Minor Threat was an American hardcore punk band that formed in Washington, D.C. in 1980 and disbanded in 1983. Despite being so short-lived, the band had a strong influence on the hardcore punk music scene.
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Minor Threat was an American hardcore punk band that formed in Washington, D.C. in 1980 and disbanded in 1983. Despite being so short-lived, the band had a strong influence on the hardcore punk music scene.
Minor Threat's song "Straight Edge" became the eventual basis of the straight edge movement, while the band often professed their own "straight edge" ideals. Allmusic referred to Minor Threat's music as "iconic," and have noted that their "groundbreaking" music "has held up better than of most of their contemporaries."
Along with the fellow Washington DC hardcore band Bad Brains, Minor Threat set the standard for many hardcore punk bands in the 1980s and 1990s. They produced short, often astonishingly fast songs, eventually with high production quality, which at the time was lacking in most punk and alternative rock. All of Minor Threat's records were released on Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson's own Dischord Records label.
Early years
"Straight Edge" a song on the first EP, helped to inspire the straight edge movement. The song seemed to be a call for abstinence from alcohol and other drugs— a new thing in rock music, which initially found a small, but dedicated following. Other prominent groups that subsequently advocated the straight edge stance included SS Decontrol and 7 Seconds.
Another Minor Threat song from the second EP, "Out of Step", further demonstrates the belief: "Don't smoke/Don't drink/Don't fuck/At least I can fucking think/I can't keep up/I'm out of step with the world." The "I" in the lyrics was only implied (mainly because it didn't quite fit the rhythm of the song), and some in Minor Threat -- Jeff Nelson in particular -- took exception to what they saw as MacKaye's imperious attitude on the song.
Minor Threat's song "Guilty of Being White" led to some accusations of racism, but MacKaye has strongly denied such intentions and said that some listeners misinterpreted his words. The song was inspired by his experiences at Wilson high school, which had a 70 percent black student population, where he and his friends would get picked on by black students on a regular basis. Slayer later covered the song, with the last iteration of the lyric "Guilty of being white" changed to "Guilty of being right." In an interview MacKaye has stated that he was offended that some perceived racist overtones in the lyrics; "To me, at the time and now, it seemed clear it's an antiracist song, of course, it didn't occur to me at the time I wrote it that anybody outside of my twenty or thirty friends who I was singing to would ever have to actually ponder the lyrics or even consider them."
Hiatus
In the time between the release of the band's second seven inch EP and the Out of Step record the band briefly split when guitarist Lyle Preslar moved to Illinois for college – during his semester at Northwestern University, Preslar was a member of Big Black for a few tempestuous rehearsals. During this same period, MacKaye and Nelson put together a studio-only project called Skewbald/Grand Union; in a reflection of the slowly increasing disagreements between the two musicians, they were unable to decide on one name.
