Music Sound

Melodic hardcore is a subgenre of hardcore punk. It is more melodic with less fury than traditional hardcore. Melodic hardcore is not emo, nor pop punk, rather having an emphasis on melody, nonetheless some bands share common scene origins as emo and pop punk bands.

Hüsker Dü are the most influential melodic hardcore band, they combine the speed, wall-of-sound guitars and aggression of hardcore with melody. Hüsker Dü has been cited as one of the influences on emo, but this topic is debatable.

Dag Nasty is another touchstone band (usually wrongly categorized as "emo"), hailing from DC, in the mid 1980s, with Dave Smalley of Boston's DYS on vocals and Brian Baker (ex-Minor Threat on guitar, Dag Nasty's sound was an extension of the direction Minor Threat was proceeding with the Out Of Step lp before they broke up.

Gorilla Biscuits came out of the late 80s youth crew straight edge scene, and while they were initially just one of many Youth Of Today clones of the era, albeit sounding a little more like Side By Side, they eventually matured into an unstoppable force with the release of the seminal "Start Today" album -- echos of which are still being felt in today's post-hardcore and modern emo scenes. In some ways Gorilla Biscuits paved the way for post-hardcore, as the guitarist Schreifels went on to start one of the defining post hardcore bands with Quicksand, Moondog, writing music for the Civ project as well as his own World's Fastest Car, Walter & The Motorycycles, Rival Schools and Walking Concert bands.

Hailing from New Jersey, Turning Point was also under the influence of Youth of Today style youth crew hardcore, but by the time they had passed their demo and first 7" growing pains, their later era material (the lp and on) is the perfect defining moment of this sound melodic hardcore sound. These records were to be a direct influence on other New Jersey bands like Lifetime.

Many of these melodic hardcore bands are what form part of the sound that has become known as pop hardcore and modern instances of emo (as much of a misnomer as that term has come to be). See 21st Century Emo.

Defining musical characteristics

The recognizable element of hardcore (and later in post-hardcore) is what is usually called the "octave chord". This is what creates that resonating octave higher melody line that follows the power chords. This style is not exlusive in its usage to melodic hardcore bands (ie NOFX uses it) although it is a defining sound of this genre. Again, many "modern emo" bands have adopted the usage of octave chords as well.

Emo guitar players also rely heavily on minor seventh & minor ninth chords used in combination with an open string modal playing style. This style was probably picked up from Alex Lifeson (Freewill), extended by Brian Baker in Dag Nasty (Values Here) and fully realized by Dan Yemin with his work in Lifetime.

To create the perfect melodic hardcore sound, these bands usually use Gibson SG guitars with a Marshall half-stack. Baker, however used a Roland Jazz Chorus 120 and Yemin typically played a Fender Stratocaster through a Crate amplifier.

List of melodic hardcore bands

A list of melodic hardcore bands. Some are influences, some are influenced. Some have been unjustly labeled as emo, some evolved into "modern emo" (21st Century Emo).'

On Own Terms
American Standard
A Wilhelm Scream
Bad Religion
Common Ground
chapter 13
Kid Dynamite
Lifetime
Marginal Man
Rise Against
Shades Apart
Turning Point
Uniform Choice
Unity
Death Is Not Glamorous
Vision
In Reach
Strike Anywhere
Dag Nasty
Gorilla Biscuits
Ignite
Speak 714
Strung Out
The Killing Flame
Thursday
The Assistant
You And I
Good Riddance
No Trigger
Crime in Stereo

Punk rock
Anarcho-punk - Anti-folk - Crust punk - Garage punk - Hardcore - Post-hardcore - Horror punk - New Wave - No Wave - Noise rock - Oi! - Pop punk - Post-punk - Psychobilly - Riot grrrl - Ska punk - Streetpunk - Two Tone