When I was in high school, I was pretty into straight edge. I was kind of a dick about it, actually. I thought Minor Threat ruled the world, and I thought that all straight edge bands would sound like them. So when I bought the Youth Of Today Break Down the Walls album from the now long-defunct Northern Lights Music in Minneapolis, I thought I knew what I was getting into. It was actually the first LP I ever bought, so clearly I had a lot to learn.
On the first listen, I have to admit I was disappointed. “What the fuck is this?” I thought. These dudes sounded like shitty jock metal to me.
This was back in 1994, long before the internet was available to vet any music you considered buying, so all I had to go on was the giant Xs on the band’s hands and what a bunch of S.H.A.R.P.s that were hanging around had told me.
“This is the shit,” they assured me, but I found it anything but. That same day, I also bought Bikini Kill’s Pussy Whipped on cassette. Predictably, the S.H.A.R.P.s weren’t quite as stoked about that one.
Break Down the Walls was my first real dive into the risks you took when buying records before you could preview everything online (certainly not the last, though). But the front cover was so cool with all those Xs and wild crowds! On paper, it should have been the coolest thing in the world, but I guess I wasn’t ready for it.
It took me a while to come back to Youth Of Today. Over the years I would even badmouth them to people, telling them how much they sucked. I’m not sure when I put that record back on again for another chance, but holy shit was I wrong about it. I guess it took me a few years to hear lots of other shittier punk and hardcore to really appreciate what these Youth Crew maniacs were slinging. Thankfully, being wrong about something when you’re seventeen isn’t the worst sin in the world.
I haven’t been straight edge in almost 20 years, but I still love good old-fashioned sXe hardcore. My version of Can’t Close My Eyes is a repress of the original 1988 album plus a handful of various tracks from other recordings. A number of these songs are also on Break Down the Walls, but I like them better here. It’s a much rawer recording, which is something I always prefer to “slick” production. I kind of wish I had heard this stuff before I heard BDTW. Maybe I would have been singing Youth of Today’s praises for all those years instead of all that shit-talking.
Please forgive my ignorance.
James is a writer, skateboarder, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.