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[McTaggart]

What the hell is it?

Someone last night someone mentioned post-hardcore and  I realised that I didn't even know this genre exists. Probably because I'm not really into punk/hardcore/rock/metal but I'd still like to know. So:
What does it sound like and who plays it?
How does it differ from hardcore and where did it come from?
What are the landmark albums and why are they important?
Are there different styles of it?

Note: I didn't ask if it was any good, I can figure that out myself. Also "shit" or "awesome" are wrong answers.

[a pack of wolves]

Post-hardcore's a funny one. What one person will call post-hardcore another will refer to as just hardcore and another emo, probably because a lot of bands that have been given this tag didn't divorce themselves from the whole DIY hardcore scene. I find it fairly confusing myself so try and avoid using it, but a few bands that I've heard the term frequently applied to over the years are:
Fugazi
Kerosene 454
Timebomb (the one from Italy, since I imagine there'll be more than one knocking about)
Lungfish
Red Monkey
In my own head I mostly associate it with that mid-80s to mid-90s Dischord sound. I don't think it's terribly useful as a description though.

[McTaggart]

Ok. Tommy linked a Lungfish track before and I couldn't really place it in a genre. I was expecting something more hardcore really.

[a pack of wolves]

Well, a lot of those bands have had fairly diverse careers and can sound reasonably different from one song or album to the next. Fugazi have done a fair few songs that are pretty much straight up hardcore, like Great Cop and Five Corporations.

[Johnny C]

I was under the impression that bands like Refused and Death From Above 1979 and Blood Brothers and all those guys who took hardcore's sonic template, updated it and expanded upon it were post-hardcore.

[Spinless]

I heard that post-hardcore was emo.
Here's the plan. If a music genre has 'post' in it's title, it's made up bullshit. Doesn't exist. We'll deny it's existence.

Similarly, the term 'post rock' is something that has always confused me. Talk about that one now.

[a pack of wolves]

You could make a good argument for all those bands being post-hardcore, certainly. But you could also easily say that Refused weren't going beyong hardcore (and particularly not the Hardcore scene) they were just doing new things within the genre. Canvas are another one, they were most definitely part of the hardcore scene but Lost In Rock certainly isn't a typical hardcore album. Then again, like Refused they had earlier recordings that sit very undeniably within the confines of the genre. Same thing with the Blood Brothers, March On Electric Children is a record that you can call hardcore without any problems and even more so with the earlier material I've heard. Since hardcore as a genre is so closely tied to the scene that genre's created it's incredibly difficult to say when something's gone beyond that and become 'post'. And as for post-hardcore being emo as I said earlier one man's post-hardcore is another man's emo, although emo's a more useful term since in some circles there's a fairly standard definition of the kind of music it applies to. Because of all that I really do think post-hardcore's nearly useless as a means of describing the sound and context of music.

[Spinless]

Post-Hardcore is every genre created after Hardcore?

[Johnny C]

In that sense it's sort of like the difference between New Wave and Post-Punk - it's really just a different term for the same subset of music.

I dunno, the difference between Joy Division and The Police, or PiL and Duran Duran, or whatever other pair you'd care to name, is pretty concrete.

[a pack of wolves]

Post-Hardcore is a useful blanket term for tha bands that came after Hardcore.

I still don't agree. That implies that hardcore was over and that the later bands were operating in a completely different scene, which wasn't really the case. A lot of the key developments in hardcore were still to happen by '82. And if you take emocore to be equivalent to post-hardcore then post-hardcore becomes an even less valid term since emo has remained very much an element of the hardcore scene, in the '90s becoming probably the most politically left-wing and hardline DIY subgenre, keeping it very much inside the confines of DIY hardcore. How can you be post something when you're so deeply within it?

[KharBevNor]

Isn't post-hardcore where you have some DOODLY DOODLY DUM DUM DUM DUM in the middle of the CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA?

[Spinless]

Khar raises a valid point, hardcore is just CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA with no DOODLY DOODLY in it.

Basically, post-hardcore is softer music for kids who are scared of hardcore, but it's still a part of the 'hardcore' scene. This means they still get to feel cool for listenning to music that is basically just pop or something.

[greenMonkey]

Basically, post-hardcore is softer music for kids who are scared of hardcore, but it's still a part of the 'hardcore' scene. This means they still get to feel cool for listenning to music that is basically just pop or something.

Incorrect.  Proof: Ian MacKaye.  Badass hardcore kid, but also one of the major players in the development of post-hardcore.

[pilsner]

Yeah but what is The Evens?  Post-post-hardcore?  Medium-core?  Genre semantics sucks.

