Oingo Boingo

The Year That Boingo Broke. That's one way of looking at 1985 — the take-it-to-another-level turning point of Danny Elfman's band, Oingo Boingo, from their mainstream-storming John Hughes moment (the glossy guitars and wobbly synths of the "Weird Science" theme) to their first and only gold-certified album, the peculiar but poppy [i]Dead Man's Party[/i]. About the latter: Aside from being the first Boingo release to resonate with critics, it also included another career-defining soundtrack selection: the horn-blasting title track, which appeared in the classic Rodney Dangerfield comedy [i]Back to School[/i] along with the band…and Kurt Vonnegut. Of course, none of this came as a surprise to Oingo Boingo's growing legion of fans, who had already devoured the three '80s albums that dominate our Next Steps.

Nearly a decade before Oingo Boingo's first official release (the B-movie soundtrack [i]Forbidden Zone[/i]), the band went by the name the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, a theater troupe on par with Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention. Enter the '80s, which brought on a name change and a trio of instant West Coast classics, including [i]Nothing to Fear[/i], [i]Good for Your Soul[/i], and the KROQ favorite [i]Only a Lad[/i]. None of which entirely fit the new wave mold, thanks to Danny Elfman's love of ska (the three-piece horn section that pops up in nearly every song, including a randy cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me") and maniacal melodies ("Insects," "Nasty Habits"). The early days play a major part in our Deep Cuts as well, as do a handful of stage-bound songs that serve as a reminder of Oingo Boingo's startling performances.

When Oingo Boingo decided to call it a day at a Halloween concert in 1995 (immortalized in the [i]Farewell[/i] disc, including the woozy carnival atmospherics of "Helpless" and the keg party-appropriate "Ain't This the Life"), the ever-expanding/contracting collective had a back catalogue to be proud of. For one thing, [i]Boingo Alive[/i] is a live album without an audience, bringing twisted takes to the band's first decade of offbeat jams, from the tense twang of "Country Sweat" to the squealing sax lead of "Violent Love." As for what happened in the years since, [i]Dark at the End of the Tunnel[/i] and [i]Boingo[/i] drop the new wave inclinations of [i]Nothing to Fear[/i] and [i]Good for Your Soul[/i] for paranoid pop ("When the Lights Go Out") and expansive swan songs ("Hey!").

To say Danny Elfman's busy these days would be an astronomical understatement, what with all the pop-culture-piercing TV theme songs ([i]The Simpsons[/i], [i]Desperate Housewives[/i]) and film scores ([i]Pee Wee's Big Adventure[/i], [i]Good Will Hunting[/i]) that he's cooked up over the past two decades. In fact, Elfman's whimsical and weird sound has become so ubiquitous in the television and film business that it's easy to forget the 17 years he fronted Oingo Boingo. Founded in the '70s by his older brother Richard as a musical theater outfit, the band went on to become one of new wave's dark-horse acts — as indebted to synth-pop as they were to Elfman's traditional music training in Africa and France. No wonder their entire Essentials playlist sounds so fresh and frenzied, from its liberal use of horns to percussion patterns that'll leave your head spinning.