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In recounting the history of rock, textbooks and documentary films generally ignore American hardcore punk. American Hardcore: The History of American Punk Rock 1980-1986, a documentary film by Paul Rachman and Steven Blush, seeks to redress this omission. The definitions of "hardcore" and "punk" are contested among those who see themselves in close relation to these musics. But generally speaking, hardcore is a faster, more aggressive variant of punk rock that supported the development of an American underground during the 1980s, establishing a network of scenes, venues, and labels, and inspiring such later genres as grunge, alternative, emo, and speed metal. Rachman and Blush depict hardcore as a grassroots, anticommercial music that reaffirmed the essential "values" of punk. These values emerge in the film as impulses towards individualism and the rejection of predetermined social roles. The film documents hardcore as a movement marked by political radicalism and antimaterialism, positive thinking and youth empowerment, but also by violence, juvenile delinquency, and puerile chauvinism fostered by the boredom and disillusionment of suburban, middle-class youths living in Reagan's America.
American Hardcore offers an excellent history of music the filmmakers define as hardcore, but theirs is a narrow definition; given the film's limited scope, its subtitle, "The History of American Punk Rock, 1980-1986," seems intentionally antagonizing (a very punk gesture indeed!). The film works to establish American hardcore's claim to the legacy of punk, taking for granted that the music and the scene surrounding it were the last and truest expressions of the punk impulse, even as it distinguishes the genre as a separate entity...