Hüsker Dü - Land Speed Record/Everything Falls Apart/Zen Arcade vs Descendents - Milo Goes To College/I Don't Want To Grow Up/Enjoy

dü no contest

yah not remotely close

dü: psychedelic, dreamy, played so fast at the start you're surprised their instruments don't catch fire, gay
descendents: .... uh... inspired a lot of musicians i like more than them, pretty fast i guess, not just painfully straight but often misogynistic

bill stevenson is a great drummer but i can make that point in the black flag poll too

Descendents are pretty straight but I have to say that "Hope" inspired some very gay feelings in teenage me

i don't listen to 'everything falls apart' often enough tbh, but this is so great and weird and beautiful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8eE7GpAmjM

hüsker dü run my #1 out of all these polls

Never been an easier vote in the history of ILM polls

Plus Descendants directly responsible for years of shitty Warped tour pop punk

Only the pathologically contrarian will vote Descendents in this poll

That's most of ILX

Fortunate to have seen both bands live during this general period.

Dü.

Land Speed Record’s cover is a pretty iconic tshirt but I have always thought it was pretty unlistenable.

Milo Goes to College is pretty fun record and with the first Op Ivy album kind of the blueprint for that cali pop punk that got so popular. Not my favorite but it is a pretty big punk record.

Zen Arcade is awesome, I think both as inspiration for Double Nickels it is up with also Daydream Nation as the big 2lps of 80s rock.

milo goes to college is a great record and "suburban home" was a song i adored in 1982 but its no "data control" and zen arcade rules so many different ways. i never really listened to everything falls apart. i never owned a copy. i bought zen arcade on october 1, 1984. had to get the german pressing because sst had run out of their pressing really fast. so if you wanted it you had to go german.

(i bought it at thayer street records in providence rhode island.)

The only husker du song I care about is “I will never forget you”
Never heard the descendants

Contrarian Zen Arcade opinion: lose the instrumentals / experiments and you have a no-filler 45-50 minute punk album that's better than the double LP version.

(I don't actually think this btw, it's just a thought experiment)

this is HD, the descendants are dumb

Next poll needs to be Always August vs Paper Bag: Improvisational Music Co.

Contrarian Zen Arcade opinion: lose the instrumentals / experiments and you have a no-filler 45-50 minute punk album that's better than the double LP version.

(I don't actually think this btw, it's just a thought experiment)

― jam up the pump (Matt #2), Saturday, September 21, 2024 7:25 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I do actually think this, pretty much. But I'd keep "The Tooth Fairy and the Princess" and lose "Turn On the News"

fuck off zen arcade is perfect

Milo Goes to College has undeniable songwriting, but the misogyny and homophobia are indefensible (much as we adore the Minutemen, and rightly so, let’s be honest that New Alliance pre-SST released some questionable stuff).

Hüskers by a landslide, of course. (I’ve got two copes of Everything Falls Apart, the Rhino CD and the Numero box. It’s really fully formed, reveals all their natural inclinations and proves that New Day Rising et al was the natural progression from Zen Arcade.)

and lose "Turn On the News"

Utter madness. That's one of my fave ever songs

On the CD, I always thought that segue from the Tooth Fairy and the Princess to Turn on the News to Reoccuring Dreams was a great way to end the record.

The last section of Quadrophenia has a similar build.

I have a terrible confession: I’ve never really cared about these bands. Not just Husker Du and the Descendants but also Minutemen and Black Flag. The American mid-80s hardcore scene just doesn’t do much for me. I guess they influenced bands that do mean something to me, like Sonic Youth and Pixies, but when I try listening to these earlier bands, I don’t get it.

I can kinda get that, I think part of it is that these bands and others were a big deal to some listeners when we were teenagers in the 80s. Growing up on the southside of Muncie - these SST and other bands were a window into something else. I’m sure for some others that was hip hop, house or Detroit techno.

"Turn On the News" has always come off to me like a parody of a rousing rock 'n' roll protest song. Its reputation as an album standout is totally baffling. It's like the clunkiest thing they ever wrote.

