My love letter to compilation CDs
I don’t talk to much about my present personal life on here, but allow me to start out by saying this past month has been the month from hell (no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t pull off a post in May). After gearing up for a move I’d been pretty stoked about, my husband and I arrived at our new home to find the place nearly in shambles, on multiple levels. I’ll spare you all the details (plumbing, leaks, broken appliances) to prevent this from becoming a full on rant post, but let’s just say I’m not having greatest time right now. For that reason, I want to focus on something positive, something fun—one of my greatest loves—compilation CDs.
Do you remember those days when all of our CD collections included a stack of various compilation CDs? And yes, I’m sure I can find some digital compilation albums on Spotify or something, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about a tangible CD.
Maybe you scored your first compilation CD in a record store (no doubt enticed by this classic Jock Jams commercial). Or maybe your friend lent one to you, explaining that track 7 would absolutely blow your mind. Or maybe your mom bought you one as a gift because “the front cover says ska and you like ska music, right?”
As for me, while I’m unsure if it was actually my first ever compilation CD, the first one I can really remember is Punk Rock Strike Vol. 1 by Springman Records. My gosh, as a young punk trying to discover new bands, that thing was a game changer. It was my first exposure to bands like The Wunder Years, No Use for a Name, and The Amazing Transparent Man, just to name a few. And not only that—it was also the absolutely on-point packaging.
You see that blue-haired girl pictured on the front cover and the disk? She’s exactly who I aspired to be when this CD came into my possession. She looked so cool and comfortable in her own skin. And look at her, sitting on the ground—if only I could be such a rebel! And most importantly, she looked like she was part of something. Man, it may sound silly, but in the year 2000 everything about this CD spoke to me.
Springman Records went on to release three more volumes of their Punk Rock Strike compilation, each one further expanding my music knowledge. What’s special about Punk Rock Strike Vol. 2 was their inclusion of three “Punks are open-minded” bonus tracks (see below), which included indie/experimental icons Xiu Xiu and Mates of State. I think I was about 16 at the time, I didn’t even really know what indie music was, and I absolutely had never heard anything as experimental as Xiu Xiu. I was so wrapped up in my little punk rock bubble at the time, I don’t think I would have ever given either of these bands a chance were they not so cleverly placed in this compilation in a manner that dared me to keep an open mind.
But that’s not the only compilation CD I hold near and dear to my heart. There is also A Punk Rock Commune by Communion Records. This thing is jam packed with, in my opinion, some of the best bands in the Christian punk scene. And while I have a complicated relationship with religion these days, it’s hard to deny that the Christian punk scene produced some pretty killer bands.
It’s nearly impossible to decipher the tracklist, so allow me to call out some of the heavy hitters. We have the aggressive, in-your-face horror punks Blaster the Rocketman, hardcore punk trailblazers Officer Negative, and Squad 5-0 back when they were still more ska-punk than glam-rock. Even when I was deep into the Christian church, it was never lost on me how uncool it was to be a devout church girl, but man did these bands somehow manage to make Christianity feel badass and subversive.
Here are a couple of the other comps I was able to scrounge up in the midst of my move. Clockwise we have releases from No Idea Records, Bettie Rocket Records, Fat Wreck Chords, Punkcore, and Epitaph. Any of these look familiar to you?
Do you still have any old compilation CDs lying around? Which compilation albums are your all time favorites, punk or otherwise (I honestly do love Jock Jams)?
Punk-O-Rama!
I was a punker that also loved ska (still do), so when the Hellcat Records “Give ‘em the Boot” comp came out I was in heaven. We didn’t have a record store in our town apart from WalMart, so anything one of our group got hold of was instantly reproduced on cassette. Once someone had “imported” a copy of Macimumrocknroll, we ordered random comps from the back pages and they were the backbone of our “scene”. You would brag about being into some band, even though you had only ever heard the one song.