Straight Edge Hardcore

Straight edge hardcore is the abstinent wing of American hardcore punk, founded on the pledge — no alcohol, no drugs, no casual sex — that *Minor Threat* named in the 1981 song "Straight Edge". Musically it favours short, fast, shouted songs, gang-chant choruses and metallic breakdowns, played first by Washington, DC and Boston bands and codified in the late 1980s by New York's youth crew movement around *Youth of Today* and *Gorilla Biscuits*. The X-marked hand became its emblem, and its ethic later spawned militant and vegan straight edge currents within 1990s hardcore.