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| Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the '80s Underground | 
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| Artist: Various Artists
Label: Rhino / Wea
Category: Music
List Price: $64.98
Buy New: $44.93
You Save: $20.05 (31%)
New (32) Used (14) Collectible (2) from $42.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 10680
Format: Original Recording Remastered
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 12.3 x 6.3 x 1.6
MPN: 76490
UPC: 081227649029
EAN: 0081227649029
ASIN: B0002XL2X4
Release Date: October 12, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New sealed product. Immediate shipment
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| Tracks:
Disc 1
| • | Radio Free Europe - R.E.M. | | • | Going Underground - The Jam | | • | A Forest - The Cure | | • | Holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedys | | • | I'm In Love With A German Film Star - Passions | | • | I Will Dare - The Replacements | | • | That's When I Reach For My Revolver - Mission Of Burma | | • | Johny Hit And Run Paulene - x | | • | Just Like Honey - The Jesus And Mary Chain | | • | Black Celebration - Depeche Mode | | • | Tell Me When It's Over - The Dream Syndicate | | • | Hollywood (Africa) - The Red Hot Chili Peppers | | • | Temptation - New Order | | • | Ghosts - Japan | | • | A Song From Under The Floorboards - Magazine | | • | Oblivious - Aztec Camera | | • | Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely - Husker Du | | • | Rise Above - Black Flag | | • | Back In Flesh - Wall Of Voodoo | | • | Cattle And Cane - The Go-Betweens |
Disc 2
| • | Message Of Love - The Pretenders | | • | Vienna - Ultravox | | • | Freak Scene - Dinosaur Jr. | | • | The Charming Man - The Smiths | | • | Stigmata - Ministry | | • | Ways To Be Wicked - Lone Justice | | • | Wardance - Killing Joke | | • | Enola Gay - Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark | | • | Mirror In The Bathroom - The English Beat | | • | Fairytale In The Supermarket - The Raincoats | | • | Behind The Wall Of Sleep - The Smithereens | | • | Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing - Minutemen | | • | Punk Rock Girl - The Dead Milkmen | | • | Still In Hollywood - Concrete Blonde | | • | Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division | | • | Blister In The Sun - Violent Femmes | | • | Lake Of Fire - Meat Puppets | | • | Amplifier - The DB's | | • | When Love Breaks Down - Prefab Sprout | | • | Goo Goo Muck - The Cramps | | • | This Corrosion - Sisters Of Mercy | | • | Senses Working Overtime - XTC |
Disc 3
| • | The Cutter - Echo & The Bunnymen | | • | Pay To Cum! - Bad Brains | | • | Birthday - The Sugarcubes | | • | Madonna Of The Wasps - Robyn Hitchcock 'n' The Egyptians | | • | We Care A Lot - Faith No More | | • | Teen Age Riot - Sonic Youth | | • | To Hell With Poverty - Gang Of Four | | • | Fa Ce-La - The Feelies | | • | Ana Ng - They Might Be Giants | | • | Swamp Thing - The Chameleons UK | | • | The Mercy Seat - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds | | • | I Look Around - The Rain Parade | | • | All That Money Wants - Psychedelic Furs | | • | Under The Milky Way - The Church | | • | Rise - Public Image Ltd. | | • | Kundalini Express - Love And Rockets | | • | Gravity Talks - Green On Red | | • | Adrenalin - Throbbing Gristle | | • | She Bangs The Drums - The Stone Roses |
Disc 4
| • | Monkey Gone To Heaven - Pixies | | • | Uncertain Smile (Original 7 Inch Version) - The The | | • | Bela Lugosi's Dead - Bauhaus | | • | Christine - Siouxsie And The Banshees | | • | Straight Edge - Minor Threat | | • | I Want To Help You Ann - The Lyres | | • | Our Secret - Beat Happening | | • | Jane Says - Jane's Addiction | | • | World Shut Your Mouth - Julian Cope | | • | Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush | | • | Sex Beat - Gun Club | | • | Take The Skinheads Bowling - Camper Van Beethoven | | • | Institutionalized - Suicidal Tendencies | | • | Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops - Cocteau Twins | | • | 24 Hour Party People - Happy Mondays | | • | I Want You Back - Hoodoo Gurus | | • | Suburban Home - Descendents | | • | A Pair Of Brown Eyes - The Pogues | | • | Jet Fighter - The Three O'Clock | | • | Moving To Florida - Butthole Surfers | | • | A New England - Billy Bragg |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
As a sequel to 2004's similarly packaged Rhino box No Thanks! The '70s Punk Rebellion, this four-disc set tackles the punk/indie/modern rock of the 80s with equal panache. Subtitled "Dispatches from the 80s Underground," these 82 non-chronological tracks play like a great college station from the later part of the decade. Encompassing a dizzyingly diverse musical palate, styles range from the artsy Southern twang of R.E.M., to the sugary pop of Aztec Camera, the blistering hardcore of Black Flag, the ghostly techno of Japan and the chilly, noir dance floor attack of New Order. And that's just on disc one. Sure, there are some omissions, but the box does a remarkable job balancing more popular acts such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Cure and Echo & the Bunnymenwith cult faves like Green On Red and obscurities from the Lyres and the Three O'Clock . Even those who were radio fanatics during these years will likely find tracks they aren't familiar with, along with getting a flashback rush from those they are. A colorful 64 page book provides track-by-track background information as well as a handful of essays about the decade that approach the music from different perspectives. There are no public service announcements or aspiring DJ's to interrupt the flow and the remastered sound brings the music to life with crispness low powered FM radio could never rival. --Hal Horowitz
Album Description
In his notes for this passionately compiled box, producer Gary Stewart writes, "the diversity from the late-70s punk/new wave scene turned into a full-blown, variety-fueled, genre-busting orgy in the '80s...The music became, in the best sense of the words, more complex, more literate, a bit more serious, and as a result, made astrong impact on mainsteam rock culture." From funk punk to revisionist roots rock to hard-core to smart-ass clever pop-and every musical nook and cranny in-between-Left of the Dial presents many of the '80s' most important tracks. Savor the far more influential flip side of the "Where's the Beef?" decade's musical output!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 26 more reviews...
