Please allow me to wax nostalgic for a moment because it's going to be relevant. So, in the year 2000 when I was 14 years old there was a CD shop in my hometown called Bionic, and this was my favourite shop. I got I think £8 per week pocket money and CDs from Bionic typically cost between £10 and £15 so that meant that at least every two weeks I could buy a new CD. Often these would be from bands I already knew, but sometimes they would be things I just liked the look of. That would be especially true if it felt like something where I was going to get a lot of bang for my buck, such big punk compilations like Short Music for Short People. Discography complete - Special edition campaign 25th Anniversary feels like the kind of thing I would have bought at Bionic, despite the considerably less catchy title.
This is a compilation made up of tracks recorded between 1999 and 2024, and something that's interesting is that I have no sense of when each track was recorded because it feels so cohesive and, more important, everything feels like it could have come from 1999. That's not a bad thing, but all 30 tracks (excluding the sampler at the start) are these raw sounding garage recordings where I'm pretty sure every instrument you hear is an authentic live recording. No sequencing whatsoever.
Every song is great, too. There wasn't a single dull moment. The vast majority of it falls somewhere in the punk sphere, with some songs leaning more hardcore and others leaning poppy, with a surprising number of surfy tracks, too.
On the hardcore end, highlights include the colossally noisy Grita by MG15, and the anthemic Esta noche vas a triunfar by Bodega Caníbal. The poppier side includes the jaunty Cómo sobrevivir a una peli de terror by Smoking Victims and the really quite fantastic Mejor sin ti by La Plaga.
All of this is stuff my 14 year old Bionic-shopping Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 playing self would have absolutely loved, and my slightly curmudgeonly 40 year old self loves it, too.
The less punky stuff comes in a few different forms. There's the Thin Lizzy meets Rick Springfield classic rock of Qué hago yo aqui by Johnny B. Nasty & The Rock Circus, the fun and retro acoustic rock 'n' roller Pensando en ti by La Quinta Del Sordo, and the big and moody indie rocker Bad fever by Blackberry Clouds, which is one of my favourites here.
You may have noticed, reading this, that a lot of these songs have Spanish titles. I'm not entirely sure where these artist come from, I'm assuming Spain but it could be Mexico or somewhere else, but I should admit that I have no idea what any of these songs are saying. It didn't affect my enjoyment, either way.
This is an excellent compilation. Really great. One that reminded me of why my young self fell in love with alternative music in the first place. At 90+ minutes, it's a long haul, but at no point did I find myself wanting to skip ahead. I loved it.