#345: Minor Threat - Out of Step (1983)

Emily: I was actually really excited to listen to this album. I'm a big Foo Fighters fan, and Ian MacKaye, Minor Threat, and the DC hardcore/punk scene that they helped to form were a big part of a biography about Dave Grohl I read last year. Grohl was a few years younger than those guys and lived in the DC area, so that scene was where he really started out. Ian MacKaye was also instrumental in running a label for the scene that released the EPs and albums of tons of DC artists in the '80s, including Grohl's first bands. Before that, though, came Minor Threat. The band was only around for two years before MacKaye moved on to other projects (like the label and his subsequent band Fugazi), but in that short time they had a big impact on hardcore music. Out of Step shows why. It's an 18-minute long album of 8 fast-paced, hard-driving songs that embody the '80s hardcore punk sound. It's over almost as soon as it started, but in that short time it packs a wallop of sound and fury.
Favorite Tracks: Look Back and Laugh; Betray; Little Friend

Zack: Minor Threat had a lot of things working against them in terms of getting me to appreciate this album. For one, they were one of the progenitors of the hardcore punk movement, which is probably my least favorite flavor of punk, perhaps only trailing cowpunk. I kid, cowpunk is awesome. Besides that, they are also essentially for popularizing the straight edge movement, which means they also created a whole army of people in high school who really annoyed me. But Minor Threat avoided garnering a third strike by turning out a really solid album. Out of Step is everything you want from punk album: fast, loud, political, and really, really fast. It blasts out of the gate and sprints for 18 minutes. It is exactly as advertised, which I really appreciate. In general, I would still rather listen to punk rock from the 70s or punk rock revival from the 90s/00s than just about any hardcore album from the 80s, but if this is your thing then you can’t do much better than Out of Step.

Favorite Tracks: Look Back and Laugh; It Follows; Little Friend