I'm Not In This Alone

I‘M BACK! I‘d been thinking about restarting this blog for quite a while. Five years is a long time to take a break and it feels even longer to be honest. To say a lot has happened in those five years would be an understatement... 

The main reason why I stopped doing this blog was that I had become a dad in 2017, and between learning how to be responsible for another human being and being super busy at a new job, which then got even more stressful because of the pandemic, there was just no time to keep the blog running the way I wanted to. 

Lately however, I‘ve been feeling like I need another creative outlet. I‘m aware that doing a blog is not exactly the most creative thing to do in the world. I also have no idea if people are still into reading blogs, especially about niche topics like collecting hardcore and punk records. Having said that, I like the writing aspect of doing a blog and of course I get to chronicle my musical journey once again. So even if no one else reads this blog, it will be a nice thing I'm doing for myself.

Among the many things that happened during the last five years were two moves within the last three years, but now we‘re settled in permanently - at least I hope so - and after setting up my office/record room, I‘ve been listening to records again a lot more. Our son is now at an age where he doesn’t require attention all the time, which allows my wife and myself to pursue more hobbies of our own again. 

The collecting aspect might have changed for me a little bit, but my love for records and hardcore/punk never went away. Listening, sorting/filing, buying, or just searching for records - I simply like to interact with records in all kinds of ways, so restarting this blog seemed like the next logical step. 

Not blogging about the records I bought in the last five years obviously presents me with quite a backlog, but I‘m not going to post all of the records I bought since I stopped writing here. Couldn‘t if I wanted to to be honest. I can track the purchases of the last couple of months, so this will be my starting point. 

When I stopped doing my blog in 2018, I wasn‘t the biggest Youth Of Today fan. I always liked the message, the style and the music, but Ray Cappo‘s voice was always hard to get into for me. Well, things change with time and I‘m now fully on board with YOT. I even started collecting different versions. While I‘d love to get an original copy of Break Down The Walls on that amazing shade of blue, I‘m also realist enough to realize that this particular record is way out of my price range. But collecting the different covers of YOT releases has been a lot of fun. This might be my favourite version of We‘re Not In This Alone. I really like the blue and yellow sleeve. Plus, I like the layout on the back cover better than the Caroline version that has the same artwork, albeit in a different color.