“I used to think that labels were just a symbol of pride, but over time I’ve seen they only serve to divide. It’s so easy to judge people by the way they seem to be, we must overcome this problem to live life peacefully. Break down the walls, yes, we’ll break down the walls!Look beyond the fashion or the crowd that they are in, look beyond their riches or the color of their skin, look beyond appearance and the truth you will find, look for what’s inside before you make up your mind!” - Youth Of Today

The Hardcore scene is so unique, it’s like a religious community, but watch for the little corrupter inside. To be honest, I’ve never seen or read or hear that there’s any other music scene that is so full of dedicated people in it, that is only doing the works in it for the sake of the scene and not for anything else. The other music scene is only filled with money grabbing, rockstar wannabe, greedy businessmen and so much more. To be short, Hardcore is way better than other music scene, but it does still have a flaw. That’s normal because it’s not like it is a great religion with a great prophet and a great holy book. It’s just an idea, not a belief. That’s why it was bound to have its own conflict, problems, and far from being perfect.
If we view it generally, a lot of people in it talk about supporting and helping one another, but reality is, we’re still divided by small differences be it from lifestyle, music, fashion, and so on. Straight Edge kids don’t hang out with non-Straight Edge kids has been an issues for years. People still bruising each other with issues like commercialism, turning Hardcore into big business, who’s more DIY, who’s with more better crew, and so on. Somehow, this is what that makes the scene sour and divided into many division.

This fight becoming a routine, because a lot of people just have not much to do, so they fight each other over petty issues. The scene becomes smaller, weak and it’s an open door for outsider to get in and pour a salt into the wounded. People fight for 10 minutes and then live like normal people, so how can the Hardcore scene progress and getting stronger if this attitude keep going on? It’s like you watching news on TV, and you saw a 12years old Palestinian kid died after been shot by an Israel soldier, you get so angry and curse the whole Israel nation and swore you want to slay every one of them before everything else. After 30 minutes, the TV starts to broadcast “Reality Show”, or “Corporate Business Drama”, and that’s it, everything back to normal. Maybe 2-3 days or weeks or months later, when you hear the same thing on TV about women, oldest, children in Iraq died in explosive, you look for something to blame, and after 30 minutes everything back to earth once again. That’s why I said, it’s just a routine, but that’s a Malaysian society, being a caring nation as always. What exactly do we do?

The lyric of the song “Break down the Walls” by Youth of Today is not just an ordinary Hardcore song. The message is so simple and direct but it is super strong.
These days, separation is here and nobody really care. Bands get on stage and just playing music, crowd having fun and then go home, people sells stuffs, and others just want to socializing. This is all just a part of the Hardcore scene on weekend, and on weekdays, people mind their own business. Everything else back to normal. There’s nothing wrong with all this, but what are we gonna do with the real problem at hands that’s been going for days, weeks, months, years? We can’t change this world when we can’t even sit well together. Lets change problems within ourselves first, so that we can begin to fight for the peaceful world!Lets break down the walls that clouded us for years, lets do it!

"Time Still Here HXC Zine"