Favourite Hüsker Dü Album?

ah! i'm a sucka so i only know the CD version...actually losing "in a free land" would knock it down a peg for me...that's top 5 huskers songs for me

in a free land rules...

don't really like the production of the rest of the record though, lacks the fullpelt chaos of land speed record for their hardcore era. title track's a charm though.

(xp) "celebrated summer" always seemed so labored and fussed over to me, like they were trying to write one for the ages, or for the radio, or something. what i love about zen arcade and most of new day rising is how free spirited and loose and off-the-cuff it sounds. also, "celebrated summer" strikes me as one of the least-catchy major songs in their oeuvre.

Flip Your Wig, with New Day Rising a close second. Always thought Zen Arcade was overrated: a couple of songs that rank with their best ("Something I Learned Today" and "Newest Industry"), a few good ones, some waste (pretty much all of the hardcore side), and one famous song ("Turn on the News") the appeal of which I just don't get.

In A Free Land has always been my fave song jointly with Diane.

xp

Bob maybe wrote more better songs but Grants best is the equal of Bobs for sure.
xp

Turn On The News is one of my faves! I love it.

it took me just 10 seconds to find Best Hüsker Dü Album (POLL Ends 4th May)

but yeah what ilx needs is more polls it's already run

mind you, i have a LOT of HD faves, they're in my top 5 fave bands of all time. Hence my shitloads of bootlegs collection (the advantage of knowing real hardcore husker du fans)

well LJ i couldnt find it, but thanks for finding it for me!

great first response to that one imo

and since it was 3 years ago, what is your problem?

Warehouse for me as well. "It's Not Peculiar" may be my favorite HD song of all.

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, April 26, 2007 7:45 PM (2 years ago)

At least I am consistent.

my problem is with the words I know I ran this poll before but for some reason It's been deleted at some point so here it is again

specifically but for some reason It's been deleted at some point

spoken with such flip certainty

anyway keep on keepin' on folks, i won't bother ye no longer

well i couldnt find it and you're full of shit for saying it took you 10 seconds to find it.

do you want to know my deadly secrets?

ok, I copied

Land Speed Record (1982)
Everything Falls Apart (1982)
Metal Circus (1983)
Zen Arcade (1984)
New Day Rising (1985)
Flip Your Wig (1985)

and then pasted it into 'search posts'. was on the first page of results

great to see lj move into his "i only post on threads to shit on them" phase

and that was after how many pages of searches for Hüsker Dü (only 1 and it didnt even show up in that) and Husker Du you went through?

Jeez, it's like Mould vs Hart in here.

so i think its pretty fair to think its not there anymore and has been deleted.

New Day Rising

it was the very first thing i searched for but w/e

having heard most of these so much, metal circus is the only one i really enjoy nowadays. "Green Eyes" is ~such~ a killer ditty though

http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/5728/garfielddu.gif

Been meaning to check them out for a long time. I was kind of waiting for these albums to be remastered (read somewhere, probably here, that the sound quality on the CD is shit), but I guess that ain't happening, so...

I cant see them being remastered ever tbh

I'd assume if bob mould could get the rights to then he would have by now.

There's such a glorious din-and-drone on Metal Circus/New Day Rising/Flip Your Wig as is, don't worry about such stuff. Go get them now.

I bet if they did get a remastering job then most people would just complain that they preferred the DIY charm of the originals

I must admit, I cant imagine them sounding any differently. I think they're perfect as they are, but I'd be curious to how they would sound.

(herman i have it on i'd say pretty good authority that the problem with the husker reissues - which have been on the table at various points - is not a rights issue. it would be possible to do them, however that would involve the three members of husker du to be on the same page and willing to work with each other)

also what killed this:

New Double CD of previously unreleased Husker Du pre-Landspeed/Everything Falls Apart demos coming out!

I still prefer Copper Blue to most of Husker's catalogue though.

― The Magnificent Colin Firth (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, March 17, 2010 5:55 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Yeah, I'm not holding my breath on the reissues. Will pick up 'Zen Arcade' (seems to be the popular choice around here) and check them out this weekend.

New Day Rising was always my fave of the full lengths but I've been listening a lot to Flip Your Wig over the past few years. It's a very underrated album.

New Day Rising, though I'm pretty fond of lots of Warehouse. The CD doesn't sound as bad as people say (compared to vinyl).

