In this space, I tend to venerate the music spun with vigor on college radio during my first year as a member of the brethren of left of the dial broadcasters. I think that’s fairly understandable. Most music fans cling to whatever albums represent their watershed discovery of the styles and artists that define their taste. But I also think I can make a pretty good case for the array of releases that moved in and out of heavy rotation during my inaugural academic year, especially the bounty that hit in the spring.

In noting an anniversary that is upon us, though, a friend of mine reminded me that it would have been massively exciting to arrive at my college radio station one year earlier, in the fall of 1987. The most significant back-to-school record was surely R.E.M.’s Document, but the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Darklands and Tom Waits’s Frank’s Wild Years were also fresh enough to demand saturation airplay as their respective wonders were discovered. Just in the first month of the school year, station music directors experienced the Christmas-morning flee of opening packages containing Love and Rockets’ Earth, Sun, Moon, Public Image Ltd’s Happy?, the Pixies’ Come On Pilgrim, Depeche Mode’s Music for the Masses, the Housemartins’ The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death, and The Smiths’ Strangeways, Here We Come.

And the above treasures are only those albums that have endured — some more than others, admittedly — in the canon of college rock. I pine for the experience of finding the hidden favorites, those albums that arrived with a little less hype and excitement, perhaps, but proved to be grand additions to the ongoing, collectively-constructed playlist. Some of them I managed to find later, but I’m sure there are many more that I missed.

I remain especially grateful that one of the relative obscurities from 1987 I did discover was Calenture, by the Triffids. It was the fourth studio album from the Australian band, but I suspect it was the first to get any notable distribution to U.S. college radio. For the purposes of these shores, the album was on Island Records, a label suddenly flush with cash, thanks to all the U2 records being sold.

Of course, I wasn’t all that concerned with the music biz backstory of how the album made its way to our Central Wisconsin outpost. I was simply enraptured by the stirring, lush pop songs it contained. They were the more spirited precursors of the ornate, orchestral cries of emotion later offered up by the likes of the Verve, Travis, and (ugh) Coldplay. Those later bands drifted towards swooning moroseness, but the Triffids were strident and triumphant, especially on a song like “Holy Water.” But even the ballads didn’t fall prey to layered, chiming production transforming into a smothering blanket, killing off the song’s energy.

Had I missed out on the Triffids, I’d like to think I would have found my way to them eventually, under the romantic premise that great music will always find a way. Maybe I would have been curious enough to dig into Calenture when it showed up as a reissue to the resounding disinterest of the student broadcasters I was advising at a Florida college radio station several years later. It’s perhaps more likely that I would have become enticed by the puzzle of “a Triffids song” that Courtney Barnett promises to sing during a tippled taxi ride in the song “History Eraser.”

I didn’t need to rely upon one of those delayed discovery methods, thankfully. I was blessed with Triffids music almost right away at my college radio station. It still would have been great to have gotten to it a year earlier, though. Maybe I should have skipped a grade somewhere along the line.

Listen or download –> The Triffids, “Holy Water”

(Disclaimer: I’m not sure if Calenture is out of print as a physical item. This time, I disregarded my usual lackluster research, only because — I will admit — I didn’t want to jeopardize my planned post. Even so, I mean no fiscal harm to any worthy parties in posting and sharing this, and in fact urge anyone who likes this song to seek out the whole album. It’s fantastic, start to finish. Do try to buy it from your favorite local, independently-owned record store in a manner that compensates both the proprietor of said business and the original artist. Though I think sharing a thirty-year-old song is the very definition of fair use, I do know the rules. I will gladly and promptly remove this file from my little corner of the digital world if asked to do so by any individual or entity with due authority to make such a request.)