'80s College Rock

Back in the '80s, when prefab pop and arena rock crowded the airwaves, college rock delivered soul salvation, an electrifying jolt of new sounds — post-punk, synth pop, hardcore, and more — that came crackling out of the left end of the dial, courtesy of college radio stations around the country. Those who were fortunate enough to have been there experienced the most important bands of their lives. Bands like R.E.M., the scene's poster children, who fused Byrds-worthy six-string jangle alongside everything that was good about punk rock on tracks like "Radio Free Europe." Meanwhile, a generation sneered and mumbled along with the pent-up folk-punk fury of the Violent Femmes' bold-and-bratty "Blister In the Sun." And black-clad Sartre students got their gloom on to Bauhaus with goth's blood-sucking Big Bang, "Bela Lugosi's Dead," and the moody magic of the Smiths' angst anthem "How Soon Is Now?"

Eighties college rock had plenty to say about love and war; find out more in Next Steps.

The bands that burst up from the underground in the days of Reagan and Thatcher had nuclear threats breathing down their necks and the Cold War blowing through their hearts, but they filled the airwaves to bursting with a multi-colored funhouse of sounds, from hardcore punk to sleek synth pop. The electronic ear candy of Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark's "Enola Gay" couched a cagey anti-nuke message, while hardcore heavyweights the Dead Kennedys raged war against totalitarianism with surf-punk guitar riffs and barbed-wire wit on "Holiday In Cambodia." But if you wanted to push the pure-pop button and bring some boy-loses-girl drama into focus, you could always hang your hopes on the paisley-powered hooks of the Hoodoo Gurus' "I Want You Back."

We're just getting started; some of '80s college rock's greatest cuts are awaiting, in Deep Cuts.

Our Deep Cuts section is usually reserved for . . . well, deep cuts — choice songs from the bottom of the crate that you simply have to hear. But when it comes to '80s college rock, there is no bottom of the crate, just more and more crucial, killer songs that really did change our lives. The Alarm rang out with a rock 'n' roll call to arms on the guts-and-glory grandeur of "Sixty Eight Guns," while more introspective ears could get lost in the heady poetic rush of Kate Bush's James Joyce-goes-Top of the Pops reverie "Running Up That Hill" or wander the spooky, romantic ruins of Japan's electro-cabaret ballad "Ghosts." Then again, if you were in the mood for more of a joy-riding rampage, you could always call "shotgun" and let the Dead Milkmen do the driving, with the snarky tire screech of "Bitchin' Camaro."

It doesn't matter if you were in school — or even alive — when the college-rock revolution unleashed its alternative to the processed pop at the top of the '80s charts. Either way, you've felt its impact, courtesy of life-changing songs that defined an entire generation, songs that still pack one hell of a punch nearly a quarter-century down the line — from the Replacements' stumbling, slamming, howling anthem to that lost generation, "Bastards of Young," to the philosophy-major brain-tease of They Might Be Giants' polysyllabic pop puzzle "Ana Ng." Well, you're about to feel it all over again, 'cause class is now in back in session. Your homework: experience one Essentials playlist packed with the best of '80s college rock — the finest moments in hardcore, goth, dream pop, synth pop, and so much more.