5. Fishbone, "Party At Ground Zero" (1985)
Fishbone never took "Party At Ground Zero" anywhere near the charts, but this darkly funny skanking-in-the-shelter track from its debut EP is just as honest as "Russians," though less earnest. The music was, in its own way, already post-apocalyptic, a mutant fusion of hard rock, ska, and whatever else was lying around. Like a lot of mutants, it died off without reproducing, but not without making an impression. Fishbone gets extra points for the video, which throws in everything from Hiroshima headlines to weird masks to stop-motion films of sprouting mushrooms.
6. Europe, "The Final Countdown"
Of course, music of the looming apocalypse could also be butt-dumb, as the Swedish hair-metal band Europe proved with "The Final Countdown," a fantasy of "heading for Venus" as Earth explodes to the tune of anthemic synths and shredding guitars. What kind of countdown is this? Everybody sing along with Joey Tempest: "It's the fine-ahl count-down…" (Bah-da-baba… Bah-da-ba-dada…)
7. XTC, "This World Over" (1984)
"Ah well, that's this world over," Andy Partridge sighs before imagining what the future inhabitants of the rubble that used to be London will think of the civilization that blew itself up. Not much, presumably, but at least it'd be a chance to start over.
8. Talking Heads, "(Nothing But) Flowers" (1988)
On this track from their swan song album, Talking Heads ran with that hopefulness, imagining a world where 7-Elevens and Dairy Queens have been overrun with flora. Sounds nice enough, but David Byrne remains unconvinced, singing, "If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower." Maybe he's too square to fit in with the new paradise at the other end of civilization. Or maybe he just recognizes that whatever brought them to this place won't really take them back to Eden. And how did this come to pass? "As things fell apart, nobody paid much attention."
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