Youth Crew

Youth crew is a music subgenre of hardcore punk attributed to the band Youth of Today who were primarily active during the early to mid-1980s particularly during the New York hardcore scene of 1988. Youth crew is distinguished from other hardcore and punk scenes by its anger, optimism, mesomorphic, fraternal machismo and bombastic moralist outlook as well as its New York "thug rock" hardcore sound. The original youth crew bands and fans were predominantly straight edge youth and occasional vegetarian advocates. Some of the later spin-off bands delved further into ascetic spiritual (particularly Hare Krishna) and political interests.

Early musical influences included Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Negative Approach, Cro-Mags and Agnostic Front. While some youth crew music is similar to melodic hardcore, youth crew also includes breakdowns intended for the hardcore dancing style associated with live performances. Youth of Today was a very thrashy youth crew band, with abrasive vocals and fast songs too short to include a lot of melody (similar to early Agnostic Front, and contrasting with the other big New York City youth crew band, Gorilla Biscuits). Later youth crew bands took increasing influence from heavy metal.