Gotta Lotta POLLING To Do - ILM Artist Poll #29 - Your HÜSKER DÜ Nominations Thread

Finally put my ballot in. It wasn't easy. Had to keep saying to myself, "Okay, so you really would prefer to never hear this one again compared to the one in front of it?"

Can someone change my mind about Candy Apple Grey being mostly weak?

Ha, the first three songs I was going to cite as evidence of its greatness are the three you mentioned anyway... I love it, it's not quite my favourite but it was the first of their albums I heard and I fell in love with it immediately. I like all three of the mopey ballads, 'I Don't Know For Sure' sounds nicely pissed off and has some cool chord changes, 'All This I've Done for You' is a great anthemic closer ('Dead Set on Destruction' would have been too)... There's nothing on it I dislike really.

At some basic level I pretty much rejected Candy Apple Grey and I still don't quite know why. I'm sure the jump to Warners played a part. But I remember listening to it and wanting it to be good. All the songs mentioned had been in my head since hearing them live the previous year, and some are among their best--"Don't Want to Know" has got to be. But even now the production kept it low on my ballot, if it stayed on.

Bob, on the other hand, became progressively less interesting to me as a vocalist when he became less screamy.

Yeah, he was just doing something very amazing and very jazz as a punk singer that he kind of returned to here and there as a pop singer, but not as much. You hear it in his solo live acoustic performances a lot, abstracting things out in a soulful way.

Breakdown of my ballot, by album. (Anything not listed is a zero, obv.)

Metal Circus: 2
Zen Arcade: 2
New Day Rising: 5
Flip Your Wig: 4
Candy Apple Grey: 2
Warehouse: 4

Doesn't exactly reflect my order of album preference -- Zen Arcade is underrepresented because to me it's so much more an album than a set of tunes, and Warehouse is overrepresented for the inverse reason I guess. But it's hard to argue that New Day/Wig isn't their absolute peak.

Oh, and the reason that doesn't add up is there was one single-only vote.

Doesn't exactly reflect my order of album preference

Same with me except with New Day Rising.

Weird how that works. The same goes for another SST band: Meat Puppets II has the better songs, but Up On the Sun is the better album.

Yeah, he was just doing something very amazing and very jazz as a punk singer

That's a good way of putting it. The problems I have with later Mould mirror those I have with post-Fables Stipe: enunciation doesn't suit their voices well, and what used to be intriguingly mysterious became earnest and hectoring.

At some basic level I pretty much rejected Candy Apple Grey and I still don't quite know why. I'm sure the jump to Warners played a part.

I remember very clearly when CAG came out. There was a record store ad on the back of a local music paper listing new releases, and I thought, "Weird, someone screwed up and put a Warners logo on the new Husker Du record. Or they did that as a joke." Even though the Replacements were on Sire, the idea of HD on Warners was just nuts.

Hey guys you should listen to Land Speed Record it is rad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jWmX5wRea4&feature=related

Ironically, the live clip played was never recorded as Husker Du. It's from Grant's first album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss_D5gwChxg&feature=related

I love all these interviews, because these guys are such total grouches.

Not sure I've ever seen this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFyy3XB_3Y4

This is really great. Bob Mould playing Husker Du songs with No Age, from an All Tomorrow's Parties show. It's all over youtube, with varying sound quality. This is the best one, In A Free Land.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQAHENwBh08

I'm relistening to this bootleg comp I downloaded from somewhere (it may have been from ILM) that's got these early songs on it like "Drug Party" - Grant singing "Let's bring some sluts over!" It's either in the vein of Black Flag's sardonic numbers or the precursor to "Diane", but phew.

Also "Writer's Cramp" is awesome.

This is really great. Bob Mould playing Husker Du songs with No Age

When I saw Grant 10-11 years ago, he did the whole show solo except at the end, where he had recruited the local punk band that opened the show to get up for a few songs. I think it was "Diane" and one other one. The whole show was great, but hearing him with a band doing Huskers stuff was awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f6YWkcdaNE

Land Speed Record: 0
In a Free Land: 1
Everything Falls Apart: 1
Metal Circus: 1
Eight Miles High: 1
Zen Arcade: 7
New Day Rising: 5
Flip Your Wig: 2
Candy Apple Grey: 1
Warehouse: 1

Pretty much what I'd expect, though I do love "Data Control."

Land Speed Record: 0
Everything Falls Apart: 1
Metal Circus: 2
Zen Arcade: 2
New Day Rising: 4
Flip Your Wig: 4
Candy Apple Grey: 1
Warehouse: 3
7"/12": 3 (two b-sides)

Land Speed Record: 0
Everything Falls Apart: 0
Metal Circus: 1
Zen Arcade: 3
New Day Rising: 6
Flip Your Wig: 4
Candy Apple Grey: 3
Warehouse: 1
The Living End: 1
7": 1

Seeing a lot of bell curves here.

I hope someone else voted for From the Gut.

