HUSKER DU V. Replacements

You caint make me. They had different strengths.

you are right, i can't make you.

LOL

The Replacements never failed to be rollicking-trainwreck-fascinating live, whether they played "well" or not.

HD was frequently blistering on stage, but then I also saw their last show in NY where they just played Warehouse consecutively bcz Bob & Grant apparently weren't speaking.

I have about the same amount of music from each, but I'll take Let It Be over Zen Arcade so there ya go.

i like both a whole bunch but it's not close for me, husker du

why can't they both win

the Replacements, because we all know the Huskers are gonna walk this on ILM and the Replacements deserve some love, too :-(

as for my actual choice: impossible. two bands with vastly different styles and sounds, no way to compare the two.

You could probably do this mathematically (i.e. Sorry Ma Forgot to Take Out the Trash > Land Speed Record {though not by much}; Metal Circus > Stink; Hootenany > Everything Falls Apart {oh wait, did I get those 2 Husker records chronologically backwards? who cares, EPs deserve to get compared to EPs}; Let It Be > Zen Arcade; New Day Rising > Tim; Flip Your Wig > Pleased To Meet Me; Husker Du's boring later crap > Replacements' boring later crap; don't even ask me about their even more boring solo records; I probably missed some stuff; I have no idea what this is adding up to; okay never mind.)

Okay, here's a better math question: Husker Du + Replacements =
A. Soul Asylum
B. Squirrel Bait
C. Nirvana
D. All of the above

using the fabled "C theorem" (which is that C is statistically the likeliest answer on a multiple choice exam, according to lore) I conclude Nirvana to xhuxk's question.

I voted for the Mats. I even love Don't Tell A Soul. I was too young to get into Husker Du in the 80s, and when I bought the cds in the mid 90s I couldn't get into them b/c of the production, no punch. So I still await getting into their music. Even given the production I love a few songs on Warehouse; "These Important Years" is killer and so is "She's A Woman (And Now He Is A Man)".

the 'Mats

The `Du rocked harder, but the `Mats wrote better tunes.

^^^ yep, 'MAts.

>>Sorry Ma Forgot to Take Out the Trash > Land Speed Record {though not by much}

I agree with all of those matchups but this one. Even looking online at titles, I can't recall a single song on LSR. I can hear almost every song from Sorry Ma in my head WITHOUT a tracklist.

The answer to xhuxk's question is D. I went with Husker Du, whose records on balance gave me slightly more pleasure than the Replacements', despite the bad production. "Diane" and "8 Miles High" are two of the great tracks of the 80's. I saw Husker Du live more than any other band in that decade, and they were always great.

I just never feel like listening to Husker Du anymore. The records are terribly produced in general - way too trebly and thin - and I quickly tire of the unhappy-relationship themes of nearly every song.

I don't listen to the Replacements all that much either, but their sense of humor makes them more palatable. Also had a wider sonice pallette.

You can't make me do this.

sonice reducer

Husker Du by a hair, but for me Green demolishes both (and did so live a few times).

i love land speed record and new day rising and zen arcade a ton, and zen arcade certainly meant a hell of a lot to me when i was 16, but those are really the only three albums i need and still own. not that i play them that often anymore. i pretty much like everything by the replacements up to and including pleased to meet me. that's actually a lot of stuff. including b-side stuff and live stuff and all that. i might have to go with the replacements. in fact, i will. i don't own ANY of it anymore though. which is weird. wait, i do have a copy of tim. i should play it. i used to wear that stuff out. same with my brother. he's an even bigger replacements fan than me.

there's nothing like hearing "sixteen blue" for the first time when you're actually 16. so it's a sentimental vote for me. i loved du too, but i didn't feel like one of them. replacements records felt like joining a gang.

Every once in a while I have an urge to hear Stink, and that's about it. If the Husker albums sounded better, I'd pick them in a second. But they don't.

the only Replacements stuff I listen to nowadays are "If Only You Were Lonely" and sometimes "Pleased to Meet Me"

time for decisions to be made

I've heard more Husker Du albums than Replacements albums, but I prefer Let It Be to any Husker I've heard.

>>Sorry Ma Forgot to Take Out the Trash > Land Speed Record {though not by much}
I agree with all of those matchups but this one. Even looking online at titles, I can't recall a single song on LSR. I can hear almost every song from Sorry Ma in my head WITHOUT a tracklist.

But I said Sorry Ma was better! So we agree (though maybe not on the "though not by much" -- though I'm not even sure I agree with myself on that one, to be honest.)

Toss up:

"Statues" vs. "If Only You Were Lonely" (actually, I'm not even sure I ever heard the former. Didn't it sound like Wire or something? I used to own the 45 of the latter, but I retardedly got rid of it along the line.)

Btw, like Scott sort of, I now own nothing by either band on vinyl. At all. I don't think. Which, yeah, is weird. I've got the first four Replacements on CD, since they were reissued a few years ago. I've got Zen Arcade on a fucking CD-R, which has even worse sound quality than the album orignally did. But that's it, I think.

Because of the Husker Du sound quality issue it seems recorded comparisons are a bit unfair, so -- Husker Du were better live. A Replacements show was a party, a Husker Du show was an event.

Grant's songs had more in common with Westerberg's -- both sounded young, dumb, full of cum, with a weakness for hokum (love them both). Adulthood always peeked out of the best Mould songs.

Aargh. This is impossible. At this moment I'd rather play "Shootin' Dirty Pool" than "Books About UFO's."

husker du by far, 2 good songwriters > than 1. i like variety.

My answer is obvious, as my argument with Mr Que on the Replacements book thread likely inspired this one, but...

Replacements = one of the five greatest rock and roll bands of all time

Husker Du = one of the most overrated, bland, and horribly produced bands of all time

No contest for me.

Oh goodie, a poll just for me

Hmm. Replacements wrote songs that have & had devastating emotional effects on me, and got me thru some difficult times when I discovered them as an undergrad.

Husker Du is far better at obliterating me sonically, and so far more into my realm of what i want music to be like, with hypersonics and a wide spectrum of distorted harmonics, the kind that link up with Dino Jr/MBV/Pixies/Nirvana. They far more inform the kind of music that i would personally make, too.

Let It Be as an album, Husker Du as a catalog. I can still listen and enjoy every album, but I can't really stand the last coupla Mats albums(singles aside).

Husker Du by a nose.

Also, husker du + replacements = Superchunk.

bland

I can grant you the bad-production beef but "bland" is crazytalk

gotta go with huskers

My answer is obvious, as my argument with Mr Que on the Replacements book thread likely inspired this one, but..

Inspired by the Replacements thread, yes, but I haven't posted there.

i think you mean M@tt???

tie

Husker Du by a hair, but for me Green demolishes both (and did so live a few times).

otm. i saw said demolition a couple of times. it wasn't pretty.

Husker Du by far. But while Metal Circus and Zen Arcade sound okay, but the rest of their recordings sound like shite. So if/when Merge or Ryko reissues them, will the remasters help? Is there hope? The Meat Puppets and Dinosaur Jr. fared well...

'Mats by far. But I'm a sicko who likes All Shook Down (but not Don't Tell a Soul). i bought New Day rising when it came out and liked four songs. The Mats bootlegs I've heard are better than their albums. The Husker boots sound like putting your head in an incinerator...too loud, maybe? recorders didn't capture it...

Just great—a death match between my two fave rock bands of the mid '80s. I think I’ll just cop-out totally and go with Nirvana—who seemed to split the difference between ‘em, after all—thanks.

