Two Walls of Sound

A few posts ago, I put togeth a little "off-the-beaten-trail" 80s mix. At the time, I commented that my list turned out to be a little more post punk than I had initially intended. The Minutemen, the Replacements, X, Social Distortion, Violent Femmes...all 80s bands that followed what '70s punk movement had started. But even in the 70s, there developed such a wide range of directions in which individual bands took punk music.

While 80s bands like the Police and Social Distortion may have taken up the punk flag and marched with it in their own way, it still seemed that much of the anger an nihilism of the Pistols, the Clash, and the Ramones...along with all of the bands which followed them in the late 70s had been lost by the mid-80s. Of course I'm generalizing. It didn't seem that the fire was regained until the hardcore bands of the late-80s and early 90s like Black Flag and Anthrax. And now of course we have all degree of band that seems to want to follow that path to "burn it all down."

A couple of months ago I threw together a mix of about 70 MP3s of punk and hardcore, labelled it "Music by Really Pissed-Off People" and handed it off to a buddy. My friend said that he really dug all the edgy stuff I had randomly selected, and at the time I was really rediscovering a lot of punk stuff that I had passingly heard through the years, and gave more of it a thoughtful listen. It occured (and occurs) to me that anger may be both the basest and the most honest of all human emotions. Love, friendship, kindness is often faked for a variety of reasons, but rarely can you say that about hate and anger. So when its expressed in music, there's a certain genuineness to it. This has always been the draw of punk. So I offer you this list as a celebration of that anger and with this sentiment from the end of Shakespeare's Hamlet. In the final scene of the play, Laertes says to Hamlet's attempt to make nice: "...I don receive your offered love like love, and will not wrong it." If you know the play, you know Laertes hardly means it, and goes on to kill Hamlet a couple of pages later. So I hope instead you will receive this offered anger like anger, and not wrong it. Instead, CRANK IT UP AND PISS OFF THE NEIGHBORS.

1. "Caught with Your Meat in Your Mouth," The Dead Boys, Young, Loud and Snotty

2. "Baby, Baby," The Vibrators, Pure Mania
3. "Psychobitches Outta Hell," The HorrorPops, Hell Yeah!

4. "Your Mangled Heart," The Gossip, Standing in the Way of Control
5. "Instant Hit," The Slits, Cut
6. "One Chord Wonders," The Adverts, Crossing the Red Sea With the Adverts
7. "You Gotta Move," Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Destiny Street
8. "I Don't Know What to Do With My Life," The Buzzcocks, A Different Kind of Tension

9. "When the Shit Hits the Fan," The Circle Jerks, Golden Shower of Hits
10. "New Rose," The Damned, Damned, Damned, Damned
11. "Nights in White Satin," The Dickies, Dawn of the Dickies
12. "Astro Zombies," The Misfits, Walk Among Us
13. "Junkie Man," Rancid, ...And Out Come the Wolves
14. "Sleeping Aides and Razor Blades," The Exploding Hearts, Guitar Romantic
15. "Living with Unemployment," The Oppressed, Music for Hooligans

16. "One Hundred Punks," Generation X, Generation X
17. "Tomorrow's Girls," UK Subs, Another Kind of Blues
18. "Uptown," The Stranglers, Aural Sculpture
19. "Suspect Device," Stiff Little Fingers, Inflammable Material

Punk-Ass Disc

For my full album post, here's something that's about as far away from punk as you can possibly get...well, maybe not as far as you can get, but pretty damned far. I downloaded Back to Mono, the collection of different Phil Spector produced stuff...mostly the girl group stuff from the Ronettes and the Crystals. For about two weeks I just kept listening. Then I was lucky enough to find this wonderful LP of just the Ronettes from 1964...produced by Spector with the unmistakable Wall of Sound. I just think that the sound is just so perfect. And it is the sound of my early childhood. When I was a kid, my father had a reel-to-reel deck, and he would just play Motown (although this isn't really Motown) and girl-groups over and over. So the sound has a certain nostalgic quality for me...and I'm sure that it does for many others. I hope that you enjoy this one. I really dig this album!