even then, in Operation Ivy’s case, it is more about the music than their politics (although I acknowledge the social commentary in some of their songs). In the case of Minor Threat, it’s both.
Having been in The Teen Idles from 1979, Jeff Nelson and Ian Mackaye gathered quite the local following with that band in the burgeoning DC hardcore punk scene. After that band separated, Nelson and Mackaye went on to form Minor Threat and create legendary independent label Dischord Records.
And after a couple of EPs in 1981 (‘Minor Threat’ and then ‘In My Eyes’) the band released their debut album ‘Out of Step’ in 1983.
The tracks speak of a time of transition and personal turmoil whereby our values and ideals can seemingly be developing at odds with the not just the world around us, but also our immediate peer group as well.
Although songs like ‘Betray’ may well be about the inner tensions within the band, there’s a wider point to extrapolate about when we call it a day when our paths start to drift from others in a fundamentally incompatible way. It’s both a grown up and teenage problem to have as your inner life starts to morph and grow. I’ve always found the line ‘So what now? Do we shake hands and go our separate ways?’ to be quite heartbreakingly sad in its civility and bewilderment.
It’s an album about growing up but not your typical ‘I hate my parents/my heart is broken/school sucks’ kind of topics that are usual fodder for that kind of address (not that there’s anything wrong with mining those tropes, they ARE part of growing up). Instead, there’s a maturity here, the other side of growing up- social, ethical, intellectual and spiritual maturing. Finding out what you think is right and wrong, how you want to live your life, who you want to surround yourself with. It’s the personal element of politics- how will you embody what you believe? Will the world let you? ‘Think Again’, ‘Look Back and Laugh’ and of course the titular track ‘Out of Step’ – all speak to the struggle of reconciling the person you want to be with the culture around you and the compromises you are or are not willing to make. There’s a sense of melancholic frustration throughout the whole thing.
Minor Threat’s impact is vast and can’t really be contained or explained via 9 tracks on this album and just over 20 minutes of music. We know that they influenced the sound of 100s of bands in and around the hardcore scene and beyond (and Mackaye’s influence in terms of music continued with his next project Fugazi) and that straight edge as a movement has its own trajectory and life of its own which has, just in itself, touched hundreds of thousands (millions?) of lives.
The impact and power of this music is alive every time someone makes a conscious choice to act with integrity, to treat someone else with compassion and dignity, to do the right thing, to consider how to intentionally leave a positive mark on those you encounter, to develop a set of ideals and decide to live by them.
That individual revolution is where the real impact lies and what is even more necessary today. Organised political activism has never gone away and nor should it but in a world that encourages us to look out for number 1, to turn our heads to those needing help, to focus on ourselves and our own, there is a subversive and powerful element to treating other people well and channeling the best of yourself in all your interactions.
That is part of building a better world. Large scale system challenge through direct political action is vital of course, but if everyone is acting like an areshole to their fellow human beings when they’re doing it, then we may bring down an unjust set of sytems, but in the rubble we’ll still be arseholes.
Minor Threat showed that the power of punk can be harnessed for good and there’s a different way to live. Mackaye saw the potential- maybe the necessity- for punk to combine the anger, reactionary raw aggression of punk music and image with something positive and hopeful- something that encouraged to identify areas of their life they can take control back and responsibility for. There is a place for the ‘let’s destroy everything’ brand of punk but that general nihilism and destruction is shallow- and actually doesn’t result in any meaningful change for the majority of people. By all means destroy what doesn’t work or serve people but you’ll have to replace it with something- you have to offer something in return.
And this, for me, is why the hardcore scene is so important. If anger can be a power (as The Clash state in ‘Clampdown’) then it’s a power to be used for good- something Mackaye has embodied throughout his career as the punk prophet who has had greatness thrust upon him.