<i>Don't Tell a Soul</i> is Replacements most underrated album by far -- bad production (man, they had three shit-sounding records in a row there, Pleased is OK but drums are way too loud), and the Goo Goo Dolls kinda developed their later sound out of it, but I look at the track list now and remember how in love I was with it when it first came out and if my copy were still around I bet it would hold up.

Don't Tell A Soul is great, and worth tracking down again (probably available for 1 cent online, it was bargain bin shortly after it came out). "Talent Show" is one of my favorite album openers, esp. when the drums come in. "Achin' To Be" holds up; I even love "We'll Inherit The Earth" which I reckon drew battlelines for longtime Mats fans. And "I'll Be You" is a great single.

^^^ OTM, all four of those tracks are fantastic!

i like that record. wrote an embarrassingly enthusiastic review of it for my college paper (i think i was mostly excited to be writing about the replacements), but it holds up ok. lyrics get kinda shaky -- i think paul read too many articles calling him a poet -- but the songs are pretty nice.

I liked DTAS at the time too. That bit on 'Rock'n'Roll Ghost' where Westerberg's voice breaks down a little, dunno if that was planned or spontaneous or what, but that always moved me. 'Talent Show' is a great song too, but I don't remember all that much about the rest of the record now.

Gotta go with Husker Du, whose music at its best sounded like it was busting through the atmosphere.

I wonder why no one in the '80s though HD records "sounded terrible"

(I'm sure someone did, but no one read them)

I have never understood the appeal of Husker Du at all. They're a hardcore band but they're not that intense or crazy. They've got pop hooks but they aren't memorable. They experiment in the studio but everything sounds thin and shitty. And Bob Mould's lyrics and voice are awful.

So Repleacements.

The Mats. More. Better. Holds up longer.

I wonder why no one in the '80s though HD records "sounded terrible"

(I'm sure someone did, but no one read them)

xgau:

Zen Arcade [SST, 1984]
I'll swear on a stack of singles that "Turn on the News" could rouse as much rabble as "London Calling" or "Anarchy in the U.K." I play side three for pleasure and side two for catharsis. And I get a kick out of the whole fucking thing, right down to the fourteen-minute guitar showcase/mantra that finishes it off. But though I hate to sound priggish, I do think it could have used a producer. I mean, it was certainly groovy (not to mention manly) to record first takes and then mix down for forty hours straight, but sometimes the imperfections this economical method so proudly incorporates could actually be improved upon. It wouldn't be too much of a compromise to make sure everyone sings into the mike, for instance, and it's downright depressing to hear Bob Mould's axe gather dust on its way from vinyl to speakers. Who knows, put them in the studio with some hands-off technician--Richard Gottehrer, Tony Bongiovi, like that--and side two might even qualify as cathartic music rather than cathartic noise. A-

Very funny, from Mark Prindle's website a review of a Replacements bootleg:

Any fan of The Replacements should own this. The rarities are key - KEY - to understanding why Paul Westerberg's solo work is a little sketchier than his band material. It's bacuz he ALWAYS wrote songs like this, but used to have the inimitable creativity to back it up with incredible melodies time and time again. He STILL pulls it off quite a bit - he's just not as invincible as he used to be. He's too old for this shit. A buddy film with him in it would be opportune. He could star with Bob Mould as a couple of former Minneapolis rock stars who get paired together as rookie policemen. No! Paul could be the rookie policeman who's paired with an older GAY partner. Bob is close to retirement and gay but he's agreed to do one more case for the Chief. And Paul Westerberg keeps messing up because he's so excited and nervous about his new job. And Dave Pirner could be the bad guy who steals thousands of dollars worth of jewels from the nightclub, which is generally where jewels are kept. And Prince could play a hilarious Martin Short-esque character who runs around screaming and flapping his arms up and down effiminately. Maybe an anvil could fall on his head and little birdies could start flying around in a circle as he passes out. And then The Cows could come in and the action could stop for several hours while, at my insistence (I play the hardboiled but good-hearted bartender), they play every single song in their catalog, including "Danny Is A Faggot."

They're a hardcore band but they're not that intense or crazy.

Shhh! Don't tell him about their cover of "Eight Miles High"!

I went ahead and voted for Dü Hüskers since they at least acted like they gave a shit.

I wonder why no one in the '80s though HD records "sounded terrible"

I dig the aesthetic of a lot of Spot's productions for SST. Listen with headphones and they're a whole lot better -- enveloping, or 'gelatinous' as he termed it himself. Zen Arcade sounds fantastic through headphones to me.

But remastering could help bring out their better qualities, for sure. (According to Jack Brewer, at least some of SST's CD output was transferred from the vinyl, not the master tapes. Eek.)

Voted for HD, but it was close. I wish this had been a HD vs. Mats vs. Minutemen poll.

That would have been the start of a 'Our Band Could Be Your Life' poll. Which band could be your life?

Black Flag
The Minutemen
Mission of Burma
Minor Threat
Hüsker Dü
The Replacements
Sonic Youth
Butthole Surfers
Big Black
Dinosaur Jr
Fugazi
Mudhoney
Beat Happening

Has this been done yet?

That would be impossible for me I think.

"They're a hardcore band but they're not that intense or crazy."

"Shhh! Don't tell him about their cover of "Eight Miles High"!"

or land speed record for that matter. sheesh, data control is one of my all time fave intense crazy punk moments ever.

i never had a problem with the sound of zen arcade. i thought it sounded cool then and now. new day rising was harsher when it came to the intheredness of the guitars. i dunno. it's how they sounded. they sounded kinda fucked. it never bothered me much.

The 'mats were one of my half-dozen favourite bands at one point, but that point was 20 years ago, and I lost interest after I quit working at the college radio station. Their shambolic lovable-loser persona seemed to become more self-consciously forced, and the post-Bob Stinson LPs were dismal. If Twin/Tone ever reissued their entire catalog on a coupla shiny remastered twofers, I'd probably buy them. But rarely would I play 'em.

The Huskers (also among my favourites) I never stopped loving. Twice as many great songs/songwriters and one of the alltime-great noise-guitarists. And I don't think their records sounded THAT bad. (At least, not all of 'em.)

Pleasant Plains and MVB otm.

I've never really noticed good or bad production, anyway. No muso.

also, if xgau liked them so much regardless, how important is it?

With a lot of musicians, like, for instance, Elvis or the Beatles, the legend, which may draw you in at first, eventually goes bad and starts to interfere with your ability to enjoy the music. This is one reason reason why somebody (like edd s hurt for example) can prefer the cooler, more abstract, more detached sound of the Byrds to that of the more eager to please Beatles (cf nabisco on this subject)- for one thing you don't have as much to feel guilty about when the thrill is a little bit gone. If you stay away for a while, or listen in smaller doses you can usual rehabilitate and relearn to enjoy the music. The ratio of The Replacements looming legend versus their actual recorded output presents a real problem in this regard.

On another tack youtube fite!

Don't forget to click on fite!

H & R Block Reason Number 195 to vote for Hüsker Dü- their bass player is a dead ringer for a certain beloved ILX muso.

Oh, wait.

I would have posted a link to "Johnny's Gonna Die," but teh Genius's guitar was so out of tune that I couldn't take it.

Then again, Irving Berlin could barely play piano, and even then only in one key!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

ohhhhhhhhhh whatever you people

well, the Replacements WANTED to lose. It fits the profile.

poll otm

This should have been more of a blowout.

This should have been more of a blowout.

