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Zophael979 (USA):
There was always something that gave me sort of an aversion to listening to Minor Threat. Maybe it was because they were a hardcore band. Sure, there was some good hardcore punk back in the late 70s/early 80s (judging by all the early Black Flag, early Circle Jerks, Agent Orange, and the handful of Dead Kennedys songs I heard...that's pretty much 85% of the hardcore I've heard with the other 15% being random bands I can't remember), but the scene definitely devolved. The idea of listening to some young guy banging on two chords and shouting about nuclear annihilation or the evils of Ronald Reagan or some other thing he doesn't have a clue about never really appealed to me. Most of my favorites bands that came out of the late 70s/early 80s punk scene became great by NOT following the almost militant rules of hardcore. I'll take melody over primitive fury almost any day. When I do need primitive fury, I usually just pop in my copy of Fun House anyway.

Then there was the "straight edge" thing that put me off. I'm not at all into drugs and I rarely drink, but I've always hated the idea of following rules for it. The phrase "Be a nonconformist like all your friends!" comes to mind. If truth be told in Our Band Could Be Your Life, the whole thing started because many of the band's audience members were too young to drink anyway and they felt they could be cooler by labeling drinking "uncool". To this, I say "meh".

The thing about Minor Threat's whole body of work, though, is that it captures the story of this scene perfectly. Ian MacKaye was better than most of the other hardcore songwriters because he wrote about what he knew rather than what he didn't know. He never touched on politics while he was with Minor Threat (he saved that for Fugazi...then again I've never heard Embrace, so I could be wrong). You could say what you want about Ian (and you could have a lot to say after reading about the final days of the band in Our Band Could Be Your Life), but he had the gift he being a resonant songwriter. Read the lyrics in the booklet and you'll find something in there, if not a whole lot, that says something about your life. Musically, the band also progressed noticeably in their three and a half year lifespan and that's always a plus. Altogether, Minor Threat's Complete Discography is a rock opera. Not only that, it's an autobiographical rock opera. I realize my opinion isn't very conventional and that most of the band's "punk rawk" fanbase doesn't like the idea of something as pretentious as a rock opera being applied to a now legendary band like Minor Threat, but essentially a rock opera tells a story and a story is definitely told on this record. It's almost as if it's scripted.

The first record, the eight song Minor Threat EP, is one of the great little short playing hardcore records, along with Black Flag's Nervous Breakdown and the Circle Jerks' Group Sex (remember by lack of Dead Kennedys knowledge...I know Fresh Fruit is considered a classic, but I'm unaware of any seminal hardcore EP they might have). The songs capture MacKaye and the rest of the band at their youngest, most idealistic stage. Ian rages only against external enemies. There's the stupid friend who gets too caught up in his girlfriend and his religion in "Filler". We also have trash talkers, both big ("I don't wanna hear it"), small ("Small Man, Big Mouth"), and violent ("Seeing Red"). We have the song "Straight Edge", which Ian then had no idea would become a creed. There's "Screaming at a Wall", which is notable for it's tempo shift, and "Bottled Violence", which rages against drunks who find themselves apologizing too much in the morning. The best song, as far as I'm concerned, is "Minor Threat", which asks us not to grow up too fast, making a play on the meaning of the band's name (them being minors when they started the band and all). All the songs are hard, fast, and simple. They go by like little blurs. The In My Eyes EP is mostly more of the same. Ian feeds the fire of straight edge with the preachy sounding "Out of Step", rages against racism with the often wrongly interpreted "Guilty of Being White", and the band delivers a fine version of "Stepping Stone" (which is a song pretty much every early 80s punk band did). The most notable thing, though, is the title track, which is an indie rock classic (nevermind hardcore punk). It starts off with a great drum intro, joined soon by the bassline and guitar. Ian turns in one of his best vocal performances and sets of lyrics, painting the picture of a whiny, moping, and chronically conforming friend (haven't we all had one?) and then undercutting his complaints with what the narrator perceives to be the truth ("You tell me that I'm better/You just hate yourself/You tell me that you like her/You just wish you did"). The tempo shifts from slow and grungey to a fast punk chorus. An inkling of how good the band could really be.

