File Under: Easy Listening (1994)

During the great grunge apotheosis of 1994 I seemed to be spending most of my time listening to the Pet Shop Boys, for what that's worth, to accompany all the crises of the time, personal and otherwise. But the noisy rock albums were well piled around as well. How could they not be? If I never quite caught all the way up with F.U.E.L. (and/or FU:EL, the alternative titles for this alternative album by one of alternative's favorite sons, Bob Mould), I plead undue fascination with the Sugar EP of the year before when I was in the mood for Mould blasts, Beaster, plus my certain (if passing) exhaustion at that point with aural sludge. Checking in with the internet now, I see the album is regarded in some quarters as the single best by Sugar, with hosannas for the scrubbed cudgel of Mould's production and the surprising tunefulness at the center of the welter, a well-known Mould feature. I mean, wasn't he a key part of inventing exactly thatt? Some hailed FU:EL as a rare species of true power pop. Others noted Mould's appreciation of My Bloody Valentine's dynamics of pummeling attack and winsome melodies. (In turn, MBV have to be counted as acolytes of Husker Du in the first place.) I pass these points along by way of context and general interest. Sometimes, for me, the much vaunted tunefulness here is little more than a kind of sing-songy monotony ("Your Favorite Thing," "Gee Angel," "Believe What You're Saying"). But I can't deny how often it works on me even so, especially with regular exposure, as things in this set continually reveal themselves—in the guitar play, in the hooks, in the mix, in the words, in whatever worked. Take the lift from David Bowie's "Heroes" for "What You Want It to Be," for example (sans Fripp's part unfortunately), which once recognized is almost as audacious and shocking as it is apt. Because actually it is apt—Bowie and the hulking grungers (and the hardcorers before them) were equally outsider freaks, and the best understood the point of melody. But also, however you want to argue it, there's nothing new going on here either—nothing new to power pop, or to Bob Mould, or even to putting pretty music inside roaring music. In that way, F.U.E.L. is a little conservative, more a summation than innovation, which you probably already knew. It's worth spending time with too, if you didn't.

Husker Du and the Replacements in Minneapolis in the '80s

(Requested by reader Skip D. Expense)

I don't like the term "Amerindie," it's nearly as ugly of a word as "blog," but it's the scope you need to start with for Husker Du, the Replacements, and Minneapolis in the '80s, which I was fortunate enough to be around for (until 1985 anyway). Husker Du and the Replacements would make their lasting outsize impacts on pop music and rock 'n' roll currents, but there was another powerful stream of Minneapolis music in the '80s coming from the north side of town, in the person of Prince Rogers Nelson, who contended with them for ultimate supremacy of influence, musicianship, songwriting, guitar playing, hip cachet, future of rock 'n' roll, what have you. It's clear now who made the biggest dent—and more importantly, by implication (especially when you factor in those Amerindie dominations of Husker Du and the Replacements), just how much fun it was to be in Minneapolis at the time. Note: As a native more or less of the Minneapolis environs, I unfortunately come with all the in-built prejudices. Please read "Twin Cities" or "Minneapolis/St. Paul" whenever I say "Minneapolis."

Within that Amerindie scope, there was a vaunted Minneapolis tradition that traced through soon after the beginnings of rock 'n' roll from the Trashmen ("Surfin' Bird"), Castaways ("Liar, Liar"), and Novas ("The Crusher") in the mid-'60s, and then carrying on into the '70s with acts such as Skogie & the Flaming Pachucos and the Suicide Commandos. Aided and abetted by a nightclub in downtown Minneapolis called Jay's Longhorn, all this led to the Twin/Tone label in approximately 1977 and a rash of often worthy acts: the Suburbs, Curtiss A, the Hypstrz, and others (Big Hits of Mid-America Volume III is the essential document here). Besides the Longhorn, much of this activity was hived around a record store in south Minneapolis named for Skip Spence and Roy Harper albums, Oar Folkjokeopus. And here it was that arrived one day a fabled demo tape which became a record contract for the Replacements. An instant legend too good to be true, they were impossibly young—Tommy Stinson, the bass player, was 14 when the first album came out in 1981, Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash.

Hüsker Dü, "Pink Turns to Blue" (1984)

(listen)

Along about the time of the 1983 EPs "Everything Falls Apart" and especially "Metal Circus" (with the amazing song "Diane") I started getting out to see Hüsker Dü a lot more than I ever had. You maybe know the legends. They were roaring loud, physically tumultuous affairs, staged in tiny steamy clubs, and they set me up well for the coming of their unprecedented (or anyway unexpected) double-LP concept album package Zen Arcade. The way I understood it there was always a good deal of friction inside the band, more ultimately than was healthy for any of the three principals; it all subsequently blew apart a few short years (and a solid handful of albums) later. That tension somehow filtered out so there was always a lot of talk, as I recall, about who was the "better" songwriter, Bob Mould or Grant Hart. The fact is they were both really good, but exposed to the question and sitting down to study the matter I noticed a marked preference on my part for the Hart songs. I think this is way-far one of his best and it's as good an example of Hüsker Dü in their prime as you're bound to get, in case you were ever curious about them. Mould's flying-V electric guitar rakes and claws against the dense surface, Hart flails like a wild man after the Keith Moon fashion, and there's spooky piano in there for effect. The lyrics, about an unfortunate death, seemed pretty cool too, but what always makes it for me are the whispery vocals in falsetto harmonies climbing up and down and in and around the chorus, tuneful enough to sing with, shivery enough to feel along your spine. The band used to just go tearing through the whole album in shows, preserving the sequencing and everything, and this was always a high point.

Zen Arcade (1984)

"Pink Turns to Blue" The early stuff by Hüsker Dü, especially the debut Land Speed Record, often didn't get past an onslaught of unlistenable sludge. But then something shifted. A handful of singles and EPs came along that increasingly showed songwriting chops and a unique sensibility, using point of view, dramatic tension, even melody, to inflect and texture the trademark flying-V giant roar. I suppose nobody should have been surprised when one of the premier hardcore bands of the time proved capable of a tender, beautiful, harrowing, bludgeoning, and always interesting double vinyl concept LP. But everyone was. It was about the last thing anyone expected -- which is only one of the features about it that make it so sweet.

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