Hüsker Dü made a remarkable transformation in the space of about five years. Up until about 1982, they were a below par thrashy hardcore band trying to emulate Black Flag. Then some more complicated shapes were thrown in, and then more intricate concepts. The hardcore was leached out and replaced with increasing layers of pop sensibility and pop senselessness alike.
1984’s double vinyl
Zen Arcade showed cracks of piano and acoustic guitar appearing, but they were largely slaves to the idea of a concept album that largely retained the thrash element.
New Day Rising followed in early 1985, and came across as a good pop-punk album but with the ridiculous amount of fuzz that came from guitarist Bob Mould’s amp. The last release on Black Flag’s SST label,
Flip Your Wig, came out later in the same year and saw the fuzz taken out to reveal a more standard rock sound, which came across as a little flat despite having plenty of good songs on the record. The first release in the aftermath of a trailblazing move to Warner Bros was
Candy Apple Grey, which was a very diverse and indulgent affair with lots of slow tempos, alternative instruments, and coma-inducing songs. 1987’s
Warehouse: Songs And Stories was another double plastic that saw a return to more of a straightforward rock style, with extra instrumentation being pushed back to complement rather than saturate the record, and also saw the end of the band after tensions between Mould and drummer Grant Hart, who were the two primary singers and songwriters for the band, finally became too much. After
Warehouse, there were rumours about the next album having horn sections and other gimmicks, so perhaps it’s just as well that they split up when they did.
About the only things that remained consistent throughout the band’s career were the membership (bassist Greg Norton wrote a few songs in the early days and “Everytime” from the Could You Be The One? single, but otherwise just loyally played bass) and the cover art, which was terrible almost without fail. The cover of Warehouse was no exception. Just look at it! Holy mackerel! It follows in the footsteps of the progressively ugly covers on Flip Your Wig and Candy Apple Grey, which both look like a group of people vomited onto a canvas after bingeing on fruity girl cocktails, but this time they didn’t even have the decency to cover a tenth or so of the cover with the band and album names, leaving the eyesore comprehensively exposed for maximum retina-scarring efficiency. Luckily, unlike Candy Apple Grey, the quality of the music doesn’t reflect the quality of the art so perfectly, for the most part.
The album doesn’t start immensely strongly. “These Important Years” comes across as a bit drowsy for the most part, and relies on vocal hooks, and despite Bob Mould’s proven (later in life) ability to craft great pop songs, his voice isn’t powerful enough to carry the song. It finishes fairly strongly, but it’s nothing to write home about. “Charity Chastity Prudence And Hope” is just as bad as its title implies.
Grant Hart has nine compositions entirely to his name out of the twenty on this collection. He hadn’t had as much as a half dozen on any previous records, including the twenty-three-track
Zen Arcade. Such was the nature of the creative side of the feud between Mould and Hart that the latter decided to up his contribution to the album to try to match the former, the likeliest cause of Norton’s fantastic “Everytime” (which saw a lot of play on live sets) being omitted. This was a grave error which brought into painfully sharp focus Hart’s songwriting limitations. Basically (an apt word if ever there was one in this context), the chorus on a Grant Hart song would be the iteration and reiteration of the song title, or something very, very similar. Now, take that formula, and apply it to this song title, and you have the worst song on the album. As if that accolade wasn’t bad enough, Hart makes even more mistakes. Not only was there the utilisation of himself as his own backup vocalist, which was vain and impractical for live concerts, he also decided to only do the more adventurous percussion on his own songs, leaving fairly bland drum tracks on Mould’s songs. This backfired with hilarious consequences, especially in this track. Not only do you get to hear the ridiculous chorus again and again, but you get to hear it accompanied by a glockenspiel. A glockenspiel!
