Vinyl Vandals (2)
Don't Be So Serious

Listening notes

Released in 1991 on Warrior Records, "Don't Be So Serious" by Vinyl Vandals (2) is a four-track twelve-inch single catalogued as WRR12 015. The release sits at an intersection of genres — breakbeat, electronic, hardcore, and techno — that were collectively shaping club and rave culture in the early nineties.

The record presents a single title worked across four distinct mixes, each occupying its own space on the two sides of the pressing. The A-side opens with the XXX Club Mix, running four minutes and thirty-nine seconds, followed by the shorter Serious Start Mix at three minutes and twelve seconds. The B-side carries the Rasta Mayhem Mix at four minutes and thirty-four seconds and closes with the Tibetan Chant Mix, which runs four minutes and twenty-six seconds. The mix titles themselves suggest a range of approaches to the source material, from straightforward club utility to something more texturally adventurous, though the specifics of those treatments are left to the listener to discover.

As a document of its moment, the release reflects a period when British and European dance labels were producing genre-fluid records aimed squarely at DJ use — multiple mixes, practical runtimes, and a format built for the twelve-inch format's natural home behind the decks. Warrior Records, carrying the WRR prefix through its catalog numbering, was among the labels operating in this space during the early nineties.

For collectors and researchers building a picture of this era's output, "Don't Be So Serious" represents a concrete, dateable entry point into the overlapping worlds of breakbeat and early hardcore — genres whose boundaries were still being actively negotiated when this record was pressed.