hüsker dü Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

Hüsker Dü “New Day Rising”

sfilzen — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 18:07:21 +0000

Hüsker Dü “New Day Rising” 1985. SST Records. Midwestern 80’s punk, the third LP from Minnesota’s Hüsker Dü. A mix of chaotic, rough n’ ready punk, power pop and melodic punk. It made the UK Indie chart at #10 in ’85 and while it had no chart presence to speak of in the US, it was well-received critically and was included on some best-of lists (Spin, NME, Rolling Stone), both at the year of its release as well as retrospectively. The title and lead track, “New Day Rising” is a cacophony of scratchy sound (Bob Mould apparently hated the record’s production and I have to say I agree with him on that), but a really great punk track that is more in line with the Dü’s early hardcore material, as is “I Don’t Know What You’re Talking About.” (The album closer “Plans I Make” is just pure punk chaos, not even a lick of pop). I also like “I Apologize” and “If I Told You” which start to lean more power pop/melodic punk. The track “Celebrated Summer” mixes it all together – that track was sort of released as a single, sent as a promotional 45 to radio stations only – with bursts of speed and moments of delicate acoustic guitar. “Perfect Example” is a jangly alt-rock track, recalling R.E.M. more than anything else (it’s fine though a bit boring). “Terms of Psychic Warfare” is a beaty ass-shaker: power pop with punk edges and an anthemic feel – it’s great! “Books About UFO’s” is a bluesy rocker with piano which does not at all wedge into the punk genre (but it is a fun song, it’s too bad the production is so sucky as it could have sounded much better). I’m not sure I agree that this is one of the best punk releases of the era, but it is a great LP and demonstrates the evolution, in real time, from hard punk to punk pop that was trending in the mid-to-late 80’s.

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Hüsker Dü “Everything Falls Apart”

sfilzen — Tue, 29 Aug 2023 18:23:23 +0000

Hüsker Dü “Everything Falls Apart” 1983. Reflex Records. The debut record from noisy Minnesota hardcore punks. We’re heading to Minneapolis for the holiday weekend and caught Bob Mould’s show this past Saturday in the park right by our house for WMSE’s annual Backyard BBQ so spinning this 40 year release from Hüsker Dü feels….perfect. His performance was, as always, amazing, energetic and LOUD.

Everything Falls Apart is really excellent early 80’s punk: fast, punchy and loud but not screamy and it’s melodic without being emo. My top tracks are the lead track “From the Gut” with its excellent rat-a-tat-tat drum attack, the lightning-quick “Punch Drunk” and “Bricklayer,” both of which would have fit nicely onto the Suicidal Tendencies s/t album released the same year, the hilarious punk’d up cover of Donovan’s “Sunshine Superman” and the dark, angsty poli-anthemic “Target.” Bob Mould did not perform any song from Everything Falls Apart at the Backyard BBQ but he did play a couple of later Hüsker Dü numbers including “Flip Your Wig,” “Hate Paper Doll” and “Hardly Getting Over It.” It was a family-friendly event and Mould is in his 60’s so the whiplash pace and angry-young-man vibe of Everything Falls Apart probably wasn’t the best choice for the show.

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Bob Mould “Blue Hearts”

sfilzen — Wed, 13 Jul 2022 17:01:36 +0000

Bob Mould “Blue Hearts” 2020. Merge Records. Limited edition blue/black/white tricolor vinyl. An excellent and rightly angry protest album recorded during the height of the pandemic by the elder alt-rock statesman, Blue Hearts marks Mould’s sixteenth solo effort (that does not include his work with Hüsker Dü and Sugar); it went to #181 on the US album charts. We caught Mould this past weekend at Summerfest where he performed a superb mix of solo tracks (some from Blue Hearts but also older hits like “See a Little Light“), Sugar songs (one of my all-time favorite songs ever “Hoover Dam“) and Hüsker Dü cuts. Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard joined Mould onstage for the Hüsker Dü classic “Makes No Sense At All” which was a happy surprise. DCFC was set to headline the same stage later that evening and according to a tweet from Mould’s bassist Jason Narducy: “Before we walked on stage at at Summerfest, Bob told Ben Gibbard the chords to ‘Makes No Sense At All.’ Ben said he thought he could learn it before we got to the end of the set. He grabbed my red guitar and did it.”

Blue Hearts is aggressively loud (I’m pretty sure I lost a decent amount of my hearing at a Sugar show back in the early 90’s) and dense yet still melodic, like most Mould albums. My top tracks are “Next Generation,” the all-out rager “American Crisis,” “Siberian Butterfly,” the very catchy “Baby Needs a Cookie” and the LP closer “The Ocean.”

