Hüsker Dü: Candy Apple Grey (Warner Brothers/1986)

Hüsker Dü's fifth album Candy Apple Grey is their major-label debut for Warner Brothers. The band released three albums and an EP for legendary indie SST signing a lucrative deal with Warners in 1985. There isn't anything on the album that screams sell-out; it was produced by Grant Hart and Bob Mould, recorded in Minneapolis, and contains the same approach as Flip Your Wig does.

The album starts off with the Mould scream-fest of “Crystal” which clearly indicates the band isn't going soft just because their sudden major-label status. The albums two singles are both written by Hart and they are absolute classics; “Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely” is a perfect kiss-off pop song and even charted at number 96 on the UK singles chart. It was later covered by Green Day and is featured in the series Halt And Catch Fire and the film Adventureland. “Sorry Somehow” features mournful minor-key organ and a mid-tempo arrangement.

“I Don't Know For Sure” sounds like Mould was trying to rewrite “Makes No Sense At All” and Hart's “Dead Set On Destruction” doesn't really go anywhere memorable. “Eiffel Tower High” references getting high and going to the movies and “All This I've Done For You” is a perfect slice of Du PopPunk. The album features three acoustic classics;“Hardly Getting Over It” which deals with death in a mature, thoughtful way, “No Promise Have I Made” a stately piano piece that is a nice lyrical example of what makes Grant Hart such a special songwriter and “Too Far Down” is a Mould song that is almost a blueprint for his solo work. All three work well within the cold, Wintery-feel that pervades the album as a whole.

The album was well-recieved at the time by the mainstream music press but was generally snubbed by the bands hardcore following. It charted at a dismal 140 in the Billboard Top 200. It is generally overlooked after the acknowledged classic trilogy of Zen Arcade, New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig.

It certainly deserves wider-currency.

Here's the video review:

Hüsker Dü: Statues EP (Reflex Records 1980 & Numero Group 2013)

 After being passed over by Twin/Tone Records for local upstarts The Replacements, Hüsker Dü entered Blackberry Way Studios in Minneapolis to record their would-be debut 10" EP. They instead paired it down to a more financially-feasible 7" single and released it on their own Reflex Records. Taken long-thought lost safety masters, it has been issued on Record Store Day 2013 as a deluxe 7" EP on Numero Group Records, including the two tracks that were dropped once the 10" release was scrapped.

"Statues" has a nice cyclical flanged bass-line and is a Public Image Limited-esque Grant Hart song about the straitjacket of punk conformity. "Amusement" is live recording of a Bob Mould-penned song that obliquely refers to the band being slighted by Twin/Tone Records. "Let's Go Die" is a Greg Norton song that was previously appeared on the 1993 Rhino Records compilation Everything Falls Apart And More. "Writer's Cramp" is a previously unreleased mid-tempo Buzzcocks-flavored song written by Bob Mould.

It's a fine debut single, and it barely hints at the direction the band would next take. It neither points toward the amphetamine-fueled live album Land Speed Record nor the debut studio album Everything Falls Apart.

Released as part of Numero Group's 700 Line (reissues), limited to 4,000 copies (2,000 on white vinyl & 2,000 on black vinyl) and packaged in a 28pt board gatefold sleeve. The artwork is exactly duplicated from the original Reflex issue on this very nice release. If there are still any post-punk aficionados who have not yet heard Hüsker Dü (which to my mind is like a baseball fan not being all that familiar with who Nolan Ryan was), you need to hear this release, or New Day Rising, Flip Your Wig and Zen Arcade asap.

Here's the video review:

Thanks to Numero Group Records, Fake Name Graphx & Stephen Gersztoff.