Alternative 80's

The most familiar songs on Disc One are Blue Monday by New Order (a timeless club hit), the brilliant World Shut Your Mouth by Julian Cope, The King Of Rock ‘n Roll by Prefab Sprout and Pretty In Pink by The Psychedelic Furs.

Rock The Casbah by The Clash and Dream Academy’s lovely interpretation of Nick Drake’s Life In A Northern Town were hits too, but my favourites are the Bauhaus version of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and The Fall’s version of R. Dean Taylor’s There’s A Ghost In My House.

On Disc Two one finds electronica in the form of Blancmange, beautiful folk songs by The Pogues and by Kirsty MacColl, great rock by The Cure, early 80s post-punk by The Teardrop Explodes, snappy pop by Altered Images and atmospheric ethereal pop by Cocteau Twins.

Alternative 80’s provides an excellent window on the music that mattered in a decade that also gave us lots of shallow stuff. Other worthwhile acts include Elvis Costello with the catchy Every Day I Write The Book, Lloyd Cole, The Style Council and The Stranglers.

I recommend this CD to all who wish to investigate the unique and original music of the time in various genres. It is worth the price for tracks like Ziggy Stardust, World Shout Your Mouth, There’s A Ghost In My House and A New England alone!

The first gripe is that a lot of these tracks are here under false pretences. Anyone who thinks that the likes of Erasure's "Sometimes", the Bluebells' "Young At Heart" or Prefab Sprout's "King of Rock & Roll" are "alternative" clearly needs to get out more. And what the hell are the appalling Blow Monkeys doing here?!

Second gripe is that, whilst some of these tracks CAN be seen as "alternative", the majority of them were commercially successful and, as such, already pretty well-known. Much as I love New Order, everybody has heard "Blue Monday" 100s of times, so it would've been good if they'd picked one of the band's lesser-known songs. The same mistake is made with The Cure ("Boys Don't Cry"), The Clash ("Rock the Casbah"), and The Cult ("She Sells Sanctuary"). For an album claiming to be "alternative" it all sounds pretty familiar.

Thirdly, there are plenty of lesser-known but musically important acts whose inclusion would have made this compilation worth buying, but who have been omitted. No Kraftwerk, My Bloody Valentine, Pixies, Go-Betweens, Nick Cave, Triffids, House of Love, Primal Scream, Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Young Gods...I could go on all day. For those of us who were there at the time, loving alternative music and evangelistically trying to get others to do the same, the selection of songs on this CD bears little resemblence to what was actually going on at the time.

Of course, there is some good stuff here; The Cocteau Twins' gorgeous "Pearly Dewdrops' Drops", The Sugarcubes' spine-tingling "Birthday", The Fall's spiky "There's a Ghost In My House", and The Only Ones deliciously strung-out "Another Girl, Another Planet". But it's just a shame that the compilers didn't look beyond the obvious when putting this album together, meaning that the good songs are very much in the minority and leaving the modern listener with the impression that the 80s were less about the house/indie crossover, the birth of hip-hop, the embracing of sampling technology and the limitless possibilities of the humble electric guitar, and all to do with lumpen, grey alternative rock.