#18 – Hüsker Dü

Wow, that last post was soooo booo-ring! I bet even the members of XTC were asleep by the end of it. Sorry about that! I’m still figuring out how to convey my love for these bands in effective ways. To that end, the following post will be constructed as a dialogue between myself (The Overload) and fictional everyman, Joe Music Listener.

JML: So, who’s the next shamefully snubbed musical artist?

TO: Hüsker Dü

JML: Hoo-sker Who?

TO: Hüsker Dü! I don’t know, they’re a Minneapolis band named after some Danish board game or something. It could be read as a sign of their intentionally anti-commercial stance, taking an obviously foreign-sounding name.

JML: Or you could be over-intellectualizing, like you always do. Sorry…”dü.” So, I’ve never heard of this band. Why the hell should they be in the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame?

Did I mention that bassist Greg Norton had one of the best mustaches in rock? He also kicked ass as a bassist.

TO: It’s true that Hüsker Dü never achieved any commercial success – only their last two studio albums in 1986 and 1987 charted in the US, and neither cracked the top 100 – but that severely understates their influence on the shape of popular music. I would say that Hüsker Dü are really the Missing Link of rock music. It’s common knowledge that punk first broke in the late 1970s with the Sex Pistols, the Ramones and the Clash, among many others. By the 1980s, it kind of disappeared underground, and then suddenly re-emerged with Nirvana in 1991. Going a little deeper, you can easily trace the direct influence of the Pixies and Sonic Youth…but how do those bands connect to early 80s punk outfits like Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, or X? They all pass through Hüsker Dü.

JML: That’s putting a lot of pressure on just one band…

TO: I know, but it’s really true. If you look at early recordings, like Land Speed Record (1982), which has 17 tracks in 26 minutes, or the sprawling masterpiece of 1984’s Zen Arcade, their sound is fast, brash, heavily distorted punk music full of yelling. By their final album, 1987’s Warehouse: Songs and Stories, they sounded like any number of grunge bands, like Bush, Green Day or Silverchair – only a good six or seven years before any of them appeared. Throughout, they cover a wide array of styles and recorded nothing but fantastic albums.

JML: Okay okay, well, what’s a good place to start with for them?

Zen Arcade is a concept album about the hopelessness inherent in a suburban landscape. Sounds like some other credit-hogging indie band, huh?

TO: Well, you should start at the beginning. By any metric, Zen Arcade is one of the Most Important Albums of All Time. It can be hard to get into if you focus on thrashy punk downers like, “Indecision Time,” but there’s a lot of depth to this music. Most obviously, there’s the acoustic-pop of “Never Talking to You Again” (the first song of theirs that I liked), the demonic re-working of “I Want Candy” that they call “Hare Krsna,” with its Bo Diddley-beat, monotonic background chanting and noodly distorted lead guitar. There’s their punk-rock version of David Bowie’s “Heroes,” “What’s Going On,” which takes that classic’s chord progression for its verses and then fucks it up for the chorus.

It’s a double album (ambitious for an independent label punk band’s first record in the 1980s), so there’s a lot on there, but if you look at the last two songs (all of Side Four), they explode what the album has been about. “Turn on the News” is one of the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock n’ Roll, and features the clearest lyrics of any song on Zen Arcade. It portends the more accessible direction the band is about to go in. And then the epic closer is 14-minute instrumental “Reoccurring Dreams” (linked to in only half its glory). This was a band that felt unfettered by genre or expectations.

JML: Okay okay, Professor, but one album does not a Hall of Fame career make.

TO: Say that to the Sex Pistols.

JML: I have no need for your sarcasm, friend. What else did they do that puts them in the discussion?

TO: Well, in 1985, they followed with two more classic albums, New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig. Each one takes more steps toward pop sensibilities, while miraculously retaining their original punk ethos. On New Day Rising, the opening trio are a perfect microcosm of this transition. It kicks off with the title track, which slathers on distortion, and speeds along to the repetition of “new day rising” with plenty of yelling and screaming. The second track is “Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill,” and it retains the same crazy distortion, but has a pop song structure along with an epically catchy chorus. By the time we get to track three, “I Apologize,” we’re at a song that could have been on modern rock radio in the early 1990s. The emphasis is on songwriting, rather than just overpowering with speed (though the punk feel is still there). “Celebrated Summer” might be one of their most loved tracks, as it also manages this tricky feat, and “Books About UFOs” could be a Wilco song with its honky tonk piano and power pop chorus, except for the sheets of distortion from Bob Mould’s guitar.

In 2005, Grant Hart, left, joined Bob Mould onstage for a couple of songs at some concert. Fortunately they haven't killed the magic with a full-on reunion. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Flip Your Wig just keeps developing the sound. “Makes No Sense at All” continues in the pop-punk vein of “I Apologize” (and was apparently the first honest music video they made). “Green Eyes” is a mid-tempo punk love song, with drummer Grant Hart sighing, “What makes them sparkle / What makes them shine / What makes those eyes of yours / Look into mine.” In the hands of anyone else it could be unbearably sappy, but Hüsker Dü’s punk sound keeps it honest. “Flexible Flyer” is like 21st Century Green Day, but with the vocals much lower in the mix, and not nearly as bombastic.

JML: Okay, so if they’re so good, why didn’t they ever break through?

TO: Well, in fact, they were the first American underground band to get signed to a major label, the progressive Warner Bros. Records. R.E.M. gets all the credit for bringing the underground into the mainstream, but Husker Du beat them by two years. They were starting to gain momentum when they split in 1987 – a mere three years after the release of Zen Arcade – because of their manager’s suicide, and Hart’s inability to kick heroin, as well as a songwriting rift between Mould and Hart. With late tracks like, “Could You Be the One” and “She Floated Away” they had struck on a radio-friendly songwriting style while retain a bit of underground in their production. They were likely just ahead of their time.

JML: So you’re talking about a band that wrote great songs in a variety of musical styles and wielded a huge influence over entire future genres, all based on the output of four years’ worth of material?

TO: Well, yeah, I guess so.

JML: Sounds like they should be in the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame! Which current inductee sucks more than Hüsker Dü?

TO: Buffalo Springfield. A similarly short-lived band (though BS had only three albums of output!), Buffalo Springfield had tons of talent with a young Stephen Stills and young Neil Young, but that talent wouldn’t be fully realized until later in each’s career. And Hüsker Dü was far more integral to the music scene of its time. While the Rock Hall says that the Eagles would be unimaginable with Buffalo Springfield, Nirvana, Green Day, Pearl Jam and the Pixies would all be unimaginable without Hüsker Dü. I’ll let you be the judge.

JML: Wow, what a great conversation! I learned a lot and had a great time! You sure are smart!

TO: Flattery will get you everywhere, Joe. You’re welcome back any time.