Minor Threat

One of the bands that founded the modern hardcore punk music genre, Minor Threat set the standard for most, if not all, hardcore punk bands and even grunge bands in the 1980s and 1990s. They produced short, fast songs with excellent production quality (lacking in most punk/alternative music), all of which were released on the band's own Dischord Records.

They coined the phrase straight edge in their song of the same name, which inadvertently became a movement of young punks that promoted abstention from drugs, alcohol, and promiscuous sex, vices usually associated with the post-hippie bourgeois culture of the 1970s. The straight-edge values were perhaps most succinctly defined in Minor Threat's song "Out of Step": "I don't smoke/I don't drink/I don't fuck/ At least I can fucking think/I can't keep up/I'm out of step with the world."

Formed in Washington D.C in 1980(?). Lead singer Ian MacKaye went on to found Embrace and later Fugazi after Minor Threat's 1983 breakup. The band's own Dischord Records released material by many bands from the Washington, D.C. area, such as The Faith, Rites of Spring, and Shudder to Think. Jeff Nelson was a drummer in the band.

Albums/EPs:

• In My Eyes (EP)
• Minor Threat (EP)
• Out of Step
• Salad Days (EP)

Of note: All of their music has been released on a single cd as

• Complete Discography

Compilations:

• Dischord 1981, The Year in 7"s
• Flex your Head

Reference

• Joe Carducci, Rock and the Pop Narcotic (2.13.61)