With summer’s end came a bit of a sea change for me. I’d started avoiding the few neighborhood kids left that I no longer wanted to hang out with, because surely I could do so much better. While I might still have been an overly moody teen on the inside and an obnoxious goofball on the outside, I’d finally learned to tone both sides down when I realized that my hyperfocus on writing was a good thing. (Hi, undiagnosed ADHD!) I was looking forward to starting the new school year with a fresher outlook and a hell of a lot more self-confidence.

And of course, I always looked forward to hitting the record stores in central Massachusetts that actually carried this ‘college rock’ I found myself obsessed with. In short order I knew all the best shops and who sold what, and even which mall chain and department stores carried held such hidden gems. The thrill of the hunt was on!

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Camper Van Beethoven, Camper Van Beethoven, released August 1986. It gets confusing: 1985’s Telephone Free Landslide Victory is their first album, January 1986’s II & III is their second, and this self-titled is their third. This was typical of David Lowery’s absurdist nature, writing oddball songs that were surprisingly catchy and memorable. Critics and college radio stations loved them, and even you knew one of their songs (the silly “Take the Skinheads Bowling” that got MTV play). I do remember WMDK and WMUA playing them now and again.

Crowded House, Crowded House, released August 1986. Upon hearing that the younger Finn brother picked up the ashes of the recently broken-up Split Enz to go solo, both fans and critics were excited to see what would come of this brilliant songwriter. The ubiquitous and still lovely ballad “Don’t Dream It’s Over” hit the airwaves here in the States and instantly won them acclaim. This first album is well worth listening to.

Sparks, Music That You Can Dance To, released August 1986. This is yet another good example of a great band with great songwriters that never quite managed to break through. Perhaps it’s their inherent quirkiness, or perhaps the inability to pigeonhole them (which is actually a plus, to be honest), they spent most of the 80s being that band that just sort of popped up unexpectedly every year or so. I remember seeing this album in the cutout bins a lot in the 90s under its weirdly renamed reissue The Best of Sparks.

Bruce Hornsby, The Way It Is, released August 1986. He could have been a one hit wonder with the title track — yet another catchy late-80s song about failed lives and failed dreams — but due to Hornsby’s stellar playing and ability to write amazing songs, this album became a hit on rock radio and MTV. I believe I acquired this album off someone who didn’t want it and I found myself captivated by its mastery. A surprisingly solid album. I saw him live in Boston in 1988 and he put on a wonderful show.

Paul Simon, Graceland, released 12 August 1986. Alongside Peter Gabriel, Sting and other British songwriters and bands that chose to embrace the sounds of Africa around this time, Simon’s approach was less about integrating the style into his own and more about being inspired by it instead. You can hear his signature folksy style even with songs like “Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes”. And “You Can Call Me Al” was everywhere for the next several months, partly thanks to its silly video featuring Chevy Chase.

Soundtrack, Manhunter, released 15 August 1986. Well before 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, there was Michael Mann’s take on the first Hannibal Lecter book Red Dragon, with William Peterson playing a retired FBI agent called back in to hunt a serial killer…with the help of Lecter, who’d been the focus of his previous case that had sent him into a nervous breakdown. As expected, Mann delivers a film that’s highly dramatic (in that wonderful overwrought 80s way), visually stunning, and contains an excellent soundtrack. Shriekback shows up multiple times, and Iron Butterfly’s “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida” is used in a highly creative and extremely disturbing way. The Prime Movers’ “Strong As I Am” was a surprise minor hit on the radio, and the songs remains one of my favorites of the decade.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Kicking Against the Pricks, released 18 August 1986. At this point Cave was pretty much still known as the former lead singer of Australian punk band the Birthday Party and writing gloomy torch songs and growly dirges about the darker and grimmer sides of life. Yet another fan and critic fave that never bothered to crack commercial radio here in the States [Who knew that decades later, one of his songs would be on a Harry Potter soundtrack?], but would appear quite frequently on college radio.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood, “Rage Hard” single, released 25 August 1986. No one really expected this quintet to follow up their ridiculously popular debut double album, considering how brightly they’d shone over the last two years. But follow up they did, turning away from Trevor Horn’s epic aural (over)production and trying their hand at being rockers, which they’d been initially before fame hit. This teaser single is unexpectedly grim and heavy, and even singer Holly Johnson tones it down by singing in the lower register for most of the song. [And if you bought the original twelve-inch, you’d hear their fun cover of Bowie’s “Suffragette City” as a b-side.] Their upcoming album would definitely defy expectations.

XTC, “Grass” single, released 26 August 1986. This isn’t one of their biggest hits, but it is quite the lovely pastoral (pun intended) track by this trio, whose sound by this time had veered well away from angular post-punk to British folk, 60s pop and light psychedelia. This teaser for their upcoming album was a fan favorite, but the single also holds an unexpected gem: this was the original location of their most famous song “Dear God”, which they’d signed off as a b-side due to its controversial lyrics and theme.

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Next up: In which 120 Minutes takes over my brain.