Funny, I was thinking it should have been a 45-45 tie.

this is wrong

well, the Replacements WANTED to lose. It fits the profile.

this weirdly makes sense to me

this is wrong

You oppose the results?

ignore him

the cool thing about both bands is that the replacements sound more like mpls and husker du sounds more like st paul to me

also based on seeing grant hart recently i REALLY hope he finally puts out that record he's been working on for years, great songs

http://www.myspace.com/granthart2541

^^"schoolbuses are for children" is off the new one supposedly and on grant's myspace

well, the Replacements WANTED to lose. It fits the profile.

this weirdly makes sense to me

― iatee, Tuesday, August 25, 2009

I am bummed about the endless delay in the release of Grant Hart's record. It was supposed to be out in 2008, then 2009, now . . .?

How does he sustain himself in his primary job if he isn't releasing new material? Does he tour constantly (it doesn't seem like he has enough of a back cataloge to do that forever).

the cool thing about both bands is that the replacements sound more like mpls and husker du sounds more like st paul to me

― the turdlike genius of Jeff Tweete´ (M@tt He1ges0n), Tuesday, August 25, 2009 7:56 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark

Please explain to the few non-Minnesotans here, thanks.

friend's 12-year-old son is becoming big 'Mats fan

Alex Chilton is the jam. This band should have been huge.

well, the Replacements WANTED to lose. It fits the profile.

this weirdly makes sense to me

― iatee, Tuesday, August 25, 2009

― post-contrarian meta-challop 2009 (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, August 26, 2009 12:21 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah funny ppl always say that but damn didn't Westerberg make careerist moves the whole way, gradually chasing out Bob and Chris, replacing them with pro dudes and chick from Concrete Blonde cameos....saying "fuck the system" right through his genius punk rants for the acclaimed art film Over The Hedge?

but both bands are great while they were great

probably a better link for a Pleased to Meet Me poll, but in honor of the recently deceased Jim Dickinson:

http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/Content?oid=oid%3A48990

easy tiger, Westerberg did the music for acclaimed art house film Open Season. Ben Folds did Over The Hedge.

lol my bad

also the whole st paul vs mpls thing i can't really put in words but st paul feels different than mpls and the bands fit that

shootin dirty pool

there's tons to be said for either, of course; if forced to chose, my love for "In a Free Land" and my hatred of the last couple Replacements albums would tip me to the Dü.

why can't they both win

― henry s, Saturday, November 17, 2007 4:59 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

How much rivalry was there between these two? Saw them both play Metro one weekend around 1986 (Replacements Friday, Husker Du Saturday) and Mould made some crack along the lines of, "[sniffing sounds] ... This mike smells like coke ... guess the Replacements were just here ..."

"...Break the Mould!"

Oh, good God, it's an absolute disgrace that Husker Du won this. Husker Du's albums are crap, even the ones that are supposedly great. Bland, boring, and repetitive, they have maybe a handful of good songs, while the Replacements have dozens of great songs and a hell of a lot more variety too. Does anyone even listen to Husker Du anymore? I think they're only revisited because they always end up in critic's choice lists, not because anyone likes or relates to these songs.

are you familiar with the word "challops"?

Sir, I have listened to Husker Du. Husker Du records have come in and out of my record collection. Their albums are tedious, monotonous, and poorly produced. Husker Du, sir, are complete crap.

nuh-uh

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Name one Husker Du song that's better than, say, "Androgynous." ONE!

"Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely"

"Celebrated Summer"

alternately: "Hare Krishna"

"Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill"

"Turn On The News"

"Keep Hanging On"

"Green Eyes"

"The Baby Song"

"She's A Woman"

"She Floated Away"

"Makes No Sense At All"

you guys, he said "one"

"Pink Turns To Blue"

"Too Far Down"

you guys, he said "one"

nah, that was u2 iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhbrMgSfR0w

"She Floated Away"

― Waterloo? Oh, we've sunsetted that. (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, April 18, 2012 10:47 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Okay, let's not get carried away.

I like an Irish drinking song as much as anyone else, but

Always member seeing that described in Melody Maker as a heavy metal sea shanty.

don't think it's really arguable that Husker Du are more monochromatic/limited in scope than the 'Mats. kinda amazed they won this poll - I never want to listen to either much these days, but the 'Mats stuff is at least fun. So much of Husker Du's output is horribly thin-sounding and terribly produced, I find it actively painful to listen to that high-end hissing wall of guitars sometimes.

^^^ this. 'Mats>>>Huskers for me, both live and recorded, but HD live was an undeniable maelstrom, like sticking your head in a jet engine (with pop hooks buried beneath the roar.)

If you've never seen this, complete show '85.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnJfONKJZV8&feature=related

"I can't find anything appealing about Huskers" = "other people are only pretending to like Huskers"

It's the old Schoenberg challops all over again

I get the whole thin-sounding production argument against the Hüskers. (I kinda dislike Warehouse more for its production than the Spot records, to be honest.)

That said, there's still some gutsy songs in there. the cuts on Metal Circus, bass-heavy Zen Arcade shit like "Something I Learned Today" or "Standing by the Sea". Yeah, it gets tinny. If you want muddy though, go listen to Tim. (Another great record with bad production.)

Replacements are more organic maybe, to a point, but that doesn't mean they're better.

don't think it's really arguable that Husker Du are more monochromatic/limited in scope than the 'Mats.

Totally agree. You hear one Husker Du song, you've kind of heard them all. I just took the liberty to listening to 5 of the above listed songs in succession, and they all mine pretty much the exact same territory with the one pitiful exception of "The Baby Song." Jesus, how did Bob Mould let that get on an album?

The production may not always have been great, but to say the Du were "Bland, boring, and repetitive" is just nonsense. As for variety, I would argue that Husker Du had two great song writers who both mined different seams and came up with wildly different sets of songs.

Are you tone deaf? You could also say (I wouldn't) that songs like "Lay It Down Clown" and "Little Mascara" pretty much come from the exact same grain.

This is a tough one, but I gotta say Husker Du based on little more than personal preference.

But then, I'll admit- all of their records have terrible production and uneven song quality. The Replacements sound much better as a band and have a considerably higher percentage of good songs to bad ones. Westerberg's voice is untouchable, and their hooks were gigantic.

It took me years to get into Husker Du, and I frequently avowed that they sucked. But then, once, as I sat in the parking lot of my shitty job, blasting music from my shitty car stereo, frustrated to no end by the shitty circumstances of my life, "Pride" by Husker Du came on, and everything suddenly clicked all at once.

In spite of their uneven qualities, Husker Du channels rage, angst and frustration unlike any band from that time. Their music is truly desperate, and I connected with it during those times more than I ever have with the Replacements, songwriting be damned.

Ghosttaster OTM. I had more or less the same experience - love the Mats albums and later came to Husker via solo Bob and Sugar, but only selected songs as none of their albums satisfy me entirely.

I think making Warehouse into a double was a big mistake - the band may well have fallen apart anyway but I don't see how this would have helped them

What those albums could have sounded like with a Gil Norton, Vig or Wallace at the helm.....as opposed to Spot (he worked for the Minutemen - he did not for the Huskers)

Thing is Huskers were much more of a sonically powerful band that its a bigger disappointment that their albums sound like shit - I can only imagine how New Day Rising or Flip Your Wig would have sounded had they come out in 1992 or whatever.

Totally agree. You hear one Husker Du song, you've kind of heard them all. I just took the liberty to listening to 5 of the above listed songs in succession, and they all mine pretty much the exact same territory with the one pitiful exception of "The Baby Song." Jesus, how did Bob Mould let that get on an album?

Basically the Baby Song = Hart/Mould war over songwriting quotas = end of band

I knew it was the Baby Song that did it

I would have been torn in 1984, and it's still not an easy call. TBH, I'm inclined to go with The Replacements, despite my strong inclination to disagree with polio just on principle. The 'Mats are easier on the ear, funnier and more self-effacing, able to get across emotion without bombast, more varied in tone and texture, and more closely connected to the 70s rock I love best (Stones, Big Star, Kiss).