 My 20s relived... ignore the nitpickers December 26, 2004
49 out of 53 found this review helpful
Every single song on this collection, all 82, are happy memories of a time before "alternative" hadn't been coopted by MTV and a raw spirit of experimentation and musical excitement was possible amid a sea of mainstream radio dross. Inspired choices abound, along with some that are obvious but also essential in a round-up of this era. I'm worried that I'm becoming trapped in my youth for listening to music, but it's so rare for me to hear new music that has this energy and drive.
Complain all you like about Joy Division being represented by "Love Will Tear Us Apart," that song was emblematic of it's time and essential for inclusion here. So are many others.
There will always be nitpickers who don't appreciate what they've got. Sure, there are things I would have included, and anyone familiar with this era can play armchair record producer. But what the producers have done here is such a joy all around that you hope they simply plan to do a Volume 2 to include more of this material.
Oh, and to the confused fellow who somehow believes that the "Left" in the title refers to a political leaning: You really seem so driven by a political motivation that you simply ignore the origin of the title. This is college radio stuff. College radio stations almost always sit in the FM high 80s through low 90s. On the left of your dial. If some of the material on this collection is of a liberal leaning, that's because the right gives them so much to be disgusted by. But the name originates elsewhere.
Attention Swatch Dogs & Diet Coke Heads: VIVA LA 80s!! January 2, 2005
36 out of 40 found this review helpful
If you ever spent any significant time debating whether Dave Kendall or Kevin Seal was the best host of "120 Minutes", READ ON!
This is hands down the BEST set of 80s alternative music I own. I've bought other 80s compilations (notably the "Living in Oblivion" and "Just Can't Get Enough" series) but too often on those discs, you get 2 or 3 songs you sort of remember and 10 songs that peaked at #43 on the Belgian pop charts.
This box set, however, induced five blissful hours of synapse-plumbing flashbacks to skinny ties, Trapper Keepers, Grenada, & Big League Chew. Mostly, however, I kept flashing on all those evenings where I snuck up past my bedtime to watch Post-modern MTV. I can't even hear the Dead Milkmen's "Punk Rock Girl" without seeing that mohawked girl slam dance her automobile across Philadelphia.
Best of all, this compilation contains NO DURAN DURAN. It contains no Flock of Seagulls, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, or Culture Club. This is a true representation of the 80s underground, incumbent with all the strange juxtapositions that occur when the track listing vaults from electronica, to goth, to new wave, to pop, to punk, and back again. The kings of 80s English mope rock (Smiths, Joy Division, Bauhaus) find themselves compilated with the best of 80s American punk rock (Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat). Plus, the selection of tracks in nearly immaculate. No artist is repeated twice, and what other compilation would have the balls to put Suicidal Tendencies back-to-back with the lugubrious dream pop of the Cocteau Twins? And while you do get a few bands who made it big later, these bands are always represented by more obscure songs. Instead of "If You Leave" by OMD, you get "Enola Gay"; instead of "Epic" by Faith No More, you get "We Care A Lot"; instead of "Killing Moon" by Echo & the Bunnymen, you get the middle eastern-tinged "Cutter". And of course many of the bands included here are still together, still recording music, and still touring (The Cure, REM, Mission of Burma, Sonic Youth, The Pixies), but here on this set, you get them at their most raw & lo-fi, at the moment when they slogged up out the primordial ooze.
Which is the secondary joy of this set: it's NOT JUST NOSTALGIA. Altho' I own many of these songs on other albums, with 82 tracks total, there are dozens of songs I'd somehow missed before. I'd only known Concrete Blonde from their weeper "Joey", but here they are represented by the TOTALLY AWESOME "Still in Hollywood." And The dBs "Amplifier" might be my favorite song of the year...except for the fact it was recorded in 1982. There are plenty of unknown pleasures to be found here even for the jaded, whether it's the angular riot grrl pop of the Raincoats or the sinewy electronica of the Passion's "I'm in Love with a German Film Star."
