Holly Dicker: Dance Or Die — A History of Hardcore

What is hardcore? It means many things to many people, and they’re all correct. It’s best described as a feeling, an attitude, a way of life. Hardcore began as an apocalyptic vision of the ‘phuture’ that has since come to pass, and a do it yourself rave movement that never stopped or backed down. Hardcore is revolutionary and underground – and a mass marketed phenomenon that refuses to die, because hardcore will never die. Its symbols have been tattooed onto millions of bodies, and its relics passed down through generations. This book tracks those outsider youth who banded together en masse, as a crew, to party in protest, on ecstasy, in rage and escape, as a nighttime community, more family than family, who need this hard, loud, fast/slow, aggressive, noisy (occasionally silly) kickdrum and breakbeat music to connect with people, to survive the world, and get through the week. Hardcore: Either you’re in, or you’re out. And if you’re in, you’re in all the way, diehard and dancing to the death. Dance or Die!