1984 - 1986: The a&M Years

When the Swimming Pool Q's jumped to the big leagues in 1984, it was not yet certain that there was serious money to be made on American college radio but the success of R.E.M.'s Murmur suggested that there might be. And so began the strange saga of the Swimming Pool Q's, whose earliest music was nervy, quirky collegiate rock and their major-label albums, collected here on the double-disc 1984-1985: The A&M Years, often seemed surprisingly slick, sounding either like a cleaned-up R.E.M. or a gussied-up version of X. Of the two, the 1984 eponymous album is a cleaner, tighter listen, sounding a bit like jangle pop produced so it was actually pop. Its 1986 successor, Blue Tomorrow, made commercial concessions, particularly in its cavernous production — it is open without being driven by a forceful rhythm section, the opposite of Lifes Rich Pageant — but they still had their off-kilter Southern weirdness. At the time, neither the mainstream nor the college rock audience were entirely satisfied by the band — they had a cult following but not a large one, and they certainly didn't cross over — but in this nice double-disc retrospective, those awkward quirks make for some endearing nostalgia. [For hardcore fans, there is an edition that contains an extra disc of rarities plus a DVD of rare live footage and videos.]