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Hüsker Dü “Candy Apple Grey”

sfilzen — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 13:25:51 +0000

Hüsker Dü “Candy Apple Grey” released 35 years ago this month, March 1986. Today, March 18th, would have been Hüsker Dü’s drummer and co-songwriter Grant Hart’s 60th birthday (b. 1961). Candy Apple Grey was Hüsker Dü’s fifth album and their first on a major label (Warner Bros.), kind of officially marking their final break from punk to power pop/alternative rock. It’s still hard-rocking and a bit thrashy but way more melodic and poppy; even the acoustic guitar and orchestral forest sounds (“Too Far Down” written by Bob Mould) make an appearance. The album went to #140, though despite its poor showing on the charts, singles like “Sorry Somehow” and “Don’t Want to Know If You Are Lonely” (both written by Hart) got play on college radio, the video for “Don’t Want to Know…” even aired on MTV. Those two tracks are some of my favorites on the album, plus I also like the Hart-penned “Dead Set on Destruction” and Mould’s “Eiffel Tower High.” But, not to speak ill of the dead, I really do not like Hart’s “No Promise Have I Made” – it’s super-whiney-goes-screamy and overblown with emotionality.

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Hüsker Dü “Flip Your Wig”

sfilzen — Fri, 16 Oct 2020 20:52:07 +0000

Hüsker Dü “Flip Your Wig” 1985. SST Records. Today, October 16th, is Hüsker Dü’s guitarist/vocalist/co-songwriter Bob Mould’s 60th birthday (b. 1960). Flip Your Wig was the band’s fourth LP and their last for SST Records before hopping to a major label (Candy Apple Grey, 1986 on Warner Bros.). It’s definitely one of my more-liked Hüsker Dü albums (I’m a bigger fan of Sugar and Mould’s solo work, but a lot of Flip Your Wig sounds a lot like his post-Hüsker Dü work) and it’s Bob Mould’s favorite, too; it went to #1 on the UK Indie chart. Melodic Midwest punky power-pop, Hüsker Dü in general had a huge influence on the 80′s/90′s alternative sound and you can hear this a ton in my top tracks like “Makes No Sense At All” (the album’s sole single, #2 UK Indie chart), the title track “Flip Your Wig,” “Hate Paper Doll,” the more roughly punk (though still melodic) and “Divide and Conquer,” (all written by Mould, about half of the other songs on Flip Your Wig were written by Grant Hart).

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Hüsker Dü “Land Speed Record”

sfilzen — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 19:58:34 +0000

Hüsker Dü “Land Speed Record” 1982. New Alliance Records, original pressing. The sad news today is the death of Hüsker Dü drummer Grant Hart at age 56 from kidney cancer. Land Speed Record was the band’s first release, recorded live at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis in August 1981. It’s fast, really really fast and messy hardcore thrash punk, complete with chugga chugga grinding guitars, mumbled scream-sing vocals and lots of 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4′s. They cram 17 songs into an LP that plays less than 30 minutes. (It seems that early 80′s Midwestern bands perhaps tried to prove something: if they couldn’t get as much attention or distribution as their coast counterparts, at least they could compete for the title of fastest punk band – see Wisconsin’s Die Kreuzen, for instance.) (Another aside, like Die Kreuzen, Hüsker Dü also were influenced by and had connections to the crazy-speed Minutemen: New Alliance Records was started by D. Boon and Mike Watt; after D. Boon’s death in ‘85 it was sold to Black Flag’s Greg Ginn’s label SST, which had released Hüsker Dü’s 1984 album Zen Arcade.) Overall Land Speed Record is a relentless sonic barrage, barely a breath between tracks and it’s amazing they could keep the pace through a live show. It also contains very little of the melodic punk sound that Hüsker Dü would become lauded for in subsequent years, though there are some whispers of it in the guitar lines and vocals in tracks like “All Tensed Up” and “Data Control.” But mostly it’s chaos that bleeds from song to song with little to differentiate between.

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Sugar “File Under: Easy Listening”

sfilzen — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 20:30:44 +0000

Sugar “File Under: Easy Listening” 1994. Sugar’s second and final full-length release. It may be considered heretical, but I’ve always preferred Bob Mould’s solo work and his recordings with Sugar to his work with Hüsker Dü. This album is not quite as great as Sugar’s first release, Copper Blue, but File Under: Easy Listening has some wonderful fuzzed-guitared melodic alt-pop tracks. “Your Favorite Thing” is hook-driven and soaringly beautiful. “Gee Angel” is super-upbeat and danceable tinged with hard-edges and humor. “Panama City Motel” is as sad as a, well, Panama City motel.

I’m pretty sure we saw Sugar when they were on tour for this album, so probably late ‘94 or early ‘95, at the Rave in Milwaukee. I stood far too close to the speakers just at the side of the stage and the buzz in my head that lingered for days matches the buzzy quality of many of the record’s songs.

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