Left Of The Dial: Dispatches From The Eighties Underground [Box]

Performer: Various Artists
Producer: Gary Stewart (Compilation); Mark Leviton (Compilation)
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Liner Note Authors: Tim Scanlin; Gary Stewart; Karen Schoemer; John Srebalus. The '80s compilation is a dicey operation; many sounds danced about in glorious contrast, and one person's nirvana is the next person's nightmare. LEFT OF THE DIAL focuses on the college radio of the era (the music that truly fostered the alternative boom of the next decade), and paints a deliriously diverse picture of an underground bursting at its seams to break through. Alongside early classics from the Replacements, Depeche Mode, and R.E.M. (and the compilation gleefully steers away from the obvious) are minor classics from Magazine and Hoodoo Gurus. And the prismatic four-disc set runs the gamut from hardcore (Minor Threat, Bad Brains) to pure pop (XTC, They Might Be Giants, the Smiths) to capture the spectral flow of the decade behind the decade.

Rolling Stone (p.104) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[V]irtually all of these songs and recordings have held up beautifully." Entertainment Weekly (p.69) - "[T]his is like the great college radio station that never was..." - Grade: A- Uncut (p.94) - 3 stars out of 5 - "[I]ts 82 tracks document countless musical impulses....This eclecticism - punk's ideals brought to life - is testament to an era of idealistic, artistic oasis, one pulsing with urgency and defiance." Alternative Press (p.98) - "[A] comprehensive compendium of the best the '80s underground had to offer." Magnet (p.97) - "[A] success....Non-mainstream rock splintered and spiraled in a dozen compelling directions, instigating a creative boom whose aftershocks still rumble and whose epicenter deserves the kind of revisit LEFT OF THE DIAL does its best to inspire."

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