They have all these ripping, searing songs that tap into a murky primordial vein of frustration that maybe no other band has ever reached in the same way. And then there's "Turn On the News", which, with different production, could be an outtake from Walk Hard where they're spoofing "Rockin' in the Free World". I'll never get it.

Agreed! Also "Divide and Conquer" from Flip Your Wig, everyone loves it apart from me. I admit though that "Turn On the News" has a certain charm, it's just not very good.

i love the guitars on "turn on the news". they sound awesome. and the riffs. but i love "reocurring dreams" even more.

i don't really listen to any of this stuff anymore. but maybe i listened to it enough back then. i can't even remember the last time i put on an sst album that wasn't Up On The Sun. that is the one album i never stopped listening to. i can't remember the last time i listened to a sonic youth album! years and years ago.

i mean i listen to TONS of 80s music. tons. but not this stuff.

and like i said on that other poll, i have never listened to a minutemen album other than project: mersh. they weren't my bag. i loved milo goes to college when i was a kid but i remember buying Enjoy when it came out and listening to it once.

i could live with just land speed record/sister/evol/up on the sun/i against i/born too late/zen arcade as far as sst goes. and i don't even really need born too late i just like that song. that's 7 albums out of 5000 albums.

i used to think it might be fun to start a listening thread for the 4,986 sst albums that nobody listens to. there are so many that you have never heard! so many! but it might just end up being a slog.

i kinda just think of happy nightmare baby as a rough trade album. it doesn't feel like an sst album.

last sst i listened to was an always august record that wasnt very good at all. would still probably enjoy angst, slovenly, tar babies, universal congress of, that roger miller record, maybe even das damen? will always love huskers, minutemen, meat puppets, first couple of firehose records too, but ive listened to those ones a million times and there a million other records out there that ive never heard at all so, yeah keep moving on imo

i was always more of a homestead/touch & go person anyway.

My entrance to this stuff was Minor Threat, which I still really love.

cannot remember the last time i listened to any touch & go, but i did listen to nice strong arm's 'stress city' last week (and it was great) xp

Yeah all the albums that never get listened to / will get to tomorrow. There’s just landfills of the stuff. And some of it will be great and surprising. That’s why the threads like the Tom Petty track by track listening party are so baffling to me. Like sure he’s fine. But that’s what you’re gonna spend your time listening to?

i've never stopped listening to minor threat. i don't think i ever will.

its only one tom petty song a day! takes like 3 to 5 minutes.

"Turn On the News" has always come off to me like a parody of a rousing rock 'n' roll protest song.

Yes, your punk rock call-to-awareness anthem should probably not sound like a second-rate attempt at "Calling Dr. Love".
I'm much more of a Warehouse person myself, though I especially like the opening song (which basically encapsulates the theme of the whole album) and "Pink Turns to Blue".

I've only heard the Descendants compilation Somery: "Silly Girl" and "Good Good Things" from I Don't Want To Grow Up are pretty good pop-punk that could have actually made it to radio in the 90s.

I've never stopped listening to all these bands/albums that I like. I still made time for new stuff too though

"like a second-rate attempt at "Calling Dr. Love"."

its way better than calling dr. love! but i hate kiss. i don't care about the lyrics of turn on the news. who cares about lyrics? those guitars rule!

the solo at the end is awesome as is the chugga chugga part

I went through the SST catalogue on Discogs after the last poll and figured out I owned, at one time or another, around 125 SST albums. Also about 15-20 singles INCLUDING the Treacherous Jaywalkers cover of "La Isla Bonita", featuring Sylvia Juncosa on lead guitar. You could pick all this shit up for about a quid in the London bargain bins.

I had the complete SST catalogues of:
Always August
Alter Natives
October Faction
Paper Bag: Improvisational Music Co.
Das Damen
Lawndale
Divine Horsemen
Saccharine Trust
Bazooka
Gone
Henry Kaiser
Cruel Frederick
Brian Ritchie
Trotsky Icepick
Elliott Sharp
SWA

Plus some good stuff too.

I forgot Universal Congress Of and Pell Mell

Elliott Sharp did so much stuff on SST when Ginn got into him in the mid-late ’80s. He wrote in the back of The Wire a couple of years ago that Greg even offered to buy his label zOar (thankfully that never progressed).

