Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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Salem 66 were founded by Judy Grunwald, Beth Kaplan and Susan Merriam in Boston in 1981. A major part of a thriving Boston scene that produced bands like Mission of Burma and Dinosaur Jr (Dinosaur Jr's first New York show was notably an opening slot for Salem 66 at Folk City), the band were ahead of their time.

They were one of the few women-led bands in their scene, and made their mark with an adventurous blend of arty post-punk (they notably covered Wire's "Fragile") and melodic pop. Between 1984 and 1990 they released one self-titled EP, 2 singles and 4 albums, 1985's A Ripping Spin, 1987's Frequency & Urgency, 1988's Natural Disasters, National Treasures, and 1990's Down The Primrose Path (produced by Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie who went on to produce Radiohead’s Pablo Honey and Hole’s Live Through This), all on the venerable New York imprint Homestead Records, label home to bands like Sonic Youth, Big Black and The Chills. The band earned comparisons to R.E.M., The Talking Heads and The Velvet Underground from The New York Times, and further praise from outlets like Rolling Stone, CREEM and the Village Voice. They shared stages with The Replacements, Mission of Burma, the Go-Betweens, the Wipers, the Saints and the Raincoats, and toured across the country on multiple occasions, but despite their prominence in the '80s, the Salem 66 catalog has been out of print for decades and their music has never been available on streaming.

00:00 Red Barn
04:18 Across The Sea
07:56 Carry A Torch
12:11 Playground
17:07 Widow's Walk
22:30 Isabella
25:00 Secret
28:12 Thaw
32:05 Bell Jar
35:36 Lost and Found

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