Mojave Auszug, 1984. Photo by Scot Allen.
With permission from Stuart Swezey / Mariska Leyssius
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Hardcore music was mean, masculine, primal, and subversive, and so were the punks. Fueled by rage against Thatcher’s England and Reagan’s America, repelled by conspicuous consumption, and damaged by peer pressure and parental expectations, the punks had had it with the yuppies and the brokers, the prom queens and the sell-outs. They didn’t question authority; they actively rejected it. They were anti-corporate, anti-establishment, anti-materialist, anti-fashion, anti-synthesizer, anti-melody, anti-record label.
Hardcore was the anti-culture.