The Bolshoi

Once the "New Wave" had run its course and receded to a safe distance, it was time to assess the damage. Sadly, the landscape was left covered by a weightless spindrift of insipid music, with but a few notable exceptions. The Bolshoi's 1985 debut EP Giants belongs alongside the Chameleons UK's Strange Times and Echo and the Bunnymen's Ocean Rain as one of the most effective weapons in the battle against the epidemic airhead-ism spread by acts like Thompson Twins and Cyndi Lauper. Songs like "Hail Mary" and the title track tunneled under the era's giddy facade with their cryptic lyrics and eerie, cavernous guitar effects. When MTV put "Away" into heavy rotation on 120 Minutes, it earned the Bolshoi America's fleeting attention, but by then Trevor Tanner's dark lyricism had already begun to suffer from misguided attempts at artless social commentary. Few would have expected such a short-lived group (they disbanded in '87) to deserve a "greatest hits," but in 1999, nearly a decade after their demise, it happened. Loaded with alternate mixes, B-sides, and most of their best songs, it's worth having even if you weren't one of a handful of fans.