Killed By Death: Rare Punk 77-82

While the Killed By Death series was arguably a Nuggets for the late-seventies-and-after punk generation, focusing on obscurities and general oddities for an uncommercial scene to start with, its nature put it more in line with series like Pebbles and Boulders: bootleg rather than properly licensed and generally rougher all around. It ended up becoming a subcultural legend several times over, though, and its first volume, one of the initial ones compiled and annotated by Johan Kugelberg, established its reputation out of the gate. Its most famed numbers are the many early Beastie Boys tracks, later properly rereleased by the (understandably annoyed) band on Some Old Bullshit, but the remaining cuts include some real winners. Kicking in with Mad’s sax-touched thrashing snarl “I Hate Music” is perfectly appropriate and goonily hilarious, while choice cuts by the Wipers, Vox Pop and the Controllers among others keep the energy level on a real high. There’s no question that a number of the featured acts verged if not fully crossed over to the willfully offensive – two separate tracks about the Hillside Strangler, one by the band the Child Molesters, is example enough. So if the collection is partially a demonstration of jokes that didn’t age well (or weren’t much funny to start with), it’s still useful context.