Hardcore Music Ontologies.

This article examines the ontological frameworks used to understand hardcore punk music, arguing that prevailing recording-centered and performance-centered theories inadequately capture the complexity of hardcore art practices. It highlights how hardcore challenges recording-centered ontologies by emphasizing the materiality of recordings—including album art, packaging, and physical interaction with media—as integral to the artwork, reflecting the DIY ethos and radical opposition characteristic of the genre. Simultaneously, it critiques performance-centered ontologies for narrowly defining performance as mere sound playback, advocating instead for a broader conception that includes extramusical elements such as audience interaction, stage behavior, and community norms, which are essential to hardcore’s live experience. The article concludes that hardcore’s multifaceted artistic practices call for more nuanced ontological models that respect the tradition’s embodied, material, and social dimensions, with implications extending beyond hardcore to other musical and artistic forms.