Freedom of Choice

by

Various Artists

Edit

It's for a great cause, this album, despite what rightwingers might think of it. If you are old enough to remember the old K-Tel compilations (predates Now That's What I Call Music!) like Chartaction '83, Streer Beat or Hit Mix, you probably heard the originals on one of those. Before alternative got silly, several of the "biggies" (Sonic Youth, Redd Kross, Superchunk, Mudhoney, The Muffs and an uncredited Soul Asylum doing the Vibrators' "Baby Baby") and some lesser knowns put out this album of cover tunes. It was too early in some respects for the 1980s retro boom of late, but 13 years on they still hold up pretty well and the price is right. I got this when I was in high school and still listen to it quite frequently.

Signed,

epsteinsmutha

When bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam redefined the "alternative rock" genre in the early 90s, it became easy to forget that the 70s and 80s had alternative scenes of their own.

Except back then it was called "new wave" and the songs were characterized by synth-driven tempos, propulsive arrangements, and lyrics about alienation and nuclear war.

Freedom of Choice, a fund-raiser for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, presents some of the genre's best songs and places them in the context of the alternative rock of the 90s. So, songs by the Human League, A Flock of Seagulls, Missing Persons and Soft Cell are covered by Chia Pet, It's OK, Erectus Monotone, and Finger, respectively. Add covers of pre-new wavers Elvis Costello by Mudhoney and Iggy Pop by Tiny Lights, and you've got the idea.

When this collection came out in 1992, it was probably a little early to be commemorating the 80s and call -- as the liner notes do -- the Go-Go's Charlotte Caffey and Devo's Gerald V. "new wave legends". The good news, however, is that unlike most compilation CDs, this one is surprisingly consistent.

Sonic Youth, perhaps the best-known alternative band on the compilation, turn in a fine dismantling of Plastic Bertrand's "Ca Plane Pour Moi" as do Yo La Tengo, who cover Blondie's best song, "Dreaming".

White Flag provide an effective, albeit unrecognizable, cover of Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" and the Muffs score with an upbeat version of Paul Collins' "Rock & Roll Girl".

More faithful to the originals are Mudhoney's take on Elvis Costello's "Pump it Up" and the Connells' rendition of Split Enz's "I Got You."

Ten years after the fact, this compilation remains an interesting relic, though it's telling that the bands of the 80s covered here are still remembered fondly, while the bands doing the covering are, but for a handful, mostly forgotten.