One Question:
I'm happy to see that they included the Replacements in what appears to be a very good selection of songs. One question, however: why not include their song "Left of the Dial" (from Tim) if you're going to use their phrase anyhow?

I Remember The Times...
The more I listen to the songs on these Cds, the more I remember and feel nostalgic about the past. I love many of these songs.I listened to KROQ, when they used to play this more less then safe music. It was an important time and many of the artists on these disks were starting up new and inovative sounds. With many of the new artist using samples of some great past music, these artists were creating something fresh. these songs have aged quite well.
Billy

A Good Sampler for an Important Decade
I'll keep this short since much of what I was going to say has already been said in other reviews. In brief, this is a nice sampler of, for lack of a better term, post-punk music heard on many college radio stations in the 1980s. This was a decade that, for whatever reasons, tends to get downplayed in regard to the quality of the music heard on the airwaves--this compilation should help dispel that notion. Like many such collections, Left of the Dial has inspired me to seek out the albums/cds that some of these songs were originally recorded on. If I have a complaint, it's that a number of these songs appear on other compilations by Rhino; my pet peeve: can't they find another song by the Hoodoo Gurus besides I Want You Back? Stoneage Romeos has any number of good tunes--c'mon guys, mix it up a little. Anyway, that aside, this is a worthwhile collection of music.

I Never Knew What I Was Missing...
Having been born in mid-1984 and being only five years old when even the most recent of these tracks were released, I never knew most of this music existed. Of course, youth is no excuse for ignorance, and I've always made it a personal priority to seek out great music from before my time, from kitschy lounge sounds and dusty 78rpm relics to the Russian Romantics and honky-tonk troubadours (just so you don't go getting the idea that I'm a music snob, I've sung along to my share of cheesy disco records.)

Older music, especially the rare "underground" stuff, isn't just shoved in front of you, a facet of every popular entertainment medium, bound to get stuck in your head whether you want it there or not. You've got to go LOOKING for it, as if on a hunt for an abandoned relic nobody else can guide you to. In the case of the 1980's, the problem wasn't that I didn't think to seek it out, but that I was under the false delusion that there was really nothing worth seeking. MTV and my local radio stations all lied to me, and many others of my generation. Not a big lie, but enough to shut us off from experiencing some pretty powerful music. We were led to believe the '80s were all about hair metal, pastel-clad yuppies in skinny neckties, and the "Me Generation." Well, the contents of this eye-catching pink box tells an entirely different story, one of boundless creativity, musical innovation, disgust with authority and convention, and unexplored horizons which still haven't been charted by commercial radio or experienced by mainstream audiences. This is the quirky, iconoclastic, progressive, and politically conscious music of the decade that somehow managed to evade notoriety in all but the most "clued in" of music-lovers.

Sheer curiosity grabbed hold of me and forced me to buy this set as a birthday present for my younger sister. As it turned out, I ended up listening to the set far more than she did! Something about the mix of all of these seemingly unrelated styles, artists, and musical approaches struck me like a comet, and I realized just how versatile, inventive, and exciting the music of the 1980's really was, underneath all of the MTV trivialization and spin. From these four discs, I uncovered gems from artists who would soon become my idols, namely The Replacements, The Cure, The Smiths, and the incomparably brilliant Pixies. They changed my life for the very first time on this set, and I shudder to think of who or where I would be without their influence. I know the seasoned experts here decry the set's "obvious" song choices, but I would implore them to reconsider whether or not this is a bad thing. For someone like me who never heard any of these songs before "Left of the Dial," these "obvious" songs have been an absolute revelation.

In closing, if you enjoy this music, have never heard it but want to, or even possess the slightest curiosity about what the "good stuff" must sound like, you owe it to yourself to hear this earth-shattering compilation. Also recommended: Nuggets, Children of Nuggets, and No Thanks! The '70s Punk Rock Rebellion.

FANTASTIC
This box is fantastic, amazing 80's songs!!! An interesting compilation of a lot of groups from the manignif era!!! Enjoy, probable you never will see these bands together in a box again!!! amazing!!!