Coming up to the end of my freshman year in high school, I’d started making a few changes in my life. I’d seriously gotten tired of being part of a social circle where I knew I didn’t fit in and didn’t want to fit in. All of the neighborhood kids I’d hung with previously were older than me and had already moved on. I’d also gotten serious about my writing — or at least my undiagnosed ADHD got me hyperfocusing on writing the IWN when I really should have been doing my homework — and I now had a new soundtrack in which to link it to. I still had some mental and emotional hurdles to overcome, but I now had what I felt was an escape hatch.

The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy, Distressed Gentlefolk, released May 1986. This was a band and album that WMDK would mention every now and again, especially on those weekends where they’d get a bit more adventurous with their playlist. I started paying more attention to these bands they played and mentioned, even if I didn’t get around to checking them out right way. I have a vague memory of hearing them but I don’t remember which song it was, however. I’d revisit this album a few years later when I dubbed it from my freshman year roommate in college.

The Screaming Blue Messiahs, Gun-Shy, released May 1986. Now this album I remember buying at Strawberries at Searstown Mall in Leominster after seeing the “Wild Blue Yonder” video on USA Network’s Night Flight one mid-summer weekend. It was loud, it was punk, but it was catchy as hell and I loved it immediately. It’s still one of my favorite albums of that year. They would get an unexpected minor hit in early 1988 with the goofy but infectious “I Wanna Be a Flintstone”.

Cactus World News, Urban Beaches, released May 1986. This, surprisingly, showed up on WAAF of all places, as “Worlds Apart” got some small but significant airplay at the time. They were an Irish band with heavy indie rock and punk influences but alas disappeared not long after their album dropped.

The Cure, Standing On a Beach: The Singles, released 6 May 1986. I can state that this album was the official start of my turn towards buying alternative albums almost exclusively from here on out. I’d heard of the band before (who hadn’t?) though at the time no local stations would ever think of playing them, so when I’d heard they were dropping what was essentially a best-of album, I figured this was the perfect place to start. I bought it at Musicland at Hampshire Mall in Hadley — specifically the cassette, because it featured a dozen rare b-sides, and I was already obsessed with complete discographies. Much to my surprise, when “Let’s Go to Bed” came on I immediately remembered it from the early MTV days, when they’d play that song along side the early Duran Duran videos. This became a go-to album for the rest of my high school days, enough so that I actually wore my original copy out and bought a replacement sometime in 1988. It wasn’t just an album that got me through my emotional rollercoastering, several of its songs resonated deeply with me, and it also became a solid writing soundtrack for the IWN. [You can even kind of tell in the story, about halfway through, where the plot suddenly gets all dark and grim.]
Once I bought this one, it all started snowballing…I’d be searching not for pop singles or hit albums, but for those harder-to-find ‘college rock’ records. I’d look in discount bins, independent record shops and anywhere else that would carry these offbeat albums.

Soundtrack, Dangerously Close, released 9 May 1986. The Smithereens’ “Blood and Roses” and “Behind the Wall of Sleep” had gotten some minor airplay on MTV and on the various stations I listened to, but it was the former song’s appearance in this film that caught my attention, most likely later in the year when it got played on cable television. I was deep into the “I love everything punk and alternative” phase by that point. I appreciated that this was a film featuring the time-honored plot of an alternative crowd versus the popular cliques and rich kids but wasn’t a horny gag-filled comedy. Instead it was something much darker and had one hell of a great soundtrack. The film isn’t high art, but it resonated with me regardless and got me hooked on The Smithereens thereafter.

Peter Gabriel, So, released 19 May 1986. This album completely blew my mind when it came out. I didn’t just love “Sledgehammer”, I loved the brittle tension of “Red Rain” and the soft caress of “Don’t Give Up” (I was aware of Kate Bush at the time, natch) and the gorgeous heart-lifting “In Your Eyes” and the fun grooves of “Big Time”. It broke so wide he was everywhere: MTV, college radio, AOR radio, and I would eventually see him live on this tour in 1987. My cassette copy, alas, got stolen by a classmate some months later and I would end up buying the album used on vinyl.

Laurie Anderson, Home of the Brave, released 26 May 1986. Anderson is someone I knew of, like Patti Smith, who was arty and from New York and had a small but extremely loyal following. I even remember hearing “O Superman” at some point. I didn’t quite get her arty approach until probably this record, when “Language Is a Virus” got a significant amount of play and her concert film (of which this album is an abbreviated soundtrack) showed up occasionally on MTV, and her video installations would pop up on PBS now and again.

Ramones, Animal Boy, released 30 May 1986. This was a band that I knew for ages from their early hits getting play on WAAF and my cousin owning End of the Century. Every now and again one of their other singles would pop up on hard rock stations, and “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” — a single that appeared almost a full year before its album — was a surprisingly melodic and highly political track that appealed to me.

Wham!, The Final [UK Version], released 31 May 1986. This best-of collection was the swan song of this ridiculously popular duo that I’m not ashamed to admit I quite enjoyed over the last few years. An extremely truncated and hastily-built version of this album (Music from the Edge of Heaven) would show up in the States in July and become a huge seller. I thought “The Edge of Heaven” was a perfect swan song for the guys. Who knew that one year later, George Michael would blow the roof off of his former band and kickstart a stellar solo career…?

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Coming up: In which I sink further into the darkness of college rock