The Semantics record, Bone of Contention, is really good; I missed my chance to ask Ned Rothenberg about it when I saw him perform at the NCH in late 2019.

I’ve been picking up what I can of the catalogue, or at least the stuff I know will appeal to me. Still some mint-condition stuff available for not-silly prices.

Turn on the News is awesome I’ll fight anyone who says so. Also seconding the last three songs of the album are great sequence, ending the album on a positive but enigmatic note.

Who says that TOTN is NOT awesome

losers

I went back and listened to some Descendents songs I used to love and got really discouraged because like, Sour Grapes meant a LOT to me when I was a 15-year-old heartbroken teenager and it's obviously super-gross and misogynist. Same with Clean Sheets, Hope, Bikeage, Catalina, I'm Not a Loser... I think I can still get away with Myage, I'm Not a Punk, Tonyage, Parents, Suburban Home, Jean is Dead, Get the Time, Good Good Things, Silly Girl. The songs about farts and food are all probably safe, if not particularly good.

So I was like, "maybe these Husker Du fans actually have something. Maybe I need to grow up." So I went and tried listening to them for the fourth time in my life. And holy fuck, it continues to be the most boring shit I've ever heard in my life (other than the Replacements). I hope I never learn to like them because it will mean that everything fun in me has died. I'm so sorry for you all. SWA is superior to this monotonous buzzsaw garbage. Fuck Husker Du forever.

honestly sir
fp-ing you for that last sentence

I'll take any FPs thrown at me. I have to stand by my convictions. I have to let the people know.

well you got +1 from me for absolute slander and having a wrong musical opinion

:)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

loooool

when you're right you're right

I went back and listened to some Descendents songs I used to love and got really discouraged because like, Sour Grapes meant a LOT to me when I was a 15-year-old heartbroken teenager and it's obviously super-gross and misogynist. Same with Clean Sheets, Hope, Bikeage, Catalina, I'm Not a Loser... I think I can still get away with Myage, I'm Not a Punk, Tonyage, Parents, Suburban Home, Jean is Dead, Get the Time, Good Good Things, Silly Girl. The songs about farts and food are all probably safe, if not particularly good.

So I was like, "maybe these Husker Du fans actually have something. Maybe I need to grow up." So I went and tried listening to them for the fourth time in my life. And holy fuck, it continues to be the most boring shit I've ever heard in my life (other than the Replacements). I hope I never learn to like them because it will mean that everything fun in me has died. I'm so sorry for you all. SWA is superior to this monotonous buzzsaw garbage. Fuck Husker Du forever.

― peace, man, Monday, September 30, 2024 4:21 PM

The correct answer: Level 42's World Machine

wow

fIREHOSE – Ragin', Full-On/If'n/fROMOHIO vs Screaming Trees – Even If And Especially When/Invisible Lantern/Buzz Factory

i have never heard a firehose or screaming trees album.

I heard that firehose covers EP. It did not convince me to listen to any of their albums.

I'll take any FPs thrown at me. I have to stand by my convictions. I have to let the people know.

husker du… boring? what drugs are you taking

I’ll show you boring

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biMaWL5zm0A

seems like the most sensible place to post this.... i spoke to Ken from Numero (at one of their popup stores) about 2 years back about possibility of more Husker Du stuff from them. he had said the master tape situation is so fucked up with the SST stuff he wasn't sure they could make a traditional reissue programme work, but mentioned maybe doing something with the best live tapes they could find....

then today I see an insta-story from Taylor Hales (engineer at electrical audio) - https://www.instagram.com/taylorhales/ - multi track tapes from New Day Rising tour

excited for whatever this turns out to be!

missed this poll but gotta be hüsker by 1 trillion miles

Also missed this poll and obvs the Du, hugely so. Love the tunefulness of the Descendents at their peak - Bikeage, Clean Sheets, Silly Girl are some lovely pop. But jesus, the lyrics are repellent.

Still love Suburban Home tho.