Land Speed Record: 0
Everything Falls Apart: 1
Metal Circus: 1
Zen Arcade: 3
New Day Rising: 5
Flip Your Wig: 3
Candy Apple Grey: 3
Warehouse: 2
7": 2

surprises for me-
1. no desire to vote for anything off Flip Your Wig.
2. "Sorry Somehow". After years of humming the chorus in my head, but not playing the record, it suddenly sounds a lot like a Reigning Sound blue eyed soul joint to me now. Never ever thought of the Du as earthy like that.

I like them more as players than as songwriters at this point, which may be why my interest takes a nosedive after New Day Rising. There's a bootleg of Zen Arcade raw mixes, without the vocals, and hearing that a few years ago pushed ZA back past NDR as my favorite. Everything Falls Apart remains really underrated. Pop tracks I was sure I'd vote for, like "I Apologize" and "Makes No Sense" seem pretty thin to me now, indie rock templates that were improved upon by their followers. The restrictions of hardcore, especially the span when they both loved and hated the restrictions, brought out the best in their chemistry.

So I've got a ballot of 20 specifically unranked songs. (in other words, it's not a mistake.)

Should I assign each song 22 points, what the No. 10 spot receives? If you add up all the possible points and divide by 20, you get 22.6.

(Or should I throw this ballot right BACK IN THEIR FACE.)

I'd e-mail the person back, ask for their however-many least favourite from the list, and deduct a point from each.

Or if that feels like work, do the same, but pick your own least favourite...

That second option is definitely out. The first maybe sounds like ... more work?

I'd give each song 17 points -- docking everything five for not doing all their homework.

That's my ballot. I hate ranking songs. Picking 20 is "ranking" enough. But tell me what I can do.

It's no big deal, Josh. I just have to assign some value to the songs to make them count for anything.

Three things:

1. Realizing that after all this time, I really like a lot of the less-melodic stuff off of Zen Arcade more than I thought. Kind of wish that HD had taken a little more time before jumping into pop on NDR.
2. Production on Zen Arcade not bothering me at all.
3. More than for many other bands, finding it really hard to rank things after the first three songs. I like a lot of this stuff, but rarely find myself thinking that any one is *way* better than a lot of the others. Relatively consistent band, I think...

Never understood the production hate for NDR and ZA. Always thought the production on those was ideal. Still think production from FYW on is baffling.

HD are a band that i can love and get a handle on on a bunch of different levels. for instance, a song like "diane" floors me because it's so deliberately and explicitly spelled out, unfolding as a vignette of grim reflections, whereas the likes of "i'll never forget you" pummels me through its sheer physical weight and charged emotion that spills out, without buffer or restraint, as a deluge of swelling rage that can barely contain itself.

Metal Circus: 2
Zen Arcade: 2
New Day Rising: 4
Flip Your Wig: 4
Candy Apple Grey: 2
Warehouse: 4
7": 2

Though, honestly, The Living End: 7

didn't vote for the song, but when i listen to "too far down", there's a point about half way through where i suddenly start thinking i'm listening to American Music Club.

Vote regret: omitted "I Don't Know What You're Talking About."

Poll posted. My results seem unlike others.

EFA - 1
MC - 1
ZA - 3
NDR - 1
FYW - 4
CAG - 2
W:SandS - 7
Singles - 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNyzk7LXlEk

Really feeling Amusement lately. Great barking Bob vocals - DON'T DO IT!

I voted almost all Hart, and almost all pop, but I love the AAARRRRGH! factor of Husker Du, too. Even by the standards of hardcore they were pretty fast and in your face. Land speed record, indeed.

Hmm, is "Land Speed Record" the closest thing to the elusive triple pun album title other than "12 Inches of Snow?"

I love Amusement!! I'm not easily amused by YOU.

I'm not easily amAAAAzed

WHAT DO I WAAAANT?
WHAT'LL MAKE ME HAPPY?
(scream the two syllable word of your choice repeatedly)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKzuIjnDJyY

also lol @ that image
what do i want?
giant plate of food

^^ voted for this song btw

I love the version of ''You're So Square'' on here that turns into "The Wit & Wisdom".

Also, this blog corrects it, but on my boot at home, "Celebrated Summer" is listed as "Sons of Bitches".

http://captainsdead.com/husker-du-live-at-first-ave-8-28-85.html

I click on this thread every morning feeling like a lonely freak who listens to hardcore Husker Du with regularity and has no interest in Zen Arcade onward

Not the same, but my favorite Wilco record might be A.M.

you are not a lonely freak
i like both sides but my heart belongs to noisy bob and spazzy grant

I appreciate hardcore Du for velocity and sheer rush, but I was never a hardcore kid -- they only clicked with me when they started with the catchy tunes. My ballot is slightly Grant-heavy, but even the Bob stuff is the catchy stuff. Pop Du 4 life.

Which is to say, if they had been a band capable of LSR but not of "Books About UFOs," I doubt I would have cared much.