Chapter 14: “Straight Edge” by Minor Threat

No one could have predicted that Minor Threat’s 46-second song, published in 1981, would spawn a worldwide movement of clean-living youth that still resonates over thirty years later. In fact, the idea that not smoking, drinking, doing drugs, and having casual sex would appeal to youth must have seemed preposterous following the hedonistic hippie and disco scenes of the 1960s and 1970s. The counterculture encouraged experimentation of all kinds, and bands such as the Velvet Underground made even heroin seem at once dangerous and sexy. Yet this song, born amidst a hardcore revolution, continues to inspire tens of thousands of people across the world, despite little promotion and almost no airplay. “Straight edge” (MacKaye, 1981) shows the powerful potential of music beyond moving people to dance to actually moving people to action.