That's not to take anything away from Husker Du. Thin sound or no, I love Zen Arcade and New Day Rising, at least like everything they did. The only reservation I have about Husker Du is a product of their unswerving dedication to "intensity", whether emotional or sonic. These things go hand in hand in their music, the squalls of screaming mid-high fuzz and the earnestly wounded emo wailing, you shouldn't see me crying ice cold ice. Suspect that they're Mould's legacy much more than Hart's, as Hart wrote most of the goofy and generous Husker Du songs I love best: the folk, country and rawk stuff like "Books About UFOs", "Turn On the News" and "She Floated Away".

More than any 80s band I can think of, Husker Du need and deserve a careful remastering and reissue campaign.

re: Ice cold ice stuff - Near the end of the band and definitely on the solo records, the parenthetical statements Mould makes gets on my nerves.

And just a reminder that the Hüsker Dü poll is coming soon, sometime in 2013 or 2014.

If the Man Sized Action record Mould produced during those yrs is any indication, Spot probably made those Husker records sound less thin or at least exactly how they wanted them to sound.

Huskers for me always.

Husker Du is in dire need of a nice catalogue reissue campaign and quality remastering job. I think it would serve their legacy immensely.

i completely agree, but bob and grant apparently can't get it together enough to get the tapes back

Bob Mould's book kind of makes him sound like a jerk

him being Bob Mould himself

Guitarists with high-end hearing loss and personal issues with the bass player always mix poorly. ALWAYS.

The original vote (50-39) is almost a perfect approximation of where they stand for me--in 1985, also today. Husker Du is one of my three or four favourite bands ever, but the right song will make me intensely nostalgic for the Replacements.

I note that "Hot Tub Time Machine" uses a Replacements song on the soundtrack, but nothing by Husker Du. Husker Du wins.

Husker Du are a great band, but the Mats destroy them. It's just not a contest.

otoh, it's just a contest

Husker Don't.

I don't know if you can just remaster Huskers. I was just listening to Candy Apple Grey on Spotify and - wow. They might need to be remixed. There is almost no bass.

Mould was a really good songwriter. "Eiffel Tower High" on that album is really put together well - great chord progression, harmonies through much of the song. Unique stuff, and very good.

"Hardly Getting Over It"!

I note that Husker Du are very arguably an influence on Fucked Up, who put out one of the best albums of 2011, and that The Replacements really impressed Winona Ryder.

more than arguably, i'd say

Since the Replacements never influenced any awesome 2010ees P4K approved musics like Fucked Up and since turning on chicks like Winona Ryder is totally against the rock'n'rollist constitution, I guess we have to give this round to Hart & Mould.

Mould also has Sugar in his favor.

arguably

Sugar is not a plus.

i want to say that the replacement had a bigger and more direct influence on american pop than husker du. a lot of people took their basic sound and sensibility and ran with it, from approximate contemporaries like soul asylum and the goo goo dolls to later descendants like the hold steady and all american rejects. then again, i suppose husker du and mould had a huge influence on emo and hardcore, so it's hard to say.

replacements

Sugar is most definitely a plus! Very little solo Westerberg is worth the time of day. Someome suggest a best-of his solo stuff and I'll give it a spin, though.

There actually is one:

http://www.amazon.com/Besterberg-Best-Paul-Westerberg/dp/B0007Z9RAM/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1334804761&sr=8-3

The one song I know I love is "Lookin' Out Forever." I don't remember much else.

Husker Du had a pretty huge and last impact on midwestern underground rock.

lastING even

Oh I guess I should have read your whole post, contederizer.

"Makes No Sense at All" is a mind=blowing record. To go from punk rock to bubblegum is one thing, but to get there from HARDCORE is another!

Not to mention that it's just done so artfully.

you mean the song or flip you wig in general?

No, that song in particular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j13khaeFUcA

westerberg's shtick has aged sorta badly for me although there are some great tunes

feel like mould is partly responsible for emo. his songs don't move me as much as they did (i was much more into his husker stuff back in the day), but hart's best stuff sounds better as time goes on.

hart's best stuff sounds better as time goes on

otm, though i love a lot of mould's stuff too

i suppose husker du and mould had a huge influence on emo and hardcore

also a massive influence on nirvana's nevermind; i remember krist saying around the time of release that their blend of melody and noise wasn't anything revolutionary, that husker du did it before.

i love both bands. they're both very, very different from each other, despite being nominally from the same genre and geographically the same area. husker du are intense, but the mats are maudlin. different flavours for different moods.

husker du for me w/o hesitation.

husker du>grant hart solo>replacements>bob mould solo>chris mars solo>nova mob>paul westerberg solo>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>sugar which is a nightmare that i am glad got left back in the early 90s forever

i know i am forgetting something obvious in there but whatever

i love sugar's first two, but i do understand the hate.

The Replacements just seem like so much more interesting a band. So much more interested in exploring, even if much of the time they were only going to new musical places to take the piss. I like them both, and in the 80s probably liked Huskers more, but I listen to the Replacements much more often these days - they have a timelessness about them that Husker Du just don't. I'd take the Let It Be-Tim-Pleased to Meet Me run over anything in the Husker Du catalogue,

And Bob Mould's pissy, sancimonious book made me sick of his self-pitying ass.

"sanctimonious", even.

The Replacements just seem like so much more interesting a band. So much more interested in exploring

If Zen Arcade wasn't more exploratory than any one album the Replacements ever did then I'll eat my Gibson Flying V sideways.

I'll rep for Sugar, but yeah like Stevie I can understand people not liking them.

Let's not forget that the Du weren't the only ones with production issues; if their records were under-produced, then Replacements records post-Let it Be were horribly over-produced.

when i interviewed sst's joe carducci for my black flag book, he argued vociferously that du's albums didn't need remastering, and that they weren't badly produced: what you hear is what they sounded like, and what they wanted to sound like, that sheet of white noise guitar sound, grant's weird, jazzy drums, the pin-prick bass sound. i sort of feel you have to embrace what they are; when i first started checking the du out, after copper blue, i was alienated at first by grant's drums, by that thin, hissy guitar sound, but that's what i grew to love about them - the anti-rock gestures, the pull back from bombast.

at heart, i relate to both bands very much emotionally: the appeal to me of the replacements, beyond their booze-sodden downward spirals and sozzled bonhomie, are songs like 'here comes a regular', 'sixteen blue', 'androgynous' - the real gut-punch balladic moments. 'the ones who love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest and visit us on holidays at best / the ones who love us least are the ones we'd die to please and if its any consolation i can't begin to understand' is just an astonishing lyric, one of the best in pop.

whereas husker du just totally soundtracked whatever angsts, etc i had as a kid, and i have a real visceral attachment to pretty much all of zen arcade - 'broken home broken heart' especially - 'too far down', 'hardly getting over it', 'don't want to know'... it just taps into a seam of post-adolescent confusion/bleakness that's probably not too healthy, but to which i can relate (or related, i guess) very powerfully.

when i interviewed sst's joe carducci for my black flag book, he argued vociferously that du's albums didn't need remastering, and that they weren't badly produced: what you hear is what they sounded like, and what they wanted to sound like, that sheet of white noise guitar sound, grant's weird, jazzy drums, the pin-prick bass sound. i sort of feel you have to embrace what they are; when i first started checking the du out, after copper blue, i was alienated at first by grant's drums, by that thin, hissy guitar sound, but that's what i grew to love about them - the anti-rock gestures, the pull back from bombast.

