Even a decade-and-a-half after its closure, 1980s pop music's totem in rock history remains a work in progress. Harsh skepticism of it in the early 90s almost instantaneously dismissed 10 years worth of relatively superficial, tacky music. As if to further discredit the decade, VH1 and MTV relegated 80s videos to novelty programs like "Pop-Up Video", keeping their bread-and-butter programs free of the nostalgic muck. Hell, even Comedy Central began running reasonably earnest 80s movies as comedies.

Try as they may though, the 80s weren't going away, not in 1994, and certainly not in the 21st century. While The Wedding Singer and "I Love the 80s" helped to extricate irony from the revival, the infiltration of bands like the Killers into the mainstream exposed today's audiences as more receptive to the decade than they could've imagined. Case in point, the Bravery foisted the most egregious fake-Cure album ever on the public, and many bought it. Further wrinkling this reification crisis, High School Reunion tickles our sentimental bone in addition to simple nostalgia; these aren't just pop hits, they're soundtracks to the movies that (aesthetic quality aside) firmly embedded themselves in our hearts.

Needless to say, High School Reunion runs some huge risks. For one, the tribute is somewhat self-serving, featuring mainly artists who peaked during the 80s rather than newer, flashier groups paying their dues to their influences-- in other words, if you wanted to bridge the generational gap here, look elsewhere. On the other hand, Matthew Sweet immaculately mimicking Tom Petty on "American Girl" begs the question, is there a non-masturbatory purpose to carbon-copying the songs you love? After all, the whole effect is totally lost when an unknown like the Wading Girl basically karaokes over the backing music to "Danke Schoen", then tries to play it cool with an electric guitar solo.

For all the potential heartstring tugging, the disc's bright spots occur on the quirkier, fun covers. Rather than trying to spruce up Oingo Boingo, the Bennies embrace Danny Elfman's kooky songwriting on "Weird Science". Frank Black one-ups that by simultaneously giving Iggy Pop a shout-out while sounding perfectly form-fitted to the sci-fi tomfoolery of "Repo Man", Trompe Le Monde's biological father. 4AD incest aside, even Kristin Hersh's pirated "Wave of Mutilation" cover hits the spot despite the Pixies perfecting the song's slow version 15 years ago.

But what of the tear-jerking, credit-closing show-stoppers we blared from a boombox held above our heads? Sadly, no one's getting lucky with those covers. AM gets fish in a barrel with "Don't You (Forget About Me)", yet what begins as a promising Clinic version of the song degenerates into the Black Crowes singing what sounds like a Black Crowes song. While hardly as damning, Lori McKenna's snoozer of a cover, "In Your Eyes", actually sounds like an adult contemporary version of the song. Real question is, how much better could these songs really be in the first place? Maybe it's my preset emotional neurons talking here, but anything passed the original feels anticlimactic and just too after-the-fact. Not saying High School Reunion's a terrible idea, just feels too much like an actual high school reunion-- everyone's uglier and more boring than they were all those years ago.

-Adam Moerder, January 5, 2006