The Power Of Positive Thinking

If you're really into a hardcore band, you will sooner or later stumble across the bands your favourite band has been influenced by. Thank you lists, cover songs, rip-off art for shirts or records, you name it. Now, I love Good Clean Fun, so I was bound to stumble across Cruical Youth at some point. Come to think of it, I think GCF did everything on the list I just came up with.
Anyway, I got Crucial Youth's Posi-Machine LP a few years ago and now I picked up their 2nd LP The Power Of Positive Thinking. Actually it's more a compilation since most of the songs were previously released on the Posi-Machine LP with a couple of live songs strewn in on the B-side, but all in all it's nothing new. It even comes with the same comic/lyrics booklet (except for the cover art). Now, I didn't check on this fact before, but I would have bought the record anyway most likely, because I really dig the artwork too. This is something I greatly admire about this band. They really put in great effort with the artwork and the booklet that comes with both LPs.
Crucial Youth were this over the top posi-core band, and from what I read they caught a lot of shit for what they were doing, because many straight edge kids thought they were dragging the good name of straight edge through the mud and I think that the members were also accused of not being edge at all if I remember correctly. I don't know about that, but I think this is a good parody one way or the other. Hardcore and straight edge kids often take themselves and their music too seriously, so I think a nice dose of humour is sometimes needed as some sort of reality check.

The first 1,500 copies came with the booklet, so there are at least 1,500 copies. There's also a limited version with blank labels and numbered out of 100.



I bought the All Twisted 7" from the same seller. Both songs, All Twisted and Do Something, are also featured on CIV's first LP, but I still had the need to pick this up. I really like the early CIV material. There's some sticker residue on the cover, but nothing I can't live with.

Last but not least, I also picked up Four Walls Falling's European Release. The title is a little weird and I have no idea why it was picked. All three songs were later also featured on their 2nd LP Food For Worms, so maybe this was a special pre-release only available in Europe? Just conjecture here. I love Culture Shock a great deal, and I think it's highly underrated, so I knew I had to get some more Four Walls Falling releases at some point. I think these songs are still really good, but not as great as the ones on the first LP. The lyrics are still outstanding and really set this band apart from many other bands from that era. Will pick up their other releases at some point in the future.