Does it have to be quite so murky though? The problems really started when they tried to "produce" the records, Flip Your Wig is so dry it sounded like they were playing in a padded cell. As for Warehouse, my initial reaction at the time was "what the fuck is this production even supposed to be?", and my opinion hasn't changed.

oh, i totally think they need remastering/remixing, no argument here. but if that remastering/remixing made grant's drums sound more like Malcolm Travis's drums, that would suck, as much as i would have wished them to sound like that when i first heard du.

would Carducci be one of those guys who thinks shitty production = real life/

anyway it's often Sugar >>>>> Husker these days.

i think carducci's thing is that spot did a fine job capturing the group at the time, and that a lot of modern remastering ruins the original music. but i'm also guessing carducci mainly listens to original vinyls, as when i protested about how much better the merge cd of dinosaur's 'you're living all over me' was compared to sst's release (notably it didn't have a two second gap between kracked and sludgefeast), he argued again that there was nothing wrong with the originals.

he's a pretty fascinating guy, even if i don't agree with everything he says.

If Zen Arcade wasn't more exploratory than any one album the Replacements ever did then I'll eat my Gibson Flying V sideways

Hootenanny. And anyway after ZA Husker Du only got less diverse. They needed more wacko Hart sea shanties and acoustic ballads, not less.

Let's not forget that the Du weren't the only ones with production issues; if their records were under-produced, then Replacements records post-Let it Be were horribly over-produced

Tim sounds awful. Please To Meet Me is better, clearer. Near enough right for the band at that point. Don't Tell A Soul is the one that's over produced.

Hart's drumming became more more boring as the band became more formulaic - never used a hi hat, those same drum intros in a million songs, the same drum fills. I like him, but 20 songs of that on Warehouse is too much. And that snare sound on Flip Your Wig is one of the worst I've ever heard.

Around 1984, when I first distinguished Husker Du from the flow of underground bands on my local college station, I thought their sound was fantastic, and exactly what I wanted: more noise, more chiming overtones, more roar. Chorus modulation and digital delay were still on the upswing then, peaking in the next few years with Cocteau Twins and The Cult and Joshua Tree and such. Now it sounds anchored to the mid-80s. In their original context, Husker Du really attacked in a way that is kinda lost now, though it's preserved best by the Eight Miles High single, probably 'cause there's more dynamics- the sparser opening and break in the middle.

In retrospect, each SST band was poorly produced in their own special way, but it's surely the way they intended to sound. And it sounded shittier on those first gen SST compact discs, for sure. The bands on Touch & Go, and then Sub Pop, where the Sabbath obsession came to the fore, ended up defining expectations for how loud underground rock "should" sound. By 87/88 there was something regressive and almost jokey about how the Butthole Surfers or Green River low end stood out among the tinsely haze of Squirrel Bait and Naked Raygun and other Huskerish bands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhbrMgSfR0w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2R115GgoBw

Damn, have not heard this 7" in like 18 years.

http://www.myspace.com/moldbeforeyou/music/songs/bob-mould-hates-me-37003185

Sonic Youth parody is pretty good too.

Grant Hart is the most fascinating person in either of these bands his somewhat erratic but fascinating and often brilliant post huskers career makes westerbergs solo career look like such embarrassment

Grants the best most natural pop songwriter of these guys by a mile

agreed, grant is awesome. bob is more consistent, but grant's peaks are higher.

that's HD in a nutshell
only one of them had the audacity to write a song about green eyes with a shimmery cymbal intro
only one of them wrote an entire album that sounds like plodding up a mountain

chris mars solo

^^^underrated

I will always be interested in a new grant album, I couldn't care less about anything mould has done in years....westerberg started declining while the replacements were still going

also I think being from Mpls makes a difference in my view in the sense that grant has always played gigs regularly around here and he's great but sometimes really angry and uncomfortable but he's never really disappeared like ppl think

I thought this Chris Mars song was pretty good--the chorus, anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRd3wai3Y-Y

Problem with comparison is that the Replacements lost the man who gave them their spark just at the point he was most needed … Genuinely never the same band after Westerberg kicked out Bob Stinson.

also I think being from Mpls makes a difference in my view in the sense that grant has always played gigs regularly around here and he's great but sometimes really angry and uncomfortable but he's never really disappeared like ppl think

― Mississippi Butt Hurt (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, April 19, 2012 10:37 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Grant Hart playing a show:
Rest of the world: Whoa! Insane, he's been out of sight for years!!
Minneapolis: It is a Tuesday

omg does that mean that runaway wind is about bob stinson? that would be hilarious/poignant.

Also, I should mention I've seen Grant play some of the most captivating live shows I have ever seen, he can be spot on perfect and he can be confrontational/abrasive, it is best when he's a bit of both

Were you at that show where he kept playing the end to ”barbara” for an uncomfortable amount of time at the turf club?

Basically theres always some sense that anything could happen at a grant show

Good Day, the Westerberg solo song, is about Bob.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B4CN7TM1iQ

no no no runaway wind is about bob

you don't blooooooow like the breeeeeze you were born to be...bob

I try to comprehend you, but I've got a dyslexic heart, Bob.

I hate your answering machine, Bob.

You ain't nothin' but a waitress in the sky, Bob.

It works for the other band, too.

I don't want to know if you are less than lonely, Bob.

it ain't nuthin new, just something to du

Turn on the news, Bob.

^^ quiet domestic scene

It's you, girl, and you should know it, with each glance and every little movement, Bob.

when i interviewed sst's joe carducci for my black flag book, he argued vociferously that du's albums didn't need remastering, and that they weren't badly produced: what you hear is what they sounded like, and what they wanted to sound like, that sheet of white noise guitar sound, grant's weird, jazzy drums, the pin-prick bass sound. i sort of feel you have to embrace what they are...

― I accidentally sonned your dome (stevie), Thursday, April 19, 2012 2:14 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have argued exactly this in regard to New Day Rising somewhere around here, against complaints that it sounds terrible. It doesn't sound terrible. It's a genuinely great record, and so is Zen Arcade, but Husker Du never really got the production they deserved. IMO, everything they did could be productively remastered, perhaps even remixed to advantage. "The band" might have wanted Grant's bass to disappear in the mix, but I seriously doubt that Grant did. And the wall of screaming cymbal/guitar hiss, however bracing it might be, could definitely use a bit more differentiation.

I can honestly say I've never heard Grant's bass on a Husker Du record.

Greg.

The bands on Touch & Go, and then Sub Pop, where the Sabbath obsession came to the fore, ended up defining expectations for how loud underground rock "should" sound. By 87/88 there was something regressive and almost jokey about how the Butthole Surfers or Green River low end stood out among the tinsely haze of Squirrel Bait and Naked Raygun and other Huskerish bands.

― bendy, Thursday, April 19, 2012 6:04 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's and interesting analysis. There was perhaps something regressive (or at least winkingly retro) about the heavier, sludgier, 70s metal-influenced bands in the 80s "underground", but the reinterpretation sounded fresh to me at the time. I liked Squirrel Bait, Naked Raygun and the Lemonheads, but I wouldn't say that Hate Your Friends sounded more forward-thinking in 1987 than, say, Scratch Acid's Berserker.

xxp According to Bob, from Flip Your Wig on he was replacing Greg's bass parts anyway.

Weird, didn't know that.

Yeah, I didn't know Bob Stinson was on that album either.

Duh, me. Yes, Greg.

brain ain't what it used to be, if it ever was

Yeah, in Bob's book, all the Grant issues are there and he makes no secret of them, but he does not have a single nice word to say about Greg. Like at all.

greg's more recent math rock/jazz band sort of dispells the myth he can't play

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv7q6W24bKQ

xxp According to Bob, from Flip Your Wig on he was replacing Greg's bass parts anyway.