Out of Step, the band's first and only full length album (and it isn't really all that long), was a great album and a definite step forward for the band. Or a step backward perhaps. This one sounds like a classic '77 era punk albums through and through rather than the speedy hardcore of the debut. There's two guitars here instead of one, since they got a new bassist and the original bassist got to move to guitar. Lyrically, they reflect how Ian felt at the time and how the hardcore punk scene actually turned out. The band had broken for a while and when they got back together, things were never quite the same as before. They were charged with being sellouts for getting back together. This is how petty and elitist the scene had become over the course of a year. There were internal tensions between the band, partially because of the dissolving friendship between Ian and drummer Jeff Nelson (the two had been bandmates since The Teen Idles). The hardcore scene, which Ian had looked to as an alternative to the gossip, peer pressure, and all around bullshit he had hated before, had become saturated with it. All of this is reflected in the songs on Out of Step. Most of them cover Ian's reactions to the things I just discussed above. Needless to say, it's a pretty pissed off sounding record and probably has more oblique kiss offs than Nirvana's In Utero. Sometimes Ian sounds firm in his convictions and other times he sounds like a confused guy throwing sloppy punches at all around him. It makes for some interesting drama. It's almost cinematic. A guy leaves home and comes back to finds everything sucks. However, listening to the guy, there's little doubt that this is how he really felt (as opposed to In Utero which could just be lots of uber-hateful crap). This record sounds like it could've been banged out next door to the same studio where the Clash were banging out their debut, but it also points the way to the whole "emo-punk" thing that future skater kids and punkers/hipsters in search of a new "big thing" would gravitate towards. The final song, "Cashing In", may be the funniest. Here the band takes their harshest critics to task and points out just how stupid they are by agreeing with everything they said...in the most sarcastic way possible, though. The music, strangely, is mid tempo and actually melodic. Ian pretty much sums up the meaning of the whole album with the final couplet "There's no place like home/So where am I?"

After "Stumped", which sounds like a demo and has a great groove, we're treated to the final single. Their cover of "Good Guy's Don't Wear White" is great. It's driven by acoustic guitars (!) and has a great garage rock bend to it (ala Husker Du's cover of "Sunshine Superman"). The final Minor Threat song, "Salad Days", serves as the final denouncement to the hardcore scene. Minor Threat, like Husker Du and other bands, had grown tired of the eliteness of it and the narrow musical view. The song has a new wavish sort of intro and the sadder parts are punctuated by acoustic guitars. Make no mistake, though, it's still a straight forward punk song. Ian alternates between inspired lines like "I stay on, I stay on/So where do I get off?" and "Too many voices/They've made me mute" and muttering to himself and acting out a conversation with someone else (or maybe having a conversation with himself) about the good old days. Sadly, he admits "We're all waiting for the moment/but it's not coming back" and concludes "ah the good old days/what a fucking lie". By this time, a schism had errupted between Ian and the rest of the band over musical direction. The other guys wanted to adopt a U2ish sort of sound and sign to a major, while Ian knew he wasn't technically good enough to sing those songs and had no interest in their direction whatsoever. Thus the band imploded and that was that. Some may call the whole thing pretty self indulgent on Ian's part, but while the songs were pretty personal, he wrote them in a way that was resonant to other people. There are no "ripped from the pages of a journal" screeds here.

Quite the interesting story, isn't it? Of all the bands covered in Azzered's book, Minor Threat seems to be the only one whose music closely follows the story of the band. Minor Threat was a band powerful in their velocity, but also powerful in the sadness caused by crushed ideals, splintered friendships, and general disillusionment. Pretty good for a bunch of punk rock records, huh? If I have any criticism, it's that the whole thing is a bit much. The first half of the album comes off as one big blur and there's a few additions and songs that I don't really care for. The band had the potential to grow completely out of hardcore and becomes a prime alternative band, but never really lasted long enough to. For my money, Mission of Burma were around for roughly the same length of time, but their releases left a bit more of an impression on me. That's just my personal crap though. Also, sometimes it takes a certain mood to listen to this and the whole range of this may be a bit too vast, despite being less than fifty minutes long. It's hard to grade a compilation, but I think I'll concur with your 8.5. It seems like a reasonable enough grade.