Stolen Youth bass player Matt "Footy" Horvath delivers his top five releases from the Dischord Records catalog:
Doing my top 5 releases from Dischord was fairly hard because of the amount of great releases they have had over the 30 plus years of releasing records, especially with bands releasing multiple albums worthy of a top 5 position, including compilations of multiple releases.
1. MINOR THREAT – Complete Discography
Thankfully all the Minor Threat releases came out as one package so I can easily slot this in at number 1, instead of having all Minor Threat releases in my top 5. I remember the first time I heard Minor Threat and it was the song “Filler”. This caught me straight away and I have been in love with the band ever since. Minor Threat are such an important band and they have had a huge influence on my life, how I live, my musical tastes, how I conduct business and so much more. I have a huge amount of respect for Ian Mackaye and everything he has done and I am sure there are a lot of people around the world that can relate to this. These lot of recordings defined a sound that stood the test of time and that have also influenced so many bands and like minded people through the decades.
2. FUGAZI – 13 Songs
When I was a young punk that only listened to fast melodic punk, I bought a Fugazi album out of recommendation and after listening to it once and totally not getting it I shelved it. A couple of years later I dusted it off and chucked it on the player again. I felt like hitting myself for wasting those years for not listening to Fugazi. I went out and bought their back catalogue and I loved it all. It was hard to chose what album to put in to the top 5, however the recording that I always keep going back to is “13 Songs”. Fugazi were very much ahead of their time and, much like Minor Threat, musically and lyrically inspired me.
3. DAG NASTY – Can I Say
This is an album that I bought when I was relatively young and remember thinking as I was listening to it “I’ve heard this band covering this song” and “This is another song that has been covered”, so I knew a heap of the songs before I even realised that it was Dag Nasty. Can I Say is close to the perfect fast/melodic punk/hardcore album and it gets me excited every time I listen to it. I am a big Dave Smalley fan and unfortunately I never liked there later albums, but I forever keep going back to “Can I Say”. In addition, Im not usually a fan of live recordings however the remastered version with the bonus live tracks really capture the raw live energy of the songs and I enjoy listening to those as well.
4. FAITH / VOID – Split
There aren’t too many splits that really stand the test of time, however this is one of those great recordings that will be remembered forever. These recordings capture that early DC sound perfectly and is a great reflection of early 80’s hardcore/punk. The songs are raw, fast and energetic. This is one of those releases I took a punt on purchasing from a secondhand record store because it was cheap and it was on Dischord. Whoever sold it originally is an idiot.