In the summer of 1987, MTV sent a bewildered VJ crew to report live from the long-rolling party taking place outside of Grateful Dead shows, this particular one manifesting at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. Besides broadcasting the news of a massive tailgate onto nationwide cable systems, the station pumped the band's "comeback" hit "Touch of Grey" a few times an hour. While the 22-year-old sextet was already capable of selling out Giants Stadium, MTV's "Day of the Dead" report fully transubstantiated the Grateful Dead and the Deadheads from an underground phenomenon into a legitimate part of mainstream American culture, as much an '80s phenomenon as a '60s band. Until Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, the Grateful Dead would grow more popular each year, the Day of the Dead extending to nearly a decade. The director of the band's ticket office and others would point to the MTV special as the tipping point towards the gate crashes and mini-riots of the '90s.

It was this popularity, too, that codified the deep uncoolness of the Grateful Dead during the same years, at least among a certain taste-making elite. Being anti-Dead had been part of the uniform for years (see the Teen Idles' "Deadhead," from Dischord's very first 7" in 1980). That attitude, too, went mainstream a decade or so later, via Kurt Cobain's homemade "Kill the Grateful Dead" shirt. The Grateful Dead boogied, perhaps occasionally achieved choogle; some of their fans were definitely on serious drugs, egregiously friendly, and stood out in crowds. They were easy picking for punks and the DEA alike.

This year's Day of the Dead is a new 5xCD , five-and-a-half-hour compilation produced by the National's Bryce and Aaron Dessner as a benefit for the Red Hot organization. With a cast of dozens drawn from a cross-section of indie-ish musical worlds, the set, like its MTV predecessor, signals another milestone in the San Francisco band's profound influence on American music, closing old circles and opening new ones. In the same way that no single Grateful Dead show (or song performance, or even era) could ever be definitive, the 59 tracks of Day of the Dead represent (merely!) a major entry in the ever-deepening catalog of Grateful Dead covers, interpretations, and reinventions. Already containing universes, the Dead's songbook is what makes the set enjoyable as a whole, transcending the performers and their translations. Perhaps even more than those of Bob Dylan (no stranger to covering the Dead), the songs of Jerry Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter welcome musicians of all stripes—loud and quiet, singers and instrumentalists, big-eared non-virtuosos and players alike.

With an artist list that connects Mumford & Sons (who blanch the Satanic urgency right out of "Friend of the Devil") to So Percussion (who carry "Terrapin Station (Suite)" to thrilling new realms), the set ranges eclectically in both style and level of inventiveness. Most anyone with any kind of appreciation for the Grateful Dead will find probably at least an hour or three of music to dig and really groove with; Dead freaks might also find a good deal to snicker at.

Where the Dead's critical revival on the fringes of the early 21st century freak-folk scare hinged on the band's weirdness (LSD, musique concrète, countercultural activity, untethered improvisation), Day of the Dead's reclamation feels comparably restrained. Though the contributions nod at various Day-Glo threads, the core of the project is made from the softer colors and textures that have defined indie rock in recent years. At the center is a National-anchored house band that come off as conservative literalists compared to the Dead themselves—pleasant, but not usually taking the music anywhere especially new. Instead, they treat the songs as new standards (which they are), pairing them with vocalists. Just as the Dead's hardcore '60s experimentation dissolved to messy stadium-sized calypso thunder, Day of the Dead is more dancing bears than skull-and-lightning Steal Your Faces. But fun prevails and sunshine abounds, and the set manages to capture a wide range of available Grateful Deads, channeled via Senegalese jazz groovers Orchestra Baobab, noise sculptor Tim Hecker, and many more.

Among the few to really nail the Dead's communal and conversational bounce, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks take a reassuring and natural turn through a *Europe '72-*style "China Cat Sunflower->I Know You Rider," Robert Hunter's Joycean psychedelia finding its perfect match in Malkmus' quizzical tongue-twisting. Other bands apply their own filters, highlighting bands the Grateful Dead maybe even wished