[greenMonkey]

Agreed.  Man, I love the Evens.  Minimalistic genre defying music FTW.

[KharBevNor]

Badass hardcore kid, but also one of the major players in the development of post-hardcore.

Oh come on, Fugazi looked like maths teachers.

[ImRonBurgundy?]

Khar raises a valid point, hardcore is just CHUGGA CHUGGA CHUGGA with no DOODLY DOODLY in it.

I thought hardcore was BOOM-CLICK-BOOM-CLICK-BOOM-CLICK-BOOM-CLICK.

By the way, I have The Blue Meanies' 1997 album Full Throttle tagged as post-hardcore, as most of it sounds to me like really really jazzy hardcore.  I don't know why I felt the need to mention this, but it's a good album.

[Ernest]

Badass hardcore kid, but also one of the major players in the development of post-hardcore.

Oh come on, Fugazi looked like maths teachers.

No, they looked like English teachers.

[imapiratearg]

Post-anything usually confuses me.  Although, one of the bands i listen to from time to time-Funeral For a Friend-is labeled post-hardcore.  The thing is though, they just sound like poppier hardcore.  So i guess that'd be what post-hardcore is?

[Melodic]

We should really just start using band names as genre labels.

[a pack of wolves]

Post-anything usually confuses me.  Although, one of the bands i listen to from time to time-Funeral For a Friend-is labeled post-hardcore.  The thing is though, they just sound like poppier hardcore.  So i guess that'd be what post-hardcore is?

No, it's not. Hoover are much less catchy than, say, Kid Dynamite. I'm afraid you've been lied to about Funeral For A Friend, much as I was when at a Leeds festival one year I decided to watch a Welsh 'post-hardcore' band who were on after Nebula. It took me about twenty minutes to fight my way out of that crowd when Lost Prophets started playing.

[a pack of wolves]

Black Flag hadn't even released My War or Slip It In by 82, so I can't really take 82 as a good cut off point. I suppose it's partly about context. I found out about all the music that could be termed emo or post-hardcore through zines like Fracture and Reason To Believe and it was always presented as very much part of the hardcore movement. To me, there was no major genre difference between Fugazi or Hoover and Gorilla Biscuits or Black Flag. They were all just classic bands that had been massively influential. Bands like Spy Versus Spy, Bob Tilton and then the harsher outfits like Orchid or Mohinder were all doing interesting things which definitely weren't derivative of Minor Threat et al but were very much still hardcore, and since I spent my teenage years getting excited over new bands and hanging around at hardcore gigs I could never understand that whole "it was over by the mid-'80s" attitude that comes across when some people who were involved in the early '80s period present.

[a pack of wolves]

I think the problem here is that we're coming from pretty different perspectives. Growing up and reading about Fugazi they weren't presented to me as being something other from the DIY hardcore scene. My War and Slip It In certainly weren't, Black Flag were presented as a massively influential hardcore band, My War probably the most influential to subsequent hardcore bands of all their recordings. What I'm getting at is that when I discovered all of this music it was seen as the roots of a hardcore scene that was very much still active and I was enthralled by. Hardcore was something alive and current to me, and Fugazi were very much regarded as a part of that. Whereas this music is in a different context for you. But if My War and Slip It In aren't hardcore, then what are they? And is hardcore a genre unable to develop like jazz and hip-hop have> And if so, why?

[MadassAlex]

I heard that post-hardcore was emo.
Here's the plan. If a music genre has 'post' in it's title, it's made up bullshit. Doesn't exist. We'll deny it's existence.

Similarly, the term 'post rock' is something that has always confused me. Talk about that one now.

Post rock is like rock, but with less vocals and more wanking off the guitar, but not as much as progressive rock. Same with post metal.

[a pack of wolves]

I see your argument, and it's a good one. I still disagree but it's basically for the reasons I already gave, so there's no point in saying it again but in more detail. But whatever you call it, the changes were a damn good idea and those records Dischord put out in the '80s and early '90s were fantastic.

[Spinless]

I seriously can't believe that you guys are seriously having a serious conversation about 'post hardcore'. I'm still not convinced that it exist.

[Ernest]

To me, Fugazi epitomizes post-hardcore as I like to think of it.  Post-anything refers to bands that took parts of a genre and tried to expand and challenge the sound, e.g. post-punk bands like Wire and Mission of Burma and post-rock bands like Slint and Mogwai.  Fugazi took hardcore and put some dub influences into it and eventually expanded their sound until they transcended hardcore entirely.  Other bands have dramatically expanded the hardcore sound like Drive Like Jehu (one of my absolute favorites) and Heroin, among others. 

