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 It Was a Very Good Year
A local compiler takes a very, very, very deep look into the music of 1981
By Lindsey Millar
I've only seen him once. He may or may not have been tall and may or may not have had big hair, but he definitely wore a scarf. He was in Anthro-Pop last winter, and he was lamenting to proprietor Rod Bryan that online music magazine Pitchfork planned, against his will, to run an article on a compilation he'd put together. His dismay struck me as disingenuous—there's nothing “cooler” than expressing discontent over praise or notoriety, and besides, how would Pitchfork have known about a mix by someone in Little Rock unless the compiler had sent it to them? Nonetheless, he'd caught my attention, and as soon as he left the store, I headed to the counter to ask Rod about the compilation. The small plastic box he pulled from behind the counter looked like an artifact from an imagined future of the past: its cover was a stark affair, white with “1981” spaced widely and in black above four post-modern hieroglyphics—a lightning bolt, computer, amp, and a silhouetted head with a squiggly brain of white space.
As I studied the packaging, Rod explained that it was a compilation of post-punk from 1981, put together by the scarf-clad dude over the course of a year. Across the back of the box, the particulars were clearly distilled: “366 BANDS, 411 SONGS, 21 HOURS, 10 DISCS, 1 YEAR.” I'm sure I let out a low whistle of admiration, especially as I scrunched my eyes to read the list of hundreds of bands below, some recognizable—the dB's, the Fall, Meat Puppets, New Order, Talking Heads—some less so—100 Flowers, Crash Course in Science, Diagram Brothers, Tuxedomoon. Rod wasn't selling—he said something about the RIAA and its grandmother suing—so I went on my way, letting 1981 slip into the nether-parts of my brain.
Months later, I inadvertently found the compiler again while trolling the music-geek online message board “I Love Music.” He'd started a discussion thread about his compilation, and he'd opened it by explaining that he doesn't like talking about music, preferring instead to let the music do the talking. Since the post-punk era, 1977-1983, was both one of his favorites and under-anthologized, he picked 1981, a year he described as “a descending period for some strains, the peak of others, and the baby steps of more,” and dove headfirst. Shortly, he posted the set's tracklist, an awe-inspiring line-up, divided, he told us later, by “sonic and emotional themes.” The site's jaded denizens (comprised largely of music writers, mp3 bloggers, and “professional” collectors) fell over themselves praising the compiler. Within minutes, he reported that “I Love Music” readers had snatched up the last twenty copies of the set. As the praise continued, he announced that he'd “probably” assemble more copies. Lots of posters did this :) and this ;), and I quickly emailed my request.
The correspondence borne from that first email was long and polite: logistical details, the wheres and hows of getting the set, and later, a discussion about doing some sort of Q&A for this magazine. During and after all of this correspondence, we've never met, and obviously, we never did a Q&A. I pressed and suggested a variety of approaches before we settled on an email interview, but late in our negotiations, the compiler concluded that he didn't have anything interesting to say. To his credit, he offered to try a more fluid approach, suggesting a phone interview or instant messaging, but I balked.
I told my editors—and myself—the compiler's reticence was insurmountable, but now I realize there was something else at play. After all, I'm sure I could've made an interview happen, and all signs point to the compiler being articulate and musically erudite. Despite his initial post on “I Love Music,” he'd been incredibly chatty and confessional on the message board, admitting that he was only one-year-old in 1981 (!), and commenting on everything from “musical tutelage” to the burden of having a car. And I could sympathize, at least somewhat, with his music-hording and curatorial urge. In high school, my CD collection reached, according to my mother, “sinful proportions”; in college, I substituted friends for peer-to-peer music sharing; and now, in my young professional life, I spend most days navigating my 36-day-long iTunes playlist. As for the curatorial urge, that legitimizing need that drives collectors to organize, compile, and, most of all, present, it comes often, sending me digging through my album collection or trolling the depths of the internet, searching for that one perfect track to finish a mix.
But, ultimately, I didn't want to sympathize or analyze. I'm sure the compiler is a great guy, but I don't want to know him or his motivations. In fact, I want to erase what few details I do know about him. Anonymity is too alluring: he's anyone and everyone and no one all at once, and aside from the mystery and provocativeness of that idea, it really puts the music in focus. Which is what I think the compiler had in mind all along.
So, the music: I've had my copy four months now, and I've listened to pieces of it at least every other day during that time, and I still feel like I've barely scratched the surface. Admittedly, while I'll recognize a Pere Ubu track here or a Raincoats' song there, I'm a neophyte to the era and genre. Even if you lived it or have the deepest record collection around, it's still a ten-disc compilation (with several thirty-track discs and one mp3 CD with 181 tracks), and it takes a lot of ear-chewing to digest.
A neophyte notices lots of things. One, as the compiler alludes to in his liner notes, it isn't hard to find contemporary analogues for post-punkers in 1981. Clearly, !!! and Out Hud own some Pigbag records. And Stephin Merritt must have followed the Gary Numan-how-to-manual when conceiving Future Bible Heroes (actually, I think he's admitted as much), and I feel certain the Go Team! has posters of ESG in its practice space for inspiration.
Two, amongst such disparity—because, after all, post-punk is one of the most nebulous genres, a catch-all, an umbrella term for art-pop, electropop, new wave, no wave, d.i.y, hardcore, new romantic, art-punk, dancepunk, and probably others—it's astounding that 1981 sounds so coherent. The same modes and themes and sounds emerge throughout the set, often in songs from vastly different sub-genres. Of course, anytime you compile a wide swath of music from a particular year, certain aspects will repeat themselves throughout, but in 1981, the cross-genre swapping seems amped up considerably. Credit should certainly go to the compiler for his skillful mix, but ultimately it's the expansiveness of the music of the era, the willful pursuit of artists of the day to escape boundaries—of form, of genre, of tradition—that lends the set coherence.
Three, the large majority of the music on the set is fucking awesome. I proselytize to anyone who comes near my computer on the beauty of “More Real,” a fist-pumper from the Arthur Russel-fronted Neccessaries that pits hallucinogens against love and life in a pop-heavenly cage-match (it's unclear what wins). And about the intoxicating delights of Holger Czukay's Moog freakout, “Fragrance,” an instrumental ready-made for the soundtrack to all things concurrently languid physically and dynamic mentally, like gazing out a window or taking drugs. Other times, I can't get enough of the violently and joyously propulsive “Billy Two” by the Clean. And the Tall Dwarfs' somber “All My Hollowness to You,” dually anchored by a mournful accordion and arena-style foot stomps and handclaps. And X's “Adult Books,” which I'd somehow missed before, with its Spanish-stroll guitar run and Exene (oh Exene) and her mournful purr. And …well, I could go on and on. Did I mention it's a 411-song set?
To obtain a copy of 1981: Happen into our compiler at your local record store or coffee shop. Or know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows him. Or your guess is as good as mine. But don't ask me. My lips are sealed.
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