Hüsker Dü Classic or Dud?

No, some are severely under-rated. Like Antman.

Grown men to tears.

you know what, i'd probably like a few more if i gave it another shot, it's been a long time.

anyone interesting in attempting actual interesting and/or useful content in re: HD = main i-word on pixies = main i-word on nirvana?

or is it just "sounds quite like" as per usual?

I quite like to. maybe tomorrow (this is a good direction for this thread to go to otherwise you might as well delete it).

I'd rather make stupid comments about their moustaches and sexuality.

[/jockist]

I think the Huskers/Pixies comp. comes from the story (perhaps myth) that Kim Deal responded to Charles Michael Kitteredge Thompson IV's want ad looking for musicians wanting to sound like "Husker Du crossed with Peter, Paul and Mary" more than anything else.

though actually i quite like the idea that "influence" in fact largely refers to whoever was mentioned in the original ad!!

"we are 'influenced' by the people we felt constrained to tell one another we wanted to sound like, before we actually met and found out what we could and couldn't manage, musically"

I'd rather read about gay men with moustaches. Y'know, like police fiction or something.

Okay, time to leave work.

Where Zen Arcade threatens to veer off the road at any second, New Day Rising never strays an inch off course. Like a longer, happier, yet more raging Metal Circus...I see this album as being the fulcrum for all that came before and all that would come after in their recorded output. Featuring their most consistently catchy songwriting, as well as incredibly pointed production, the band is perfectly in control no matter how noisy they get. Before New Day Rising, the band was never this focused. From this point on, the songs would slowly get quieter (I miss Spot) and weaker until the band faded away.

Despite the fun of Everything Falls Apart, and the bewildering thrash of Land Speed Record...the band's early work was nothing too special (although personally I prefer Rhino's re-release of Everything Falls Apart (and more) to their other releases). Also, although there were hints of this in Flip Your Wig, their move to a major label had an effect on their music akin to a scary drunk sobering up. While there are still some bright moments, overall I find this work embarrasing.

Still, their core output from 1983-1985 paved the way for a new breed of American rock music, including the Replacements, the Pixies (note Frank Black's propensity to (ab)use his voice for drama and noise within the context of a Pop structure), etc. Nirvana started out sounding more like the Melvins, but took elements from other Northwest rock groups (Green River/Mudhoney), whose regional styles were often depressive introspective and/or flippant sexual take-offs of the earnest catharsis that bands like Husker Du immersed themselves in. So while the lineage may not be direct, Nirvana might not have sounded the way they did without Husker Du. The book "Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana" does a good job of looking at these issues.

So overall, and especially in the context of what was going on around them musically, Husker Du are a classic in my book. Though I would be willing to consider the possibility that their existance was happenstance, and oweing to a fated zeitgeist more than individual inspiration/ability...

Something similar could be said of most of those profiled in Azzerad's book, "Our Band Could Be Your Life."

Eight Miles High
In a Free Land
Everything Falls Apart
Diane
Something I Learned Today
The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill
Green Eyes
Broken Home, Broken Heart
Books About UFOs
What's Going On?
Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely
Monday Will Never Be the Same
Whatever
Games
One Step at a Time
Pink Turns to Blue
New Day Rising
The Biggest Lie
Terms of Psychic Warfare
Chartered Trips
These Important Years
Celebrated Summer
Divide and Conquer
You Can Live at Home

I really do think if they didn't look like truck drivers, there would be no question about their place in the canon.

Not from where I sit.

You think you've made it to the top because people know your name,
It's still the same
Your daydreams aren't forever, better get your shit together
For a new game

Back to your day job
Back to your girlfriend
Back to your hometown
The biggest lie

Passing harsher judgement, but you brought it on yourself
By being you
You trade your work for no success, you tried to be a hero
But you end up nothing

I say this as someone who has done his share of obsessing over the Pixies, made compilation tapes, etc. Only one reporter's opinion, mind you. Speaking of, Minutemen still edge out all of the above in my book...

I don't see how quoting Missy helps your case.

I'm tempted to say that Husker Du : alt.indie.rock :: Sex Pistols : punk rock - they've been swallowed up and absorbed and regurgitated to such a degree that their own impact, musically, has petered out to a big ol' pfffft of whatever, while claims can be made of other groups (hello, Buzzcocks) having a similar effect. That said, I can't think of any DIRECT antecedent that is completely beholden to the Du - there was a cool line in the Spin Alt Guide about Nirvana mixing the Husker's "Whatever" with the Replacement's "Nevermind", but, other than that, it seems that any Husker influence attributed to a rock groop is more a result of Husker Du doing a similar guitar rock thing first and folks simply accepting Husker's influence as a dogmatic given.

