Description

‘Nefarious Artists’ is a field study of over 500 punk rock, post- punk, new wave, hardcore punk, and alternative rock compilations from their beginnings in 1976 as major label samplers and live showcases of the ‘new wave’ through their rapid evolution into a documentary art form of D.I.Y.

There is a great mixture of the obvious and the obscure, the good and the bad (and the ugly), the mainstream and the underground, and as that snappy sub-title suggests, the book leaves few stones unturned in the ballpark of punk rock. It would be both churlish and pointless to then pick out a few comps I think should have made the cut, but didn’t, because at the end of the day, this is a staggeringly comprehensive piece of work regardless, and it’s been a joy this last week to think once again about amazing compilations that really did open my eyes to fantastic music that has stayed with me to this day – ‘P.E.A.C.E.’, ‘Cleanse the Bacteria’, ‘Rat Music for Rat People’, ‘Burning Ambitions’, ‘Riotous Assembly’, ‘Who? What? Why? When? Where?’, ‘Let Them Eat Jellybeans’, ‘The Decline of Western Civilization’, ‘Wessex 82’, ‘Wargasm’, ‘Viva Umkhonto!’, ‘Digging in Water’, ‘A Country Fit For Heroes’… the list goes on and on.

Written by the legendary Welly Artcore. A must have!