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| From | "Stewart Mason" <craigtorso@verizon.net> |
| Subject | Re: the 1000 albums to hear before you die |
| Date | Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:47:18 -0500 |
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----- Original Message -----
From: "AssociationWorks" <AssociationWorks@comcast.net>
> Where's Husker Du or The Buzzcocks??
Husker Du is...erm...here, under H:
Hüsker Dü
New Day Rising (1985)
Like hundreds of other records in the mid-80s, New Day Rising opens
with American hardcore's signature march-like double-time drumming.
But what follows is unlike anything else in mid-80s hardcore punk. A
wall of guitar noise emerges in a mesmerising shimmer, as if out of a
heat haze. The only lyrics are the album's title, sung in harmony,
shouted, screamed. The effect is almost unbearably intense and
spellbinding. Hüsker Dü had a reputation as the fastest and most
forceful of hardcore bands, but their roots went back further, into
music considered verboten under punk's scorched-earth doctrine:
songwriters Bob Mould and Grant Hart were Beatles and Byrds fans. New
Day Rising saw them merge their hardcore past and their penchant for
60s rock. The album blazes with a gospel-like fervour, the work of a
band with a point to prove. The torrential results reflect the
amphetamine-fuelled blur in which it was recorded. It's not merely the
velocity, but the number of ideas: the title track's frazzled
psychedelia, the jaunty swing of Books About UFOs, Celebrated Summer's
surges from wistful acoustic lament to full-throated roar. By
harnessing the aggression of hardcore to a pop sensibility, New Day
Rising would ultimately change the face of American rock music,
setting a course that led via the Pixies to Nirvana. Hüsker Dü
wouldn't survive to see it. In 1988, they split in
appalling circumstances: their manager committed suicide, and Hart,
incorrectly diagnosed as HIV positive, had become a heroin addict.
Similarly, you'd find the Buzzcocks under B:
Buzzcocks
Singles Going Steady (1979)
No other record of the era epitomises punk's hothouse impact on its
best and brightest practitioners. The Buzzcocks realigned the
parameters of the love song towards messy realism with these eight
singles, plus B-sides. From Orgasm Addict to Something's Gone Wrong
Again, the philosophy is always sardonic, the melodies divine.
> ...and no ELO??
>
> Blasphemy!
>
> And the inclusion of Fun Boy Three.....is well......just plain
> retarded.
Have you ever actually heard that album? Far from being "just plain
retarded," it's pretty much the culmination of an entire strain of UK
post-punk, and it's one of the only albums from 1982 that doesn't
sound at all dated now. Not everything has to sound like the Beatles.
S
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