`We’re locked out of the public eye/Some smooth chords/On the car radio/No hard chords/On the car radio/We set the trash on fire.”
With those pithy lines from a song prophetically titled “The Unheard Music,” the Los Angeles band X said it all for a hungry, disenchanted few in 1980. Punk had come and gone, and the MTV decade loomed with its cast of airbrushed dandies.
White-trash post-punk bands like X were on the outside looking in at this world–is it any wonder that their music sounded more urgent than just about anything else produced in the ’80s? Ronald Reagan was settling into the White House for a long stay, and everywhere in society the gulf between the haves and have-nots was about to widen. Rock ‘n’ roll was no different: The music of X was forged in a new subculture, a secret society of bands and listeners joined by mutual disgust for the mainstream in general and mainstream rock in particular. Their bond was punk’s liberating, anyone-can-do-it aesthetic, and the question they all faced, and answered with varying degrees of success, was what to do when it became apparent that the music would not find the broader audience it deserved. Most just faded away, unmourned except by a knowing few.
“We are the sons of no one/Bastards of young,” the Replacements declared with a mixture of defiance and delight in 1985. X, the Replacements and countless other faceless combos were lumped under the umbrella of “post-punk,” “modern rock” or “indie rock”–a movement that planted the seed for what became known as “alternative,” the mainstream guitar rock of the ’90s.
Yet this era remains a largely unexamined one, except by those who grew up knowing the language. When the Replacements paid homage to a lifestyle that was “Left of the Dial,” they spoke in code to the converted; the song’s title was a reference to the college-rock stations that were the sole outlet for their non-mainstream music. Few of the bands were ever played on commercial rock radio, fewer still were seen on MTV (not many could afford to even make a video), and even generally authoritative histories, such as the 1996 10-part PBS series “Rock & Roll,” give them only a glancing mention.
But within the last few weeks, a handful of retrospective CDs documenting some of the crucial bands from this era have been released, including two-disc sets replete with unreleased tracks, anecdotes and what-might-have-been eulogies celebrating X, the Replacements, the Pixies and the Psychedelic Furs, as well as a single-disc greatest hits collection from the Cure.
X’s “Beyond and Back” (Elektra) is a terrific overview of a band that took the hard-core punk sound defined by such L.A. peers as Black Flag, the Germs and Bad Religion and turned it into something fresh. There is nothing quite like X’s hurtling “Hungry Wolf,” with drums pounding a tribal call-to-arms while spacious guitar chords crash and the voices of John Doe and Exene Cervenka swoop, dive and occasionally intertwine, an aural snapshot of their tempestuous marriage.
The quartet used the past as a springboard, whether it was demolishing the Doors’ “Soul Kitchen” or referencing rockabilly, Appalachaian mountain ballads or Bo Diddley. From these familiar elements, the band produced a music that, at its best, seemed to teeter exhiliratingly on the brink of collapse. “We’re desperate/Get used to it,” they cried, and the songs on “Beyond and Back,” many of them unreleased rarities, live takes and alternative versions, more than back up the claim.
When X eventually came to the realization that its music was not being accepted by a larger audience, it tinkered with a more mainstream, metallic sound, epitomized by a stiff cover of the Troggs’ “Wild Thing.” But “Beyond and Back” doesn’t dwell on such compromises, instead making a strong case for the early X as one of rock’s greatest bands.
The Replacements made equally essential unheard music in the ’80s; like X, they never once cracked the Top 40, but their best records hold up far better than those of many better-selling bands. Unfortunately, the Replacements’ “All For Nothing, Nothing For All” (Reprise) does a poor job of representing that legacy.
Like X, the Replacements came out of a hard-core punk background, only to slow the tempo, pump up the soul and find a truly original voice on albums such as “Hootenanny” and “Let It Be.” On these landmarks, songwriter Paul Westerberg perfected a persona that suggested a stray dog caught in the rain, equally poignant and comical. Unfortunately, the essential songs from this period–“Answering Machine,” “Unsatisfied,” “Color Me Impressed”–are not included on the compilation, which picks up the band’s story only after it switched from the Minneapolis indie Twin/Tone to the major label Warner Brothers.
Under Warner, the band moved toward a more polished sound, but its volatile chemistry was disrupted. In the early years, Westerberg’s schizophrenic vocals, blurring the line between boozy romanticism and lunacy, were mirrored by Bob Stinson’s train-wreck guitar solos and the bash-and-crash of bassist Tommy Stinson and drummer Chris Mars. But first Bob Stinson was kicked out of the group and later Mars, and the Replacements increasingly became a vehicle for Westerberg’s smoothed-out songs rather than a band bristling with contradictions, pathos and orneriness. Two versions of “Can’t Hardly Wait” included on the compilation illustrate the difference between the two visions: the first a reckless romp recorded in 1985 by the original band, the second a sweetened, horn-driven pop song that appeared on the 1987 “Pleased to Meet Me” album.
The Pixies’ “Death to the Pixies” (4AD/Elektra) is a truer best-of collection. Its first half is a wall-to-wall should-have-been-hits compilation; the second a 1990 concert that rearranges the hits and then-some into a roller coaster ride that compresses the best music from the band’s essential early years, 1987-90.
The Pixies have long been credited by the late Kurt Cobain for creating the blueprint for Nirvana’s alternative-rock landmark, “Nevermind.” But compared to the relative sheen of the Nirvana album, the early Pixies single sound positively freakish. The Pixies’ songs, written by singer-guitarist Charles Thompson, aka Black Francis, blended bubblegum pop with harsh rock dynamics: strummed, almost whispered verses, followed by shouted choruses. Cobain used the same formula to stunning effect on “Nevermind,” but the Pixies got there first on the likes of “Debaser,” “Gouge Away” and “Monkey Gone to Heaven.”
The liner notes for the Psychedelic Furs’ “Should God Forget: A Retrospective” (Columbia) suggest that the Furs bridged the gap between the underground punk of the Sex Pistols and the mainstream punk of Nirvana. But the claim isn’t supported by the music or the British band’s blatantly careerist ambitions.
Early on, the Furs put a Gothic spin on the dark, kinky drone of the “Venus in Furs”-era Velvet Underground, then hired a succession of pop-friendly producers (Todd Rundgren, Keith Forsey, Chris Kimsey) and turned their once vaguely menacing sound into singalong arena rock, typified by the insufferable “Heartbreak Beat.” Apparently the band also was horrified by how far it had sold out, and its post-“Heartbreak Beat” albums tried to recapture the old murky vibe. Not the weightiest of bands, the Furs nonetheless left behind a series of minor triumphs, all collected here: “We Love You,” “Pretty in Pink,” “India,” “Until She Comes.”
Whereas X, the Replacements, the Pixies and the Furs had collapsed by the early ’90s, the Cure hung around long enough to become one of the world’s biggest bands. “Galore” (Elektra), the British group’s second singles compilation, documents its second decade (1987-97) and demonstrates what an accomplished songwriter Cure leader Robert Smith has become.
Typecast as the king of mope rock in his early years, Smith still knows how to throw a pity party second to none, but he’s also figured out how to cut loose and swing–he’s no Spice Girl, but doleful Robert sounds positively giddy on “Friday I’m in Love” and “Mint Car.” From the bone-rattling menace of “Fascination Street” to the wistful beauty of “Pictures of You,” Smith has made music of unusual substance that actually found its way onto the pop charts. Unlike many of his ’80s contemporaries, Smith didn’t have to wait for his unheard music to be rediscovered.