Finally, if there's a single DOWNSIDE to this set, it's that a few of the selections are a little predictable. I love the Violent Femmes, but do we really need another set that includes "Blister in the Sun"? "Country Death Song" or anything off the second album would have been a more original selection. Also, Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart", the Pixies' "Monkeys Gone to Heaven", and Gang of Four's "To Hell with Poverty" are all a little hackneyed by this point. For newcomers, this won't be a problem. You'll LOVE these songs, and hopefully it will prompt you to delve deeper into the Joy Division catalogue, but for old-timers who can remember a time when Dave Kendall did the European countdown from behind a veil of purple static, you might wish that these songs had been bumped in favor of The Slits, the Au Pairs, the Mo-Dettes, the Communards, Martha & the Muffins...ah, you get my point.
 say what? October 28, 2004
13 out of 47 found this review helpful
I haven't purchased this cd or listened to it. I'm commenting on the track listing here on Amazon. Who provides these track listings?
The Dead Kennedys had a song called "Holdiay in China"?
Why do so many of those songs in the track listing not even mention the artist who performed the song?
I was interested in this set when I first heard the title, but this very shoddy track listing has scared me away from making a purchase.
 Good alternative history lesson November 3, 2004
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
I will probably wind up purchasing this box set because to me it represents a lot of the post-punk era's best work, but it might be too scattered for a lot of people. Great box sets like No Thanks! and Nuggets have unifying musical themes. The closest Left of the Dial has to a theme is that these artists weren't Madonna or Michael Jackson or any of the other zillion-selling money machines of the 80's.
And that's great, but unless you actually like both the Bad Brains and the Cocteau Twins, or Kate Bush and the Cramps, or the Go-Betweens and the Dead Kennedys, this collection might be too artistically unfocused. But if you want to get a good overview of what eventually came to be known as "alternative" because we ran out of other things to call it, there are a lot of classic tracks here that no discriminating record collection should be without. And yes, as one reviewer pointed out, it seems as though there must be a law requiring "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division in every box set this side of Pat Boone, but it is just about the greatest song ever written. I'd like to have seen the Fall, Wire and Cabaret Voltaire included and I can't understand how Prefab Sprout wound up surviving the cut, but I admit that's nitpicking. And sticking in artists like the Raincoats and Throbbing Gristle was a good move, they're the types of bands who often get overlooked for these projects.
Now I'm waiting to see a good box set of '78-'80 skinny tie/pointed shoes new wave pop like the Cars/Knack/Vapors/Split Enz, etc.
Oh, and Amazon, the Dead Kennedys' track is "Holiday in Cambodia," not "Holiday in China." Wrong regime.
Sometimes 5 discs Better than 4! October 16, 2004
10 out of 23 found this review helpful
First Off: I LOVE Rhino Records and Most of their Box sets!
A Very Good Retrospective of A Great Time in the Music World. I was (sorta) in the Thick of it myself. I was a Clerk in an Independent Record shop. MTV was New (& still Cool) New Bands Every Week, From Everywhere! Different Styles of Music to discover: HardCore, Electronic, Pop, Folk, Punk, & New Wave From Everywhere too.
This set Covers A lot of Ground, & even has Essays of What is Missing & why. Fair Enough, but My Beef is with Some of the Omissions too & Some of the Selections of Included groups. Yes I Know Gang of Four is a Great Group, BUT if To Hell With Poverty is on One more Compilation...! Or Love Will tear us Apart?(Joy Division) Or Holiday in Cambodia?(Dead Kennedys) Or Ghosts?(Japan) Or Senses Working Overtime?(XTC)or Rise Above?(BLack Flag) Or Running Up that Hill?(Kate Bush) Or Enola Gay(OMD) or Vienna(Ultravox)!! Each one of these Artists have a Rich & a Varied Catalog to Reach into. Preaching to the Choir is One thing, but Being So Redundant is Another. The Balance between "Commercial" Alternative & Most of the Choices Were actually Inspired & FarReaching! Minor Griping on my Part. Missing Groups include Lets Active! Pylon, The Cult, Oingo Boingo, The Alarm, Mental As Anything, Boomtown Rats, Au Pairs, Pere Ubu, & The Waitresses, Romeo Void & more!
Gripes=only 4 stars
Inspiring song Choices:
A Forest(The Cure)
A song From The Floorboards(Magazine)
Don't Want to Know if you are Lonely(Husker Du)
Cattle & Cane(The Go-Betweens)
Punk Rock Girl(The Dead Milkmen)
Fa Ce-La (the Feelies)
Kundalini Express (Love & Rockets)
Sex Beat(The Gun Club)
Lots Of Good & great Choices!
Pick yours Up today!
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