Like, shit, if they're these doods playing 3-to-4-chord pop songs w/ all this distortion & screaming that sound more like the Beatles or some 60s hippie shit than that girl group doowop stuff Joey Ramone jones'd, then it's GOTTA be because of Husker Du, yeah?

It's been a while since Husker Du popped my cherry - we used to be inseperable, but I don't go hang out with them much anymore. It's crass to say, but they served their purpose. Yeah, once in a while, I get nostalgic, and I throw on one of the Big Three records, but I enjoy them more if I try to hear what I heard back then (the "power", the emotion, the soft & prickly feedback) than listening to them in the now - current timeframe listening has me focusing on stupid shit like the crappy drum sounds, or the cloying lyrics, or all that other nonsense. Nowadays, I like Husker's failures (cf. _Everything Falls Apart_, "...Skin a Cat", "The Baby Song") more than their successes (cf. the "good" stuff).

Outside of the music, one of the things that I could relate about bands such as Husker Du, The Minutemen & The Replacements at the time was that they looked like people in your neighborhood. They sure as hell didn't look as silly as Motley Crue or Bon Jovi or some other popular crap when I was in high school.

And his name was Frank Beard! Oh wait a minute, what am I saying...

Although, something interesting: if any band ever equalled nostalgia without ever even having heard them before, it was definitely Husker Du. They just sound nostalgiac. How interesting that their name comes from an old (Norwegian?) boardgame that means "Do you remember?" (The Wikipedia article was a great read and talks about how they came up with the name. Also in the article, there's a cute song described by the then-to-be singer of Semisonic about his old girlfriend and the band they used to see together: "Remember when you held my hand you used to say I love them so much/Lonely when I hear the band/Do you remember, do you recall?" That this is an homage to Hüsker Dü is confirmed by the album's liner notes, which have the words "do you remember? dü you recall?" written across them in large letters.)

Probably the first and best emo band. Wow, Sebadoh is indebted to them, I think. Just realized that. Husker Du were less whiney even when they were whining, though. They sounded pretty damn macho for non-macho psychedelic hardcore.

Amazing how I can still get such a visceral reaction by someone suggesting Husker Du aren't for the ages, even years after I listened to them regularly.

Mould was hit or miss after the Du (Workbook + Cooper Blue, yes; Black Sheets of Rain + FU:EL, no) as the lyrics got even sappier and the production more polished, but I'd take Flip Your Wig through Warehouse with me anywhere.

I don't think any of them. The first poll I ever posted on here (with a rather baffling title) was basically that question:

The Bert Blyleven Poll

I realize now I was secretly endorsing Husker Du: their name is Dutch, just like Bert Blyleven. I would still think Sonic Youth the most likely first.

Sonic Youth for sure. Fugazi, too. Black Flag probably. I mean, this will take decades, they're still getting around to Cheap Trick, Yes, and the Moody fucking Blues. but then Nirvana & Green Day (rightfully so) get inducted in their first year of eligibility. But if Pearl Jam goes in, if the Foo Fighters go in before the 80s bands...

I'd hope none of them go in, they're all too good for it!

not Dutch, Swedish? xxp

it's Danish

I've actually had a copy of the Husker Du memory game since I was kid!

Always thought the name (Norwegian) was some reference to Scandi/Viking colonies in Minnesota. Never heard about the board game

Nah, it's from a Danish board game they used to sell in the US. There was also a Norwegian TV show with that name, which probably confuses things. It's the same in both languages, although neither language uses the umlauts, as far as I can tell.

re RRHoF: fortunately, Cleveland will be under water first

Re: their name and its meaning, mpls's trip shakespeare had a song on their 1990 album across the universe whose chorus was
Lonely when I hear the band
That used to play when we were looking for music
Lonely when I hear the band
Do you remember? Do you recall?
Remember when you held my hand
You used to say
'I love them so much'
Lonely when I hear the band
Do you remember. Do you recall.

And I always figured that was partly an elegy for huskers.
(Can't remember the damn song title rn)

hilarious ed sullivan-esque introduction to this absolutely brutal 1981 show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvMMn8gj0kQ