So you’re two tracks in, and you’re probably having thoughts like “wow, I’m glad I didn’t waste my money on the record like the writer has” or, if you have committed funds to this album, things like “what have I done?”, “you know, maybe Candy Apply Grey wasn’t so bad”, and “hey, I can think in italics!” Well, you can think again. Well, on some of those points. I do own the album on compact disc and can assure you that the visual artistic horrors extend beyond the cover sleeve. However, rescue is at hand. Some silence to collect your thoughts, and then Mould’s “Standing In The Rain”. It doesn’t start off spectacularly, but it’s nice, tidy pop, and the vocals and Hart’s backing vocals that see out the last minute or so seal up the track and leave the listener feeling like he’s finally heard a winner. Hooray! Sticking to the take-it-in-turns formula, Hart comes back with “Back From Somewhere”, and by Jove, it doesn’t have a chorus taken from the title, or any chorus at all for that matter. Even Hart’s silly rhymebusting “Still now my eyes are burning / with the sight of your returning” can’t spoil the fact that he’s actually tried. A simple song with a simple solo for the most part, and the sudden slowing down of the tempo about three quarters of the way in works rather well. Has Hart learned from his mistakes? Find out next time! Same bat-disc, same bat-review. Not to be outdone, Mould throws on one of the album’s highlights. A slow start suddenly speeds back up, and a call and response pattern sees Mould singing the verses and Hart doing what he does best (singing the song title a lot). A powerful pre-chorus leads into a simple but memorable chorus with some great guitar work and vocal harmonies filling the song out well. It eventually fades out, only to come back for one final chord.
Three great songs in a row, nobody saw that coming after the start. The return of Hart with another one of his terrible songs isn’t enough to plunge this record back into Candy Apple Grey territory, but it does derail a promising comeback. Aside from the feeble attempt at an aggressive drum track and a vocal delivery that is awkwardly off at a wide angle from the lyrics, the lyrics themselves are diabolical. Look them up at your peril. I don’t usually pick on songwriters too much for lyrical content, but the average twelve-year-old can write better than this, and the amount of times that the title is repeated during this song has surely been enough to send people in their droves to sign up for the armed forces, either to irritate Hart, or to go somewhere where luxuries such as personal music players weren’t allowed. Mould’s “Could You Be The One?” is very simple and direct, but it comes packed with melody and comes across as a much more intricate and clever track than it really is. Of course, Hart thought he knew better, and made all the same mistakes again in a defamation of Mould called “Too Much Spice”, an ironic attack at Mould’s indulgence considering that he was cleaning up and Hart had sunk further into heroin addiction. Whilst no more Hart songs were as bad at the three rotten eggs he’d served up by this point, it’s pretty hard to forgive him.
“Friend You’ve Got To Fall” sees more catchy pop and some neat guitar from the man we can trust. It seems that Mould can do no wrong at this point, a diagnosis aided and abetted by the haplessness of his creative nemesis/sidekick. The solos rhyme with the songs, and everything simply works. At this point, the songwriting pattern is temporarily eschewed for another Mould track, and he doesn’t disappoint. “Visionary” is a more brisk, punk-sounding number that brings a slightly grittier edge, recalling New Day Rising, but stays true to the melodic pop sensibility he achieved on the majority of this record. For all of the brilliance of the other songs of his showcased, the slightly different angle is a very welcome addition.
Hart tries to redeem himself by doing something a little different. Instead of trying to incorporate accusing lyrics into upbeat pop music, he serves up a slightly gloomier tale of “She Floated Away”. The glockenspiel makes an unwelcome return, and to rub it in, a flute that sounds exactly like one of those cuckoo clock birds is also thrown in. He’s trying again, but he’s got it wrong. Mould goes down the same road in “Bed Of Nails”, and, of course does a better job of it. Having said that, it’s not his finest moment, and it comes off as being a bit dull, although still better than most Hart songs. “Tell You Why Tomorrow” stays in line with its immediate predecessors, and although the chorus pattern is still there, the verses have a catchy enough tune to them. It’s almost a good song, but not quite. If you were sitting on the fence, the cuckoo clock chimes in at the end to make your mind up for you.
