Open Your Eyes

A couple of months ago, I was feeling like I might need to reign in my record spending. I've bought a bunch of stuff this year with little consideration paid to my savings account, and felt like I needed to pump the brakes a bit (spoiler alert: I still haven't done that). Before I slowed things down though, I wanted to make a run at something that would make more of a substantial impact to my collection instead of some $5 record from a 90's band that no one remembered.

I've been terrible at keeping my focus on my Top Wants of 2022 list that I keep in the sidebar of this blog. I use this list to keep some major records at the forefront of my attention, with hopes that I'll pick them up over the year. This year, I just haven't cared to focus on that list and have just been going wherever my attention is at the moment. When I was thinking that I'd buy one more record before taking a spending break, I wanted to cross off at least one of those records from my Top 10 Wants list before I found myself in December and the list untouched.

Warzone is one of those classic hardcore bands, and settling for one of those recent Revelation reissues for their classic albums wasn't going to cut it. I needed the original Caroline pressing for Open Your Eyes. Reasonably priced records seem to be a rare thing on Discogs a lot of the time, so when I saw a seller listing this classic at a decent price, I grabbed it. Such a great hardcore record, even though The American Movement makes me cringe every time I hear it.

Completely unplanned, but when I found myself in this same predicament last year, I also used this "one last record" excuse when I picked up a copy of Warzone's Don't Forget The Struggle.