― i love the large auns pictures! (Phil D.), Thursday, April 19, 2012 1:25 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is this claim... credible? I'm kind of shocked.

yeah cause xpost...

Yeah, in Bob's book, all the Grant issues are there and he makes no secret of them, but he does not have a single nice word to say about Greg. Like at all.

Neither does Grant, from what I've read. iirc, he said that Greg was the main reason a reunion would never, ever happen.

That might be simply cuz Greg doesn't wanna do one though.

He seems p happy with his cookin' life.

never went but yeah apparently norton's was an amazing restaurant

I thought it had more to do with Greg's insistence in the Du days that he too could write songs (I think this was Bob's complaint, too), and he very much could not. But he still wanted 1/3rd of the money.

xp

xxp According to Bob, from Flip Your Wig on he was replacing Greg's bass parts anyway.

― i love the large auns pictures! (Phil D.), Thursday, April 19, 2012 10:25 AM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol, according to wikipedia, "Bob Mould himself has stated that Flip Your Wig is what he views as "the best album [Hüsker Dü] ever did."

btw

grant's new single "so far from heaven/morning star" is on spotify and it's great

though it sounds all distorted like the mp3 didn't upload or scrobble right or whatever they do on spotify

liked this little oddball pop song off the last grant:

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

I love "My Regrets" -- it's kinda formulaic, but it's huge!

I thought it had more to do with Greg's insistence in the Du days that he too could write songs (I think this was Bob's complaint, too), and he very much could not. But he still wanted 1/3rd of the money.

― Waterloo? Oh, we've sunsetted that. (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, April 19, 2012 12:43 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Norton: When Bob said we were going to do the individual songwriter credits, I thought it was just Bob being pissed off at Grant, not realizing I was the only one who thought the songs the three of us worked on were collaborations. I mean, it said, “All songs by Hüsker Dü.” Bob went back and changed it, so he got all the money.

If you've never seen this piece on Huskers/Replacements, it's great:

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2005/06/12/a-tale-of-twin-cities-husker-du-the-replacements-and-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-80s-minneapolis-scene/

Norton: When Bob said we were going to do the individual songwriter credits, I thought it was just Bob being pissed off at Grant, not realizing I was the only one who thought the songs the three of us worked on were collaborations. I mean, it said, “All songs by Hüsker Dü.” Bob went back and changed it, so he got all the money.

D'oh cut/paste...

Just re-listened to New Day Rising on the real stereo at loud volume, and while I'd be interested to hear a remaster, it's really just fine. Starting to wonder if the whole Husker Du/Remaster-Imperative thing (which I've been suckered by myself at times) is partly due to half the world listening on little computer speakers that are like 2" high.

That Magnet piece is great. Greg comes off as the sanest Du, but I kinda took everything all of them said with a salt lick.

When Bob said we were going to do the individual songwriter credits, I thought it was just Bob being pissed off at Grant, not realizing I was the only one who thought the songs the three of us worked on were collaborations.

if you want songwriting credit, make sure you at least occasionally bring something that you independently created to the band, even if it's just a few bars or whatever. if it's embraced, then your bandmates are probably taking you at least somewhat seriously as a songwriter. if it isn't, then they may well figure that you're "just playing your part" on stuff that they wrote.

for rock bands i hate and reject the whole "i wrote this song thing"...why is a bassline or a drum part not part of the songwriting? that's bullshit, no band i've ever been in ever split songwriting credits even if someone brought in a majority of the main changes, etc

R.E.M. had the right idea, splitting all songwriting/publishing 4 ways, regardless of who contributed what.

There's an awesome bit in the Dixie Chicks doc where they're recording with Rick Rubin and his hacks, including RHCP drummer Chad Smith. At some point Smith notes that the band splits songwriting royalties four ways and the Dixie Chicks look at him like he's a martian.

Didn't the semisonic dude write that dixie chicks song anyway?

Semisonic dude has written everything.

loved this one off grant's last https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTH4Zu8gleA

That was the first album they'd written most of the material for, though. The issue hadn't come up before; only 2-3 songs total on their previous records were written by them.

And yep, Dan Wilson is credited as co-writer.

xxp

xp - oh yeah i love that one too!! that whole album is top notch imo. would listen to 100x over anything mould or westerberg has done in the last 5 years.

(sorry guys)

for rock bands i hate and reject the whole "i wrote this song thing"...why is a bassline or a drum part not part of the songwriting? that's bullshit, no band i've ever been in ever split songwriting credits even if someone brought in a majority of the main changes, etc
Yup. Levon Helm complained about Robbie Robertson taking claim for songs that all members of The Band had a hand in creating. Robertson gets full writing credit for "Chest Fever," even though it's Garth Hudson that everyone hears.

If Bob was indeed replacing Greg's bass parts (I've never seen mention of this -- who is playing bass then?) I guess I can sorta see his reluctance to share writing credit. Although, man, the dude's still 1/3 of your band. The conflicting stories/bad blood are the main reason I don't see them EVER reuniting for anything.

Procol Harum organist Matthew Fisher is now co-credited with "A Whiter Shade of Pale" from his lawsuit a few years ago. I thought/hoped that would open the door for many more such suits, but apparently not (or not yet).

xp

for rock bands i hate and reject the whole "i wrote this song thing"...why is a bassline or a drum part not part of the songwriting? that's bullshit, no band i've ever been in ever split songwriting credits even if someone brought in a majority of the main changes, etc

― Mississippi Butt Hurt (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, April 19, 2012 11:36 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

R.E.M. had the right idea, splitting all songwriting/publishing 4 ways, regardless of who contributed what.

― Waterloo? Oh, we've sunsetted that. (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, April 19, 2012 11:41 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, if you generate your songs by jamming (as i assume RHCP did, esp when starting out), that's probably the coolest and most honorable way to go about it. i'm just saying that if you expect a chunk of the songwriting credit/money, it's sort of on you to make sure that the people you're playing with see eye-to-eye about it.

i mean the whole argument is kind of -god stop me - rockist because it's privileging things like chord changes and vocal melodies over rhythm. creating a drum beat is *writing music* every bit as much as throwing together some major chords and strumming them is.

U2 has always been a four way split, too, right?

Wow, from that Magnet piece:

Buck: As far as I could tell, Bob went his entire career with the Replacements without knowing the names of any of the songs. He didn’t know what key they were playing in when the song started and didn’t know what key they were in when the song ended, but he sure could play some great stuff in the middle.

That's hilarious.

upper mississippi OTM

what if you tell the drummer exactly what to play

xp

Buck: As far as I could tell, Bob went his entire career with the Replacements without knowing the names of any of the songs. He didn’t know what key they were playing in when the song started and didn’t know what key they were in when the song ended, but he sure could play some great stuff in the middle.

that's junkies for ya

what if you tell the drummer exactly what to play

xp

― Jilly Boel and the Eltones (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, April 19, 2012 2:12 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

drum hitler gets full publishing!

i mean the whole argument is kind of -god stop me - rockist because it's privileging things like chord changes and vocal melodies over rhythm. creating a drum beat is *writing music* every bit as much as throwing together some major chords and strumming them is.

Totally agree. Also, there's tons of songs where the most famous part wasn't even written by the "main" songwriter ("Light My Fire" comes to mind).

Al Kooper would have found it absurd for Dylan to give him credit for the organ hook in "Like a Rolling Stone." He said once in an interview -- well, that's my job! That's what I was hired for!

i see a difference between being a sideman and being in a band, dylan's played with jeez 100s of ppl? a band is a band IMO.