Candy Apple Grey was the first one I heard, sometime in 1999 I think (the Warners CDs were always cheaper in HMV than the SST ones). Flip Your Wig is my favourite these days although Zen Arcade was for ages. Warehouse took me about seven/eight years to properly get into, that has to be some sort of record for me.

some of it's great but Grant's songs let the side down mostly. She Floated Away is awesome though.

Side 2 of Zen Arcade is worth voting for that album as a whole - it's the best thing ever.

But you know, Warehouse would be great too, if you cut out most of the Grant songs.

i think i read once grant had "2541" sitting in the hopper when they were doing warehouse and kept it to himself on purpose cuz he knew the band was done

Always thought Zen Arcade was overrated: a couple of songs that rank with their best ("Something I Learned Today" and "Newest Industry"), a few good ones, some waste (pretty much all of the hardcore side), and one famous song ("Turn on the News") the appeal of which I just don't get.

this

In terms of whole albums it has to be New Day Rising, but my own forever-varying edit of Warehouse has to be my most cherished collection of late-night Husker balm.

always thought the opinions on Candy Apple in the likes of the Azerrad book in the wake of FYW were a bit off, in their snappiness and 'convenience', deliberately trailing off the major stuff for the sake of the story, which was a bit weak IMO. To my mind Candy ups the Flip Your Wig ante, sands off the crappy bits like Wit and the Wisdom and Baby Song, and is more diverse than either Flip or Warehouse. Ideal intro to the band.

a couple of songs that rank with their best

I count more than on any other Husker album:

"Something I Learned Today" (agreed)
"Broken Home, Broken Heart" (beautiful the way this moves and modulates, and I could relate)
"Chartered Trips" (his masterpiece, still part of Mould's set)
"The Biggest Lie" (one of my few experiences of a song "coming out" to me years after the fact)
"What's Going On" (great because it's true, with fond live memory of the mass pogo it provoked)
"Pink Turns to Blue" (still chilling)
"Whatever" (still cathartic)

I also love the big instrumental forwards and backwards, the drilling hardcore (about feelings rather than certainties) bursting into lunatic climaxes, the groovy digressions, and the many pop near-greats, all wound together by a guitar sound like nothing else on earth. "Turn On the News" works in context as a spiritual breather. The only song I ever skipped was "Somewhere," and the backward guitars are running through my head as I type, so maybe I shouldn't have.

It's pretty close. These five from New Day Rising might be as great as any of those or greater:

"New Day Rising"
"The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill"
"Celebrated Summer"
"Terms of Psychic Warfare"
"Books About UFOs"

But then the non-classic stuff is harder to take, aside from "I Apologize," "If I Told You," and "Powerline," and while I love the sound, I've come to love it less on the lesser tracks.

Did you 'Turn on the News'?

lolz

the hardcore side of zen arcade is amazing, but if you don't like hardcore you're not gonna like it.

I drink Kerr's share of the beer, it all evens out in the end.

beer owns

Huskers were a sartorial trainwreck it's true... but then you had Ginn in his sweatpants flailing around next to rollins naked but for his sweat-soaked swim trunks...

Warehouse is a better single LP than CAG, once you pare off the gristle. As a double Warehouse is a debacle.

Bob Mould now = smokin' hot.

As a double Warehouse is a debacle.

ludicrous hyperbole

I dont know why anyone would prefer warehouse

it's less hard-edged, and more melodic than their other discs. i love husker du, and warehouse got my vote.

"Debacle"? Yeah--hyperbole. I remember it as being about 80% good, solid songcraft.

With the occasional vintage high point--e.g., "You're a Soldier."

Okay okay please take 'debacle' to mean 'they really really should've edited this fucker down to a long single LP'.

I mean there are some UNBEARABLE duds on that record where it feels like Bob-by-numbers and Grantbot.

We need a Warehouse poll.

We tried it once but she floated away

but she floated away

would be my vote!

Mine too. Ice Cold Ice in 2nd place.

We need a Warehouse poll.

At the risk of irritating everyone:
HÜSKER PÖLL: Warehouse - Songs and Stories

Me, I eventually came to respect CAG (if not love it) but never, ever could get into "Warehouse". Seriously couldn't tell the Mould songs apart, seemed like each one had the same arpeggiated non-riff.

It wasnt the best album to go out with

Hated the title, too

haha I'm beginning to think you hate Warehouse

I count Metal Circus as the first review of mine ever published--soon after it came out, in a University of Toronto paper called The Varsity. (A friend of mine ran a review of Damaged in his campus paper a year or so earlier, but it was so badly mangled--the friendship remains intact--that one's in purgatory.) I gushed--boy, did I gush. In my defense, it was a record worth gushing over.