The opening chords of “It’s Not Peculiar” bring Mould’s pop-oriented rock back to the fore and signal the end of the moping section of the record. It doesn’t bring any pace back to the record, but the return of soaring tunes alongside an unusual vocal staccato make the song much more charming than the last few. “Actual Condition” is a strange track. Although a few of Mould’s guitar solos had leaned towards a classic rock n’ roll sound, almost everything about this song is rodeo-friendly, and quite fun. Enough of all that, said Mould, who put in “No Reservations” at this point, another longer, slower slice of pop, but a more brooding and contemplative one, with a mandolin that fails to offend. It’s another one of those songs where the vocal harmonies at the end put a seal on a good song.
Mould gets another go at putting two songs back to back, and be aghast, for he puts a foot wrong. A really annoying throwaway riff combined with an unwelcome keyboard synthesiser-majib will have you cringing throughout “Turn It Around”. Hart tries to take advantage of this by putting in another rare song of his that doesn’t constantly recycle the title of the song as the chorus, instead putting it at the end of every verse, and then chanting it at the end. A slight twist on a recurring theme, cunning, but not cunning enough! Despite being released as the album’s third single, “She’s A Woman (And Now He Is A Man)” is quite bland and uninteresting, and doesn’t compare to the concise melodies of “Could You Be The One?” or the anthemic qualities of “Ice Cold Ice”.
Bob Mould signed off the Hüsker Dü catalogue with “Up In The Air”. More mandolin picking is present, but fear not, it’s another one of Mould’s well-crafted pop songs. Despite not having a memorable guitar riff, the layered vocals are as infectious and memorable as anything on the record. The last writing credit is in Grant Hart’s name, and the big question is whether he managed to overcome his at best unreliable song output to give us a good song to close shop with. He does, sort of. It’s decent enough, although a bit slow in parts, but to give the song a worthwhile edge, a secret weapon has had to be unleashed. The quiet man stands up and delivers, saving Hart from a mediocre song. Greg Norton’s bass barely featured in the band’s recording mix since Zen Arcade, but it singlehandedly propels the song through the verses before Mould’s guitar takes a long, noisy coda with Hart’s title repetition into a drawn out fadeout.
Warehouse: Songs And Stories is packed with filler, for no other reason than Hart wanting to put as many of his songs onto the record as possible. Whether he thought every one was a good song or whether they were simply to spite Mould, the truth will never be known for sure. But to have eschewed Norton’s “Everytime”, a decent rocker that stacks up well against anything Hart put on here, because of internal strife, is a damned shame. The record is still a good one, but could never be considered a great one. It would have been a really good Mould solo album with only a couple of weak points, but given that the album was written as a Hüsker Dü album, I’ve supplied what I believe the record could have best looked like had someone had the sense to cut it down to a single 12” record.
Personal picks: Ice Cold Ice, Up In The Air, Visionary
Picks for others: Could You Be The One?, Ice Cold Ice, Standing In The Rain
Relative weaknesses: Charity Chastity Prudence And Hope, You’re A Soldier, Too Much Spice
Tracklist
01 – These Important Years
02 – Charity Chastity Prudence And Hope
03 – Standing In The Rain
04 – Back From Somewhere
05 – Ice Cold Ice
06 – You’re A Soldier
07 – Could You Be The One?
08 – Too Much Spice
09 – Friend You’ve Got To Fall
10 – Visionary
11 – She Floated Away
12 – Bed Of Nails
13 – Tell You Why Tomorrow
14 – It’s Not Peculiar
15 – Actual Condition
16 – No Reservations
17 – Turn It Around
18 – She’s A Woman (And Now She Is A Man)
19 – Up In The Air
20 – You Can Live At Home
What the one-disc LP should have looked like:-
01 – Up In The Air
02 – Standing In The Rain
03 – Back From Somewhere
04 – Ice Cold Ice
05 – Everytime
06 – It’s Not Peculiar
07 – Visionary
08 – Tell You Why Tomorrow
09 – Friend You’ve Got To Fall
10 – Actual Condition
11 – Could You Be The One?
12 – No Reservations
13 – You Can Live At Home
