Apocalyptic Beat

MUSIC THAT MADE US THINK

The War on Terror is no fun. It has brought us nothing but fear and repression. The Cold War was different. It brought fear of another kind: flamboyant paranoia. Armageddon seemed inevitable, but there was also a party going on, fueled by a new and exhilarating sense of freedom. Atomic Platters: Cold War Music from the Golden Age of Homeland Security brings together on five CDs more than a hundred recordings from 1945 through 1969. Encountered here—amid a slew of pop, blues, country, rhythm and blues, gospel, rock 'n' roll, and incredible junk—are Homer Harris's "Atomic Bomb Blues," with Muddy Waters on guitar (1946), Doris Day's "Tic, Tic, Tic" (1949), and Bo Diddley's "Mr. Khrushchev" (1962). The unexpected pleasures are many. "You make me radioactive all in my knees," sings Fay Simmons seductively in "You Hit Me Baby Like an Atomic Bomb" (1954). More than two dozen civildefense spots (by Tony Bennett, Pat Boone, Boris Karloff, Groucho Marx, and others) are scattered throughout. This is history as it should be: a dance of laughter in the dark, the eternal lesson that fear and repression will not deliver us. Nor will advice from Connie Francis to keep an emergency supply of food and water in case of nuclear attack.

NICK TOSCHES