If you open it up to other areas of music, you'd have to wonder why the hour-long version of "My Favorite Things" on Coltrane Live In Japan is only credited to Rodgers and Hammerstein. Pretty sure they didn't have any input into much of what went on there.

haha yeah or David S. Ware's "cover" of "The Way We Were"

well, covers/interpretations without the original author's involvement are a whole other kettle of fish. i kind of discourage any band i'm in from playing covers, partly because i know i'd get so into doing an original arrangement that i'd be like fuck it, i'm going to take my ideas and write a whole new song with them.

my band is opening for a Replacements documentary next month. excited, but I just found out we're supposed to play an entire set of Mats tunes and we know zero at this point.

the guy who did the mat documentary is doing one on grant hart now bringing things around to this thread

we're supposed to play an entire set of Mats tunes and we know zero at this point.

― Darin, Thursday, April 19, 2012 8:58 PM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha actually sounds like you're perfectly prepared to do a Mats set

That seems appropriate in a way
(xp)

I can honestly say I've never heard Grant's bass on a Husker Du record.

― Waterloo? Oh, we've sunsetted that. (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, April 19, 2012 1:11 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is like the weirdest thing i've ever heard

....because Grant played drums.

no, no, aside from the typo

I have argued exactly this in regard to New Day Rising somewhere around here, against complaints that it sounds terrible. It doesn't sound terrible. It's a genuinely great record, and so is Zen Arcade, but Husker Du never really got the production they deserved. IMO, everything they did could be productively remastered, perhaps even remixed to advantage. "The band" might have wanted Grant's bass to disappear in the mix, but I seriously doubt that Grant did. And the wall of screaming cymbal/guitar hiss, however bracing it might be, could definitely use a bit more differentiation.

― yuppie bullshit chocolate blogbait (contenderizer), Thursday, April 19, 2012 12:10 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can honestly say I've never heard Grant's bass on a Husker Du record.

― Waterloo? Oh, we've sunsetted that. (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, April 19, 2012 12:11 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Drawing attention to the typo?

Maybe he thinks by bass somebody means bass drum

well in any event *greg's* bass playing is maybe my favorite thing abt husker du

i loved grant's handlebar mustache

this is like the weirdest thing i've ever heard

i figured Tarfumes was tweaking my nose cuz grant/greg brain spaz

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/252/6697223.jpg

to the barbershop born

Just listened to "New Day Rising" and can confirm that there is indeed a bass on that track, but it doesn't come in until late in the song, and I had to wear headphones to be sure. Once it does show up it sticks around for "The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill" and presumably the rest of the album.

Grants the best most natural pop songwriter of these guys by a mile

― Mississippi Butt Hurt (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, April 19, 2012 8:17 AM (13 hours ago)

How is this intended? His inclination is more naturally toward a pop idiom? He has more natural ability in this area?

Yeah just natural at great hooks and melodies....like grant seems so effortless in his songwriting, even the best of his new stuff......like I'm not expressing myself well but mould and westerberg are very ”try hard” to me...but grant just seems like he just taps into something natural in the way he is

Yeah, I don't see at all why someone like Mould would be singled out for that criticism. If it's valid to level that at Mould, I wouldn't know where you would begin or end with making the same criticism of others.

"Diane" is a song that's all about Greg Norton's bassline.

I was wondering, wrt to the discussion upthread about the late 80s shift away from hardcore to that 70s sound, whether the Replacements might in some way be progenitors of that. Not that they ever sounded like Sabbath. But they certainly had no shame in liking and playing 70s hard rock and classic rock in an era when it was distinctly unfashionable in the underground. Must have been noted by other alternative scene musicians.

i remember evan dando back in melody maker circa shame about ray identifying dinosaur jr as the band that lifted the veil of shame from the 70s hard rock stuff for him and his contempos... lee ranaldo told me something similar, wrt you're living all over me, reclaiming uncool reference points and influences for the post-hardcore age. they ref'd the 70s hard rock stuff with a little less archness than the 'mats, say, rewriting 'cat scratch fever' as a tune about a dude getting a boner.

Makes sense. I guess Replacements were actually in the hardcore age, and odd ones out, rather than blazing a new trail after that scene faded.

the mats' take on hardcore, though, was so much looser than the drill-tight thrash of minor threat or the brawny malevolence of flag - you could hear a lot of, y'know, rock'n'roll within 'sorry ma forget to take out the trash' (which is a wonderful, wonderful album), a looseness and lightness that certainly owes more to, say, the faces than husker du.

Course. That's accepted within saying they were odd ones out. Love that old PW line about songwriting - he would only play things with melody, Bob would only play things that rocked. Hence the sound.

the mats' take on hardcore, though, was so much looser than the drill-tight thrash of minor threat or the brawny malevolence of flag

That's one place in Mould's book where he does single out Grant for praise - he refers to Minor Threat and similar hardcore bands as "oom-pah hardcore" because of their fast polka-like drumbeats, and compliments Hart for being able to give the Huskers some variety and swing.

hells yeah... 'land speed record' is like an album full of cro-magnon two-chord riffs sent skyward by grant's crazed dervish drumming and bob's speed-fuelled soloing.

i guess the thing about the mats, re: hardcore, is it was always obvious from even their earliest days that pw could write, y'know, actual songs. you wouldn't necessarily think, listening to 'land speed', that bob would end up writing stuff like 'if i can't change your mind'

i figured Tarfumes was tweaking my nose cuz grant/greg brain spaz

I was indeed. fwiw, not only can I hear Greg's bass playing loud and clear, but it's always impressive.

The bass is hard to hear, especially on the later records. There are some demos out there from Candy Apple Grey where Greg's playing pokes out through the fabric more, only highlighting how much the hiss and treble got raised later on in the mixing.

Weird, because CAG might be one of my favorite two albums by them.

Been reading more of Bob Mould's book, and it's hard for me to come away with any other impression than he consistently underplays others' contributions to his success, and overstates his own. It's kind of gross to read, and frankly, I'm surprised a writer as even-handed as Azzerad went along with putting his name on this book as co-author.

TS: Mould getting haughty over slide-guitar part on "Heaven Hill" vs Westerberg giving Bob a bottle of champagne and saying "Drink this or you're out of the band."

Basically this is:

TS: Character assessments based on systematic patterns of behavior vs. Character assessments based on specific incidents

Both can tell you interesting things, surely... but that Westerburg incident was 25 years ago, when they were in their 20s. Mould is much older and I would think wiser now, and he's consistently writing like a smug, self-aggrandizing tool.

To be honest, I'd have them both over for dinner.

maybe grant norton could cook for us.

I was wondering, wrt to the discussion upthread about the late 80s shift away from hardcore to that 70s sound, whether the Replacements might in some way be progenitors of that. Not that they ever sounded like Sabbath. But they certainly had no shame in liking and playing 70s hard rock and classic rock in an era when it was distinctly unfashionable in the underground. Must have been noted by other alternative scene musicians.

― Manfred Mann meets Man Parrish (ithappens), Friday, April 20, 2012 3:49 AM (9 hours ago)

i remember evan dando back in melody maker circa shame about ray identifying dinosaur jr as the band that lifted the veil of shame from the 70s hard rock stuff for him and his contempos... lee ranaldo told me something similar, wrt you're living all over me, reclaiming uncool reference points and influences for the post-hardcore age. they ref'd the 70s hard rock stuff with a little less archness than the 'mats, say, rewriting 'cat scratch fever' as a tune about a dude getting a boner.

