-core Is the Suffix of Our

Time
The word form that named dozens of artistic
genres has deep Washington roots.
By Britt Peterson | April 7, 2015
Emocore pioneers Rites of
Spring at DCs Food for
Thought in 1985. Photograph by
Bert Queiroz
It was about 30 years ago
that hardcorethen a
warning about a category of
punk or pornography
began to split apart, and its
ending, -core, became a
way to assign authenticity to
a host of new musical genres
from rock to dance music to
hip-hop. But as we discovered grindcore, thrashcore, skacore, breakcore, raggacore,
crunkcore, and so on, -core lost its hardnessand, in its ubiquity, became a popculture wink.
Washington was a crucial stop on the -core journey. When punk first thrived here in
the late 1970s, musicians like Ian MacKaye, of the bands Minor Threat and Fugazi, and
his fellow Glover Park punk Henry Rollins used hardcore to set it apart from
mainstream punk, which had gone commercial. If you were hardcore (or even harDCore),
says Mark Andersen, coauthor of Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the
Nations Capital, you were deeply committed, to rage-filled music and an
anti-corporate ethos.
Soon after that came DCs own emocore. During the so-called Revolution Summer
of 1985, local bands such as Rites of Spring sought a more vulnerable alternative to
hardcore. Lyrically, it was really introspective and poetic at times, says Scott
Crawford, director of Salad Days, a new documentary on DCs hardcore scene.
Brian Baker of Minor Threat is often credited with dubbing the new sound emocore
in 1985; soon thereafter, MacKaye called it the stupidest thing I ever heard.
Nonetheless, emocore spread worldwide as a descriptor of a style of dress and even
behavior. Bakers original acerbity has been retainedas when Crawfords kids
caution him, Dad, dont get all emo.

Its the undercutting tone of emocore that has come forward to our moment.
Sadcoredescribing the plangent sounds of Joy Division, the film genre
mumblecore, and the musical varieties Nintendocore and piratecoreaffectionately
tweaks its over-serious practitioners. Normcore and slobcore apply,
respectively, to an art-school fashion twist on L.L. Bean jeans and to not showering.
The commercialism despised by DCs hardcore scene has caught up to -core,
particularly its use by inventors of expensive fitness classes. Anne Mahlum, owner of
Washingtons own Solidcore, says: Core, to me, means the center and the
essence of something or someone. When she devised the name, Mahlum adds, she was
unaware of the words harDCore history.
This article appears in our April 2015 issue of Washingtonian.