ABSTRACT
Straight-edge is a musical (and life-) style centered on rejecting drugs, alcohol, and (in some cases) meat-eating. The term comes from a song entitled “Straight Edge,” by the early-1980s Washington, D.C., hardcore punk band Minor Threat. Although Minor Threat broke up in 1984, straight-edge did not end. To the contrary, it has become an international subculture. In this chapter I will compare straightedge in the United States with European straight-edge, focusing on influential bands from the 1980s and 1990s. Like bands in the larger punk subculture from which straight-edge emerged, straight-edge bands voiced dissatisfaction with society’s mainstream. The specific sources of this dissatisfaction differed, however, for straight-edge bands in the United States in comparison to their European counterparts. US straight-edge bands emphasized issues of personal morality and individual choice (particularly abstinence from drugs and alcohol) as central to the subculture. In contrast, in Europe a leftist, Marxian brand of straight-edge emerged in many of the most influential bands of that period.
