Minor Threat
Complete Discography

THE REVIEW

The most important hardcore band, for God's sake. Paranoia, revolution, and a reconsideration of oneself and the movement in general come together to form the "new stuff" in Washington DC, finally defined in all its parts. It so happens that this bald guy (whom they've been talking about for 25 years), Rollins' childhood friend, finds a drummer stranger than any other, one who wants to break punk into as many pieces as possible, one who, if you give him a tempo, he halves it, and then again, and again, and again. The other two are a college yuppie and a nerd who couldn't be more nerdy. In short, these four misfits, namely Ian MacKaye, Jeff Nelson, Lyle Preslar, and Brian Baker, set up a kind of reverse "68," a common space for rehearsals, concerts, and recordings. A commune of four misfits. The fact is, they accomplished something. I, who am not exactly normal but accidentally heard some records, have always claimed that without these guys, punk would have died out in a couple of years. We wouldn't have had anything, no Minutemen, no Hüskers, no Operation Ivy, niente, nada. Because they are the ones who step out of the game "fuck society, I'm a punk", a stance that doesn't allow you to evaluate or criticize, being an evaluation or critique right from the start.

They are so different, they are alone and antisocial, there are no "posers" in Minor Threat, no pretentiousness, we were all too shy to talk, so we just shouted. And so, these four bourgeois vomit crap on everything and everyone, but not to be iconoclastic, not to be against; if there were no audience, it would be the same, me, me, and again me, and "No future" my ass, I'm here too, and I want to stay as I want, if the best that idiot Derby Crash could do is shoot dope into his veins, I want to be different, I want to say my things.

The concerts are a whole different thing, no self-celebration, and we're not sadistic bastards, if you think you're coming here to see me cut a guy's belly with an open beer can for your show, you've got the wrong night, come tomorrow; the Exploited are on. Self-destruction because I feel like doing it, and you listen to what I have to say, not "must," but you'll follow because this is hardcore, I'll repeat the same three things for a whole minute, 60 seconds beaten and re-beaten, my thug screams will blow up your head, and either you start thinking or you leave (with the Exploited, that way you have your little songs to sing with your buddies between fixes).

A few EPs produced, a "Complete Discography" and nothing more, enough to revolutionize and give new energy to the genre, become a benchmark, pass some musicians to Bad Religion (the guy wanted the money, he got it) and start the "post" discourse, with a semi-unknown band called "Fugazi." The complete discography is a normal CD, it contains over 20 tracks, most of them a minute long, including masterpieces like "Filler" (The Hardcore Track), "Straight Edge," "Small Man Big Mouth," "Look Back and Laugh," "Out of Step," "In My Eyes," but I'm not going to make a tracklist, they're all fundamental in one way or another. For completeness, when people like Rage Against the Machine or Beastie Boys blast hardcore, there's not much "what lyrics, Mike D! if you're angry, De La Rocha!", it's Minor Threat, and they're better than some cheap alternative stuff.