This week's Mojack podcast interviews Daniel Spector, who was general manager of SST in the late 80s. He said that at that time, many of the master tapes were stored in a not air conditioned storage space in southern California, so if they still exist, are not likely salvageable. Very interesting conversation, with stuff about the Negativland fiasco, SST business evolution and the time Greg Ginn made him go throw what would not be several million dollars worth of Pettibon artwork in the garbage.
https://soundcloud.com/mojackpod/277-minutemen-the-politics-of-time-w-daniel-spector

what would NOW be several million dollars

Thanks for sharing that, Mike!

Where's the struggle? Just good songwriting and performances.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 30 September 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Days after listening to Let it be Answering Machine is the only tune that stuck with me.

They are ok, no more than that.

Really?? Like, Sixteen Blue is this astonishingly empathic, ahead-of-its time take on queerness and displacement within adolescent kids. It destroys me every single time I hear it. I can understand the earlier stuff seeming too t(h)rashy, the later stuff sounding too staid. But Let It Be is magic from start to finish.

^^^^^^^^^^^

I will give it another go.

they might be The Catcher in the Rye of bands--if you didn't grab ahold of them in high school, it might be too late

Otm plus the y were

Otm plus they were petulant assholes like the protagonist

Sorry for hiccup

Unsure if Catcher In the Rye or Trouble Boys is the better book

Only one of them features people setting piles of money on fire

xyzzzz, maybe just listen to a playlist of the ballads? "Answering Machine," "Within Your Reach," "Androgynous," "Here Comes a Regular," "Unsatisfied," "Skyway," "Sixteen Blue," and then maybe a second playlist of defiant anthems, like "Bastards of Young," "Left of the Dial," "I Will Dare," "Alex Chilton" ...

Dunno your nationality, tbh. The Replacements are among the most American bands of all time (along with the Minutemen, CCR ...), and iirc over the years a lot of the "I don't get it" comments I've encountered have come from elsewhere.

or watch the 1981 7th Street Entry show that's up on Youtube, for the early raw genius.

Well I love Minuteman, Du, some Black Flag and like CCR too (though only heard some of their songs), despite not listening to them till my late teens/early 20s. I like The Smiths despite growing up in South America lol so don't think its a nationality issue. But it might be an age thing.

Replacements sounded a bit like REM at times(?) and I like REM a lot. Anyway it was only one listen so I'll try a few more xp

I am from the US and have never ever gotten the Replacements, aside from "Stink" which I do like

my ultimate conclusion is that it helps to encounter them when you are 14-16 years old
after that ymmv

I agree w/that for sure

agree with that generally, but seeing them live on that last reunion tour made me aware that fundamentally they have a catalog of great songs that connect with an audience of diverse ages, so not just a "you had to be there" thing.

i don't think you "had to be there" at all -- i wasn't there. it helps to be young when you discover them. it doesn't matter when you're young, so long as you can access those fleeting young person feelings.

I heard them for the first time c. "Don't Tell a Soul" (when I was in 8th grade, maybe?) and the only impact that had is that I like that album as much as most of their albums.

i feel so dumb for missing them on their reuinion tour

JIC me too, I was 14 and a 9th grader

dressin sharp and feelin dull

I literally took that entire album to heart.

I think around the same time I bought the "Say Anything ..." soundtrack. Why? I have no idea, it's not like (from memory) there is anything that prominent in the movie besides "In Your Eyes," and I'm pretty sure I had "So" already. But you get the Fishbone rarity "Skankin' to the Beat" (maybe that was why I bought it?), a mediocre Cheap Trick song ("You Want It"), a great Chili Peppers song ("Taste the Pain," maybe one of their few good actual *songs* imo, certainly at that point), Depeche Mode's "Stripped" (live, iirc?), but also "Within Your Reach." I think, as with "Don't Tell a Soul," it may have been a cassette cut-out.

I forgot that Within Your Reach is in Say Anything - really good use of it iirc

I also had that soundtrack bitd. Can’t even fathom listening to it now as I do not wish for meltdown rn or ever tbh.

MISSSTER WHIRRRrrLLLYYYY....
https://i.imgur.com/MvN3UOv.png