I'm a firm believer that even in a lean period (sure, that's an Orange Juice reference, why not?), there's always great music to be found. Sometimes you just have to look a little harder for it.

Thanks to my go-to record shops – Zig-Zag, Bleecker Bob's and others in my old town and Atomic, Earwaves and Rush-Mor in my current one – I was able to easily get the best of the best in the 1980s. I'll play some of the music I mined in those places this week on WMSE.

DJ Rich Mars has invited me to join him with 30 minutes' worth of great '80s music on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. Being a kid of the late 1960s, the music of the 1980s was right in my sweet spot and I told Rich I would have trouble keeping it to 30 minutes. Great, he said, that means I can be regular.

The '80s were perhaps among the most fertile and diverse years for music – American, Jamaican and British (among others). At the start, the hardcore scene was rising in the States, while-post punk was morphing in England. By mid-decade everything had changed and by the end of it, American bands were getting ready to explode again, especially in the Pacific Northwest.

In the wake of "Rapper's Delight" and "The Breaks," hip-hop really took major leaps forward in the '80s, too. Jamaica was still in roots mode early on, then digital arrived and swept everything away.

Thinking that I might return to Mars' show, I've decided to focus on one style and era, more or less, for Wednesday's show. But I'm not telling you which one. To find out, you'll have to listen, though the photo above is certainly a clue.