EVERY GENRE PROJECT - February 14 - D-Beat

Genre of the Day - D-Beat

Album of the Day - Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing by Discharge (1982)

I am, for the first time in the history of this column, beginning the writing process before approximately 6 PM. Truthfully, most of the time I’m up writing this as the last thing I do before bed, which is why I’ve been hitting my subscribers with casual emails at 3:44 AM. But times and the status quo must change for positive results, as punk and today’s album argue. And I also have an oceanography midterm tomorrow, so there is an academic imperative at hand as much as there’s a get-my-shit-together one. 

Today’s genre is our first revisit to the world of punk in a long time since perhaps mathcore (although that’s much more metal) and of course glam punk all the way in the first week of this column. But a bit like yesterday, this particular strand of punk is one with an undying loyalty to a particular drum pattern, which I find particularly interesting. Before this project, I feel like I just didn’t consciously think about the percussion in a song and took its presence for granted, but seeing that the particularities of percussion drive entire genres and people’s livelihoods as musicians has put the drummer’s choices more at the forefront of my mind as a listener. 

Obviously, aggressive but complex drumming is an essential ingredient of punk music, providing an anchor to the impassioned vocals and swirls of guitar, so it’s understandable that unique drumming helps a band stand out. Discharge’s drumming, though, was iconic but imitable enough to spawn a whole ton of sons in its wake and get an entire beat and genre named after them—D-beat. It features a complex syncopation of the hi-hats and snares (it’s crazy there can be so many distinct patterns out of just a few ingredients, because on paper isn’t that literally just trap?) and looks something like this. Bupp, u-dupp, u-dupp. Maybe the drum world needs to work on onomatopoeia precision.

As much as D-beat relies on a particular drumming sound, its pairs the sound with lyrics of protest, rage, and doom. The guitar is absolutely ripping across this entire album, but still felt relatively accessible in my journey of learning more about punk and metal. Vocalist Cal Morris has the perfect raw voice that can soar above the thrash of guitar while still remaining defiant. In terms of lyrical content, I’m a bit divided in my opinion. Metal is already so raw, the music a protest against the norms of rock music historically, that simply instrumentally it can constitute an implicit protest against the powers that be. But whether lyrics occasionally as non-specific as on many tracks on this album can elevate it to explicit protest music is my only bone to pick here. “I Won’t Subscribe” features some great, to the point lyricism, and the samples of nuclear specter and screams render the message of capitalist and greed-rot induced apocalypse clearly well. But a three line song like “The Blood Runs Red” makes me raise an eyebrow of whether the impact can match the ambition. Either way, Discharge still has D-beat to its name; who else can say that?