― I accidentally sonned your dome (stevie), Friday, April 20, 2012 4:51 AM (8 hours ago)

Black Flag & SST followed and started unironically worshipping the Sabbath skull-head doom bong in 84 on side two of My War and the Saint Vitus debut. Same year saw Meat Puppets II and, so it was pretty clear by that point that classic rock and American post-hardcore were gonna get along just fine. Dinosaur's debut finally came out in 85, and the Flaming Lips dropped the sonically & thematically similar Hear It Is less than a year later. All of these albums and bands got a lot of positive scene and press attention at the time, so it's hard to pick any one as ground zero. If I had to point my finger at anyone, it would probably be Redd Kross (another acknowledged influence on Sonic Youth).

^^^ was gonna say that about Black Flag myself

And of course the Minutemen were covering Van Halen, Steely Dan and CCR on Double Nickels in '84 too.

yeah, good point. green river's come on down = another c.84 doom-dirge 70s metal album that was made by and marketed to punk peoples (with little success, irrc).

lol, 84 was the year the 70s broke.

Wasn't Blue Oyster Cult D. Boon's favorite band?

Minutemen cover choices did more to predict/determine what my tastes would later evolve into than I care to admit...

xpost i thot watt was the cultist

maybe both. i though d. boon took his name from e. bloom.

Minutemen cover choices did more to predict/determine what my tastes would later evolve into than I care to admit...

me too. first place i ever heard "the red and the black" f'rinstance.

thx guys

re: all that history junk i posted upthread, i do understand how dino's 70s revivalism might have been or seemed especially influential on punk people and scenes in the NY/PA/MA/CT/NH area.

like minutemen, flag, meat pups, red kross and the surfers were all west coast, 'mats and lips were midwestern. dinos were some of the first northeastern ex-hardcore types to really go that way.

uh, if arizona = "west coast"

you know

or y'know, texas

wow this 85 full huskers show youtube posted upthread is solidfying my already pro-huskers opinion

Makes sense.

No--makes no sense at all. (I didn't scroll back far enough to see what made sense--just couldn't pass that up.)

or y'know, texas

lol, yeah. i get caught up in the typing and forget to thimk. add a seperate category for "southwest" i guess...

It occurs to me that this was "MY MUSIC", the post-hardcore 70's revival moment. This is the sound that introduced me to a world larger than the radio, MTV and my friends' & parents' record collections. I loved all the bands & albums mentioned up above, along with associated & similar stuff like Camper Van Beethoven, Violent Femmes, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Pixies, Pussy Galore, Halo of Flies and Mudhoney. All of it seemed like punk to me, or like a version of punk I could relate to and make my own. As embarrassed as I am to admit it, I saw this music an "artful" version of punk, one "liberated" from the tiresome loud-fast orthodoxy and polemical simplicity I associated with 77 punkrock and American hardcore. It fit together in my head with the Nuggets & Back From the Grave comps; with The Stooges, Dolls & Ramones; freakazoid outliers like Chrome & F/i; and Aussie shit like The Saints, Scientists & Radio Birdman.

What seems strange now is simply the fact that this music seemed so radically adventurous and forward-thinking to me at the time. It's clear in retrospect that it was simply an attempt to forge a connection between punk rock, itself already becoming dated, and what punk had supposedly replaced. I flirted with more genuinely futuristic stuff like Skinny Puppy, Sonic Youth (and their Blast First sistren) and weird new trends in club music. I liked a lot of fairly straightforward punk-punk like Naked Raygun, Squirrel Bait, the Didjits and Husker Du, spent time with the thrash, speed and crossover metal my sketchier friends dug, but crit-approved revivalist rock-as-punk was MY SHIT. I wasn't inclined to follow Big Black into the Wax Trax scene, Foetus & Skinny Puppy into industrial goth, Voivod into death metal, or MARRS into house. Instead, I followed the children of Redd Kross into indie rock. GBV here we come...

No regrets, but there's something kind of funny about my naivete when I look back on it now. I was so certain that this was THEE MUSIC OV THEE FUTURE!

Arizona's Pacific Time for eight months a year anyway.

It occurs to me that this was "MY MUSIC", the post-hardcore 70's revival moment.

Me too, for real. Well, that, twinned with UK 'modern rock' (Echo, New Order, solo Robyn H, etc). Those were the left and right shoes of 14 y.o. me walking into THEE_FUTURE

Thread revival inspired a little "Makes No Sense at all" analysis:

http://thisiheard.blogspot.com

that's really cool tim, i've played in bands for forever but i never learned any theory or how to read music, i really regret that. love reading stuff like that though.

Can anyone recommend a Replacements CDR80?

I don't know for sure, but I bet "Hootenany," "Let It Be" and "Tim" total not much more than 80 minutes.

Yeah, I'd say that would be a pretty good primer, particularly the latter two-- though Hootenany kinds of captures the spirit of the band better than the second two

Wikipedia includes running times, so here are my personal favourites:

"Johnny's Gonna Die" (3:32)
"Kids Don't Follow" (2:50)
"Go" (2.29)
"Color Me Impressed" (2:25)
"Within Your Reach" (4:24)
"Hayday" (2:06)
"I Will Dare" (3:18)
"Favorite Thing" (2:19)
"Unsatisfied" (4:01)
"Answering Machine" (3:40)
"Bastards of Young" (3:35)
"Left of the Dial" (3:41)
"Alex Chilton" (3:12)
"Can't Hardly Wait" (3:02)
"I'll Be You" (3:27)
"Rock 'n' Roll Ghost" (3:23)
"Pool & Dive" (2:07)

That'd get you to around 53 minutes. I've left out songs that most everyone else loves--never cared for either their overly jokey side, or their loungey stuff--so maybe so one else can fill out the rest.

"someone else"

Clemenza left off "Swinging Party", "Waitress in the Sky", "Skyway", "Little Mascara", "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out", "Kill Me on the Bus", "Talent Show," "Anywhere's Better than Here,"... godddammit, there's a lot of shit missing

"Kill Me on the Bus"... jesus, I've been taking public transit too long.

Honestly, that Don't You Know Who I Think I Was? best of from 2006 is a pretty solid introduction.

1. "Takin' a Ride" (from Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, 1981) 2:23
2. "Shiftless When Idle" (from Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, 1981) 2:18
3. "Kids Don't Follow" (from The Replacements Stink, 1982) 2:50
4. "Color Me Impressed" (from Hootenanny, 1983) 2:27
5. "Within Your Reach" (from Hootenanny, 1983) 2:27
6. "I Will Dare" (from Let It Be, 1984) 3:19
7. "Answering Machine" (from Let It Be, 1984) 3:40
8. "Unsatisfied" (from Let It Be, 1984) 4:02
9. "Here Comes a Regular" (from Tim, 1985) 4:49
10. "Kiss Me on the Bus" (from Tim, 1985) 2:54
11. "Bastards of Young" (from Tim, 1985) 3:37
12. "Left of the Dial" (from Tim, 1985) 3:43
13. "Alex Chilton" (Westerberg, Tommy Stinson, Chris Mars; from Pleased to Meet Me, 1987) 3:13
14. "Skyway" (from Pleased to Meet Me, 1987) 2:05
15. "Can't Hardly Wait" (from Pleased to Meet Me, 1987) 3:04
16. "Achin' to Be" (from Don't Tell a Soul, 1989) 3:41
17. "I'll Be You" (from Don't Tell a Soul, 1989) 3:29
18. "Merry Go Round" (from All Shook Down, 1990) 3:40
19. "Message to the Boys" 3:27
20. "Pool & Dive" 2:07

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NcZ5BwQukE

Mine closely mirrors that Rhino compilation--I posted about how great I thought it was on a Replacements thread.

Plus yours adds "Johnny's Gonna Die," which isn't on the Rhino comp and which I think is a must-have.

I just happened to hear the demo of "Answering Machine" and I still can't figure out how the hell he plays it. Is there a tuning chart somewhere? Sounds great as demo as well, though lyrics are still in progress...