Zen ArcadeHüsker Dü |
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Released: July 3, 1984 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): -- Genre: punk rock/college rock |
Tracks:Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.
Total Running Time: 70:09 The Players:
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Rating: 4.379 out of 5.00 (average of 17 ratings)
Quotable:“The record that exploded the limits of hardcore and what it could achieve.” – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music GuideAwards:(Click on award to learn more).
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A Brief History of the BandHüsker Dü (named after a Danish board game meaning “Do You Remember?”) formd in 1979 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The trio consisted of singer and guitarist Bob Mould, drummer and singer Grant Hart, and bassist Greg Norton. They “set out to deafen their audiences with fuming speed, volume, and distortion” CS as a hardcore-punk band who would be embraced as a staple of the ‘80s college-rock community. They “developed a rare cohesion, an all-for-one ensemble attack that made the music sound larger than the sum of its parts.” TMTheir first album, Land Speed Record, was a live recording released in 1982. Their debut studio album, Everything Falls Apart, followed the next year. Both were “little more than punishing assaults on the ears, each song falling into the next with little discernible pause, transition, or variation.” CS 1983 also saw the release of their EP Metal Circus. Then came their critically-acclaimed Zen Arcade. The Impact of Zen Arcade“It’s impossible to overestimate the impact of Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade on the American rock underground in the ‘80s.” AM “They recorded more accomplished albums (Warehouse, Flip Your Wig) but Zen Arcade was the Du at their most unleashed, expansive and emotionally devastating.” WR This is “the record that exploded the limits of hardcore and what it could achieve.” AM“You can hear their ambitions clawing against the strictures of loud-hard-fast. The most ferocious psychedelia ever put on vinyl.” VB It “dips its toes into nearly every rock subgenre available, from acoustic experiments to psychedelic musings to electronic swirls, without ever letting go of its seething hardcore base.” CS “Zen Arcade and Hüsker Dü have been credited by nearly every alternative band of note – including Nirvana, Green Day, the Foo Fighters, the Pixies, the Dead Milkmen, and their Minneapolis brethren Sonic Youth – as a major influence, rivaled only by R.E.M. as pioneers in the formation of the alternative sound that would dominate pop toward the end of the century.” CS The Loose Concept and the Talents on DisplayThis is “a loose concept album about a runaway kid who encounters unpleasantness out in the unforgiving real world.” TM It is “a highly pressurized tour of the adolescent turmoils” TM with “the requisite indie-rock elements, including rototilling guitars, and lacerating, possessed-by-demons backbeats and vocal wails so besieged that words seem superfluous.” TMThe album is marked by “a considerable leap forward in lyrical talent by both Mould and Hart” CS that is complemented by “the seemingly incompatible blend of harmonic vocals and punk-metal attack.” CS It “gave the band a unique sound that was part ferocious punk and part west-coast rock melody.” CS Blueprint for the Late ‘80s Regeneration of Rock“Along with the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy, this kick-started/blueprinted the late ‘80s regeneration of rock.” WR Both “trailblazed a whole new way for pop and noise to coexist. Their fusion of folkadelic yearning and foaming fury, bleeding hearts and bleeding ears, spawned the Dinosaur Jr/Nirvana school of ‘zen apathy/bewilderness rock,’ and was a pivotal influence on My Bloody Valentine et al too.” WR“Without turning down the volume, Hüsker Dü try everything – pop songs, tape experiments, acoustic songs, pianos, noisy psychedelia. Hüsker Dü willed themselves to make such a sprawling record – as the liner notes state, the album was recorded and mixed within 85 hours and consists almost entirely of first takes.” AM “That reckless, ridiculously single-minded approach does result in some weak moments – the sound is thin and the instrumentals drag on a bit too long – but it’s also the key to the success of Zen Arcade. Hüsker Dü sound phenomenally strong and possessed, as if they could do anything.” AM The Songs“The sonic experimentation is bolstered by Mould and Hart’s increased sense of songcraft. Neither writer is afraid to let his pop influences show on Zen Arcade, which gives the songs – from the unrestrained rage of Something I Learned Today and the bitter, acoustic Never Talking to You Again to the eerie Pink Turns to Blue and anthemic Turn on the News – their weight. It’s music that is informed by hardcore punk and indie rock ideals without being limited by them.” AMThere’s also “the scalding Indecision Time” TM and the “momentary sweetness…[of] the timeless shrug Whatever.” TM “The 13-minute all live raga-improv blizzard Reoccurring Dreams that closes this magnificent double didn’t, however, ignite a Mahavishnu revival (shame!)” WR |
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First posted 3/20/2010; last updated 3/17/2025. |
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