Why the 1980s Rocked More Than You Think, Thought, Thunk

God bless Carrie Brownstein and her NPR-laden appreciation of good music, and most specifically her spirited defense -- with evidence -- of what I still consider a seminal year in good music, the 1980s.

From The Replacements, Husker Du and Soul Asylum in Minneapolis to the hardcore scenes of Boston, DC and LA; from Olympia, Athens and Glasgow to the sparks of brilliance emanating from New Zealand via Flying Nun Records and from the UK on Cherry Red Records, many artists and communities waged tiny battles against the gross commercialism, grandiosity and excesses taking up the radio waves. Even if the music wasn't meant as an intentional "f--- you" to the mainstream (though some of it was), these scenes managed to produce sounds -- unlike a lot of Top 40 music from the '80s -- that sonically and melodically stands the test of time.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that the best music from the '80s, despite a few exceptions, was not the popular music. In a decade that predates the Internet -- that wonderfully democratizing technology that conflates underground and mainstream by making both obsolete -- there were plenty of unknowns, or barely knowns. If you weren't in a big city or a major media center, your access to new music came in the form of fanzines, word of mouth or, if you were lucky, a college radio station. But a lot of the aforementioned scenes remained insular, an isolation that likely helped them avoid the pitfalls and influence of that horrendously plastic '80s sound.

So when I think of the '80s now, I think of the mainstream music as a giant neon sign that's alluring, obnoxious and certainly hard to ignore; it never seems to fade out completely. And those underground or punk bands -- Felt, Orange Juice, The Chills, The Clean, The Verlaines, Tall Dwarfs, The Bats, Delta 5, Bush Tetras, Beat Happening, The Church, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Black Flag, X, Social Distortion, The Misfits, JFA and countless others -- were small fires set in countless cities around the globe. Maybe they weren't big enough to join forces and overtake the status quo -- the way bands did in '69, '77 and '91 -- but they were certainly bright enough to keep a spark alive until some other artist came along who knew how to set the place on fire.

I just spent the afternoon admiring (Dead Kennedy's frontman) Jello Biafra's impressive lyrical skills, so I know just how awesome the 80s were. (Check out Brownstein's video homage to 1980s music -- Part One and Part Two.)

I'd already forgotten how underground everything was. I relied almost exclusively on four sources to guide me musically -- friends who glommed good punk and alternative music; Plan 9 Records, the only place in town to buy anything not heard on commercial radio; Maximum Rock 'n' Roll and Thrasher magazines (purchased at Plan 9); and WDCE, the University of Richmond's low-wattage radio station (available anywhere there isn't a hill). Moving from high school to college was transformational -- suddenly there were more than four people who listened to interesting music. And then the 90s arrived, and alternative became a touch more mainstream.