Archers of Loaf were the last of the great Nineties bands to reunite, which makes sense. Ambivalence was the engine of their glorious slacker racket: "With all of my might, I do this/It's a waste of my time to pursue this," Eric Bachmann yowled on their 1993 debut, Icky Mettle. The no-frills North Carolinians were nobody's glamour boys (they made Superchunk look like TLC), but they perfected the genre moves: bracing attack, two-guitar blurs of dissonance and beauty, a sympathetic barker wringing emotion from lyrics about the insular rock scene and girls who stalked it. (The second CD here is the rare bonus disc that actually feels like a bonus, tossing in the excellent Vs the Greatest of All Time EP from 1994.) Even on a jeremiad like "Audiowhore," Bachmann sounds like a good guy. He's a grouch you'd want to have a beer with.

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“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.