We're Not in This Alone

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We're Not In This Alone
We're Not In This Alone cover
Studio album by Youth of Today
Released 1988
Recorded 1988
Genre Hardcore punk
Length 19:58
Label Caroline Records
Producer John Porcelly
Professional reviews
Youth of Today chronology
Break Down the Walls
(1987)		 We're Not In This Alone
(1988)		 Youth of Today EP
(1990)

We're Not In This Alone is the third and final full-length studio album by New York hardcore punk band Youth of Today. It was originally released by Caroline Records in 1988.

Youth of Today had broken up briefly in 1988, with lead singer and co-founder Ray Cappo briefly relocating to India to pursue his interest in Hare Krishna, while guitarist and co-founder Porcell (John Porcelly) got out his frustrations with both the breakup of the band and what he saw as negative elements in the scene, with the project band Project X, and with Judge. The breakup was short-lived; the group reconvened with former WarZone bassist Walter Schriefels and drummer Sammy Siegler not long afterward, hence Cappo's declaration of "We're back!" at the beginning of the album's opening track, "Flame Still Burns".

One notable track, "No More", is a condemnation of the meat-industry. Youth of Today made a low-budget music video for the song, incorporating footage of an abattoir acquired from PETA, but it is unlikely that the clip ever aired on MTV.

Another track from the album, "Live Free", started life as an unreleased Project X song, "Can't Keep Me Down" - an almost full-circle irony, since Project X's best known song, "Straight Edge Revenge", was a song first written for Youth Of Today, but rejected by Cappo because he found the lyrics to be too militant.

One other song, "Understand", is a rerecording of a song Youth Of Today first recorded and released on the Revelation Records compilation album New York City Hardcore: The Way It Is, two years earlier.

The album was recorded at the Chung King House of Metal in New York City, a studio Porcell would later use for the first attempt at a Judge full-length. In a foreshadowing of the problems Judge would later have with their album, the first mix to be released by Caroline was notoriously poor-sounding and muddy. After complaints from fans, Caroline claimed that they were repressing the album with a new mix, but this has not been confirmed and may have been a red herring, as copies with the "original" mix still existed in record stores into the early 1990s.

Disgusted with the black eye the original mix gave Youth of Today's legacy, Cappo and Porcell regained the rights to the album from Caroline in 1996, took the multi-track master tapes and remixed the entire album for a proper release on Revelation Records in 1997.

Contents

[edit] Track listing

  1. Flame Still Burns
  2. Slow Down
  3. Choose To Be
  4. Put It Aside
  5. Wake Up And Live
  6. No More
  7. What Goes Around
  8. Potential Friends
  9. A Time We'll Remember
  10. Live Free
  11. Understand
  12. Prejudice
  13. Keep It Up

All songs written and composed by Ray Cappo and John Porcelly.

[edit] Musical personnel

[edit] Sources

  • All Ages: Reflections on Straight Edge by Beth Lahickey, Revelation Books, 1998 (ISBN 1-889703-00-1)
  • Youth of Today interview, Smorgasbord fanzine, fall 1988/winter 1989

[edit] External links