[a pack of wolves]

Heroin were very important in expanding what you could do with hardcore. I love the frantic choas that screamo conjours up when it's at its best, it's just a shame that so many many bands plodded along down that route making tepid music. Screamo should never be tepid, it ought to sound like a hardcore band being kicked down a flight of stairs.

[pilsner]

I seriously can't believe that you guys are seriously having a serious conversation about 'post hardcore'. I'm still not convinced that it exist.

I'm pretty sure "post hardcore" is what you do after watching porn.  Namely: sleep.

[McTaggart]

I seriously can't believe that you guys are seriously having a serious conversation about 'post hardcore'. I'm still not convinced that it exist.

I think the fact that there is serious discussion about it validates it as a genre. Or at least a movement within the hardcore genre.

From what I gather, post hardcore is a collective term for the things that hardcore bands go on to make after they run out of angst and energy.

[Scytale]

Post-anything refers to bands that took parts of a genre and tried to expand and challenge the sound.

Interesting but I'm not sure I agree. How is what you've said any different to Progressive or Advant Garde then? Does Progressive Hardcore exist?

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in hardcore because I'm not,  but if you look in the metal world, people are trying to make a similar argument I still don't agree with it.

My understanding is the "post" tag gets whacked onto a band when they share a lot of the ideology and ethos etc of the parent genre (maybe even some of the aesthetics) but whose music is suitably different that it can no longer be considered part of that parent genre.

[Johnny C]

I seriously can't believe that you guys are seriously having a serious conversation about 'post hardcore'. I'm still not convinced that it exist.

Darryl, what are your feelings on magic?

[MadassAlex]

Interesting but I'm not sure I agree. How is what you've said any different to Progressive or Advant Garde then? Does Progressive Hardcore exist?

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in hardcore because I'm not,  but if you look in the metal world, people are trying to make a similar argument I still don't agree with it.

My understanding is the "post" tag gets whacked onto a band when they share a lot of the ideology and ethos etc of the parent genre (maybe even some of the aesthetics) but whose music is suitably different that it can no longer be considered part of that parent genre.

But post-metal and post-rock are still obviously metal and rock. They both still follow the stylisations of their parent genres but place emphasis on particular parts of the music.But remember the literal interperatation of "post" is "after", so while rock and metal have been lucky enough to get something clearly defined, other post-genres might not be so lucky.
Progressive differs because it uses a lot of musical techniques that keeps the song changing, progressing. A common joke amongst fans and haters of progressive music is that time changes define progressive music. An over-simplification, but that is a very important part of it. Avant Garde, on the other hand, is more experimental and less, for lack of a better term, progressive.

"Post" will mean different things for different genres, but the basic premise is that one aspect of the music will become the focus or that it will bear similarity while varying in one or two ways. Post-hardcore is easy to pin down because Hardcore is easily defined, but post-Metal and post-Rock are harder because of the span of those two styles of music.

[Scytale]

But post-metal and post-rock are still obviously metal and rock. They both still follow the stylisations of their parent genres but place emphasis on particular parts of the music.But remember the literal interperatation of "post" is "after", so while rock and metal have been lucky enough to get something clearly defined, other post-genres might not be so lucky.

This is where I disagree, what the fuck is it supposed to be "After" is rock finished is it done are people not making rock anymore, no, thats why its such a ridduclous tag. 

As for the first part of what you said, I don't disagree with this, these "post bands" are obvious taking an existing structure, an existing style and building upon it. It's not a new movement, their not making some hertho unheard of form of music, it's just another sub-genre, this is where the crux of my disagreement with the label "post" stems from.

As Flamming Ostrich stated, he believed Post-anything refers to bands that took parts of a genre and tried to expand and challenge the sound.

I pointed out, which was obviously lost in oversimplification, that progressive music and Advante Garde music also both attempt to do this (expand and challenge an existing set of sounds). As you demonstrated by your knowledge of those two terms both these are apt descriptions of a particular sound. What I was enquiring about is how does "post" fit into this, I honestly don't think it does saying a particular band's sound is  "after" genre X in no way describes to me how that band is "expanding and/or challenging" the existing genre's sound.

If someone tells me a particular band plays progessive rock, then I can infer they have some type of arguably innovative sound, which they achieve through reasonable technical proffiency and a strong application of musical theory.

Alternatively if someone informs me band X have an advant garde influence I can assume they will be innovative due to use of non standard (or experimental) sounds or structures in their music.

Yet when I'm told a band plays post rock, I have no idea what the hell they will sound like, the term itself is unhelpful I was seeking clarification on this, until I'm given an adaquate non contradictory discription I'll stick to my belief that the use of the word post when describing a bands sound is ridiculous...

[Spinless]

JC, I used to be into all that jazz, before Harry Potter came around. I was just learning about curses as I heard about Harry Potter. I quit magic that very second.
Good thing too, or you'd all be cursed!

[Misereatur]

when I'm told a band plays post rock, I have no idea what the hell they will sound like

Why is that a bad thing?

[Scytale]

It's not bad per-se it's just a poor;y descri[tive adjective when your trying to describe a bands sound.

[a pack of wolves]

I seriously can't believe that you guys are seriously having a serious conversation about 'post hardcore'. I'm still not convinced that it exist.

I think the fact that there is serious discussion about it validates it as a genre. Or at least a movement within the hardcore genre.

From what I gather, post hardcore is a collective term for the things that hardcore bands go on to make after they run out of angst and energy.

Not quite. That would put Fall Out Boy, New Found Glory, Hood (at one point), Avril Lavigne's band, Million Dead and Lost Prophets all under the post-hardcore umbrella. Although I disagree with a lot of what tommy said he was right about Hoover, listening to that record will give you a good idea of the sound (even if they weren't really that good a band).

[MadassAlex]

Yet when I'm told a band plays post rock, I have no idea what the hell they will sound like, the term itself is unhelpful I was seeking clarification on this, until I'm given an adaquate non contradictory discription I'll stick to my belief that the use of the word post when describing a bands sound is ridiculous...

Wiki says this and this.

The short answer is basically:

It's Progressive and it's Avant Garde... but it's not.

[Ernest]

Interesting but I'm not sure I agree. How is what you've said any different to Progressive or Advant Garde then? Does Progressive Hardcore exist?
 

Well, for example, many will argue that Slint defines the difference between progressive music and post-rock.  Progressive bands typically had very long songs, which they used either to showcase the band members' musical virtuosity or to use some pattern of sounds that few people could stand to sit through (e.g. Pink Floyd's "Echoes").  Slint had long songs, but they couldn't really be called a progressive outfit because of the vast sonic differences between Slint and most progressive bands.  The term "progressive" has become almost synonymous with "musical wankery." 

Of course, there are many similarities between Avant Garde and Progressive and post-rock.

My understanding is the "post" tag gets whacked onto a band when they share a lot of the ideology and ethos etc of the parent genre (maybe even some of the aesthetics) but whose music is suitably different that it can no longer be considered part of that parent genre.

To an extent, yes.

[Johnny C]

JC, I used to be into all that jazz, before Harry Potter came around.

I hear that was around when it turned into post-magic. I wouldn't know for sure, because I'd already decided I wanted out.

[Spinless]

JC, the post-magic kids still had credibility as they were the wizards and warlocks that were in the original magic scene, but since harry potter came around, even the post-magic kids have moved on.
The entire magic scene is popular by those stupid pop-magic retards now, with all their 'wingardiums' and 'expelliramia' bullshit. Whatever happened to making good spells with simple abras, kadabras and alakazams? Learn three simple words and you could be a wizard. I miss the good old days.

Damn kids stealing our scene eh? Bet they don't even know where the last unicorn is hidden.

[Johnny C]

See, I've moved forward with a lot of the wizards and warlocks and just embraced straight Occult. People are doing greater things in Occult. Plus it hasn't sold out yet.

[öde]

I kinda liked Darryl before he was pretentious Prog-Funny.

[Ernest]

Guys, this joke has become Post-Funny.

Post-Funny may not be as immediately accessible as Funny, but it still rocks.

[Spinless]

Real humour doesn't really exist anymore, that scene died out a long time ago. Everybody moved onto post-humour and then kind difted from that onto their own thing, each forum member is doing their own stuff now.
Humour now isn't like it was.
Humour these days is just quoting humour from the olden days. Whereas it used to require some sort of talent, now you just copy what those funny people said all those years ago. Any modern humour is just a cheap imitation of something that was cool before it was done to death.

Check it out, anybody can do humour now.

'WE ARE THE KNIGHTS WHO SAY NI!'
'Stand back! Or I'll shoot this hi (Damn, I can't quote blazing saddles...)!'
'I need my johnson!'

Man, I don't even remember what 'real' humour is.

[Johnny C]

I try to stick to the roots of Post-Humour though. I'm thinking of starting a Post-Humour revival act.

[Spinless]

I don't know, the whole post-humour movement got a pretty huge backlash when it started getting popular, lots of threads got locked before their time. I guess it'd be considered 'ironic' to like post-humour now or something, so maybe we're safe?

[Ernest]

Humour these days is just quoting humour from the olden days.