I remember midsummer of 1986 being hot, excessively humid and full of excitement. Even despite my day job at the supermarket taking up some of my time, I was heavily immersed in my growing music collection and the different radio stations I now listened to on a daily basis. I wasn’t just listening to music for a few hours at this point; I was often listening all day long, a habit/obsession I haven’t really bothered to get rid of since. While most teens my age were reading comic books or watching TV, my radio was always on and I was reading music magazines and poring over Trouser Press for the next titles I wanted to look for.

Yet who knew that one unconventional album would significantly alter the course of my life…?

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Let’s Active, Big Plans for Everybody, released July 1986. I remember the music magazines and that music reviewer in the Telegram really liking this band. I didn’t know much about them other than that they were (he was?) REM-adjacent, basically musician-producer Mitch Easter with various friends, and that all the critics loved his Athens GA-meets-psychedelia sound. I’m pretty sure I heard them in passing on WMDK at some point and I also remember seeing the magazine ad for this album, though I never got around to picking up their stuff because it was just so damn hard to find my way!

Gene Loves Jezebel, Discover, released July 1986. This was an interesting band as they successfully crossed over in the US, with “Heartache” and “Desire (Come and Get It)” getting decent amount of play on rock radio and MTV. They kind of passed me by as I’d initially filed them away as another 80s hair band, but they grew on me the more I heard their songs.

The Smithereens, Especially for You, released July 1986. Another band that crossed over to rock radio and MTV to an impressive degree, this New Jersey quartet’s trick was that they took blues and sped it up, rock ballads and quieted them down, and played it all with guitars tuned down almost a full step to achieve that heavy low end. “Behind the Wall of Sleep” was a big favorite of mine for quite a while that summer.

Guadalcanal Diary, Jamboree, released July 1986. Yet another band the critics loved yet never quite achieved any large success, this band from Marietta GA laid down countrified indie grooves similar to their Athens brethren REM, though with a much lighter touch. Another album I remember seeing ads for in music magazines and hearing a few things on WMDK, but they wouldn’t quite land any success, at least not for another year…

Eurythmics, Revenge, released July 1986. I’d like to think that this was the Eurythmics album that finally broke them through into consistent mainstream success. While they were one of the mainstays of the original MTV era with “Sweet Dreams”, they’d only have the occasional memorable hit single until the wild and bantering “Missionary Man” hit the airwaves and caught on massively. It’s my second favorite album of theirs.

Peter Murphy, Should the World Fail to Fall Apart, released July 1986. The video for his cover of Pere Ubu’s “Final Solution” would get the occasional play on MTV now and again, and would eventually get repeat plays on future episodes of 120 Minutes, but I was only vaguely aware at the time that he was formerly the lead singer of Bauhaus. I’d see this album now and again in the bins, but it would be a few more years before I’d catch on and become a big fan of his solo career.

David + David, Boomtown, released 7 July 1986. I remember hearing this song on WAAF a lot and being of two minds about it. I loved the desperate mood the music created, yet I wasn’t a big fan of its depressing skeezy-side-of-town lyrics (I was depressed enough at the time, thank you very much). I kept on returning to it, however, because it was such a sonically amazing song to hear on a hot and hazy summer day with the radio on and the windows open.

The Communards, Communards, released 21 July 1986. To be honest, the original Thelma Houston version is one of my favorite disco songs of the 70s, and I grew up with that single in the family collection, and when I heard that Jimmy Somerville left Bronski Beat and did a banger of a cover, I loved it. I’d eventually own the promo single for it (yet another ‘borrow’ from the local radio station a few years down the line).

The Smiths, “Panic” single, released 21 July 1986. How do you follow up an absolutely brilliant album that’s an instant hit with several of your best songs on it? By releasing one of your most popular non-album singles! Allegedly written by Morrissey and Johnny Marr after hearing the terrible breaking news about the Chernobyl disaster on the radio, only for it to be immediately followed by the innocuous “I’m Your Man” by Wham!, the band’s fans took it as a screed to the fact that commercial radio (and the rigidity of the BBC) were tone-deaf and and out of touch. Its oddly chipper “hang the DJ” closing refrain only underscores what was fast becoming one of alternative rock’s biggest issues with popular music: stop choking us with this slop and give us what we want.

REM, Lifes Rich Pageant, released 28 July 1986. After four stellar and critically lauded albums but still remaining well entrenched in the alternative college radio scene (even despite the occasional breakout into rock radio), it took the brilliantly beautiful single “Fall On Me” to send them further towards a bigger following. IRS Records winced at its simplistic 8mm filmed-upside-down video, yet somehow it caught on not just on MTV but showed up on several rock radio stations. The album also feels different form their previous records; they’ve moved past the quiet countrified jangle-rock and mumbly oblique lyrics and moved closer towards meaning: the stunning emotional release of “Begin the Begin”, the desperation of “Cuyahoga”, the hope of “These Days”. And even the occasional silliness that they formerly kept hidden, like “Underneath the Bunker” and “Superman”. It’s such a surprise after their previous records and one of my favorite early-era releases of theirs.

Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Flaunt It, released 28 July 1986. Out of all the 80s albums that could have claimed the title, this was the one that completely altered the course my life. I’d picked it up at a small shop in downtown Amherst, a little hole in the wall inside an indie clothing shop. I’d heard about them a month or so earlier via the music magazines — the news being that they’d been signed to EMI Records for an incredible four million pounds, they were five guys dressed up in fishnets and fright wigs and played synthesizers and used unconventional samples and were heavily influenced both by Elvis and by synth duo Suicide. And their album featured actual commercials. I became absolutely obsessed with this album, listening to it constantly on my headphones at top volume to fully immerse myself in its futuristic weirdness. It resonated with me to such a degree that it broke whatever link I had to commercial radio at the time: this was music that truly spoke to me personally, even despite its goofiness and ridiculousness. It was just so out there, breaking so many rules simply by ignoring them, but that was its appeal: it’s okay to let your freak flag fly. Enjoy it. Embrace it. Live it. Mind you, I had no plans or inclination to start fashioning myself up in punk attire, considering that was a fast track to getting bullied by the jocks and ostracized by pretty much everyone else…but this was all about the mind and the heart for me. It told me that it was okay to dig deeper, to go further and ignore whatever anyone else might say. And I never looked back.
More importantly, this album was also the catalyst to reunite with me with someone I’d met in junior high, someone who would become a lifelong friend and welcome me into an altogether different circle of friends that changed my life infinitely for the better. I’d written a glowing record review in the school paper and they’d reached out to me. Within a month I was a part of this new crowd — they were a year ahead of me, but exactly on my wavelength in every other way. The next year and a half would be one of the best times of my teenage life.

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Next up: where to go from here…?