Various Artists: Loud, Fast And Out Of Control: The Wild Sounds Of '50s Rock

If Jimi Hendrix still sounds dangerous, this four-disc box set asks, why doesn't Little Richard The answer would seem to be a question of context. The haze of nostalgia that hangs over the '50s is of a different sort than the one shrouding the '60s, the music of the earlier era often getting lumped in with a false image of Eisenhowerian security and prosperity. Loud, Fast And Out Of Control's answer to the problem: recontextualization. By stacking genuine, hardcore rock 'n' roll tracks 104 deep, dispensing with Pat Boone and songs about dead prom dates, Loud restores much of the grit to the music's era. There's a reason these records were burned, after all. Linked inextricably to juvenile delinquency—the great bugaboo of the '50s after Communism—and all it implied, rock 'n' roll was the sound of youthful rebellion reduced to its essence, and a brilliant synthesis of musical styles. Combining the familiar (Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Elvis) with the obscure (Lorrie & Larry Collins, The Phantom), Loud compiles some of the century's most essential, fun, and dangerous-sounding music. From the sublime menace of Link Wray's "Rumble" through the inadvertent curfew-breaking of the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up Little Susie," '50s rock, or at least the top-shelf stuff sampled here, is filled with the sound of a generation not doing what it was supposed to do, at least for the moment. Loud, Fast And Out Of Control also does a nice job capturing the variety of artists initially drawn to the genre: The wrongheaded notion that rock is merely black music made white is neatly done in by the cultural exchange in the music of Fats Domino, Carl Perkins, Ritchie Valens, and Chuck Berry. It didn't last, of course, and now you can hear Berry in the background of toy-car commercials, but for those looking to find how edgy and exciting things could be, Loud provides a great place to start.