Florida, even today, really isn’t the greatest place unless you’re a retired doctor, white trash or a vacationing, fake tanned business trollop. That being said, the relative isolation that such places in the panhandle afforded during the hardcore days offered up a setting for bands to make a run at developing unique styles. That’s not what wound up happening, but it could have. You know.
Either way, Hated Youth haven’t become the most revered performers from early eighties hardcore stuff. But the scant recordings associated with the band do add a bit of tossed off flair to a movement which quickly got over-run with tough guys – even the HY guys, figured that much.
The only release to feature Hated Youth without splitting the bill was its seven inch Hardcore Rules. Its title should hint at the level of musicianship spread out over eleven minutes and as many songs. Glad you did the math – there’s nothing on here getting to two minutes, with a few not even making it to the one minute mark. Of course, the form doesn’t ask for more than that. And really, if you can say all that needs saying in twenty one seconds, there’s no real reason to carry one.
“Army Dad,” that insanely short song, doesn’t create new avenues for the genre and probably only approximates the pacings some Boston bands toyed with, but coming so early in the eighties, the song and the rest of this single really count as the proper foundation on which independent music in Florida rests.
More likely than not, most punkers down there don’t have an ear to Hated Youth. But what’s remarkable, apart from these kids truly doing it for themselves, is how tough they sounded while not being legally able to buy cigarettes. So, even if you’re of the (wrong headed) opinion that hardcore doesn’t rule, it stinks. Hated Youth is more important the pretty much anything you’ll wind up